St Peter's Church, Shipley

The area around Shipley expanded rapidly in the 19th century, as the Industrial Revolution brought industry and textile mills into the area - the most notable, of course, being Salts Mill in Saltaire.

Towards end of the century, the Rev'd A W Cribb, vicar of St Paul's Shipley, (see yesterday's post) realised that there was a need for a new church, to serve Saltaire and the new housing developments in the Moorhead and Nab Wood area. A congregation began to worship in the Technical School in Saltaire in 1890 and, as numbers grew, people began to make gifts towards the building of a new church, eventually raising £9624, 8 shillings and 1 penny!

Construction of the daughter church, St Peter's, started in 1907, about a mile away from St Paul's. St Peter's was consecrated by the Bishop of Ripon on 1 May 1909. Initially it did not have a tower - that was added in 1937, with a single bell. The tower cost £2500 and apparently a peal of bells would have cost another £700 so they couldn't afford that! (Which means these days we use a horrible recorded bell-ringing and then ring the single bell for five minutes before each service. That's the only thing I don't like about 'my' church...but I got pretty good at ringing the bell, when I was the churchwarden for a few years.)

The parish of St. Peter now includes the western half of Saltaire village, the Hirst Wood estate and much of Moorhead and Nab Wood.