St Peter's Church, Nottingham

St Peter's Church, formally the Church of St Peter with St James, is an Anglican parish church in the heart of the city of Nottingham. One of the three medieval parish churches of the city — the others being St Mary's and St Nicholas — it is a Grade I listed building of outstanding architectural and historic interest, and a place of worship that has stood at the centre of Nottingham's life for the better part of nine centuries.

A church has stood on this site since around 1100, though that earliest building was destroyed by fire, and the present church shows traces of many stages of construction from about 1180 onwards. Its long history is woven into the story of the medieval town, and over the centuries it has been added to and altered in successive styles, growing into the dignified city-centre church seen today. In 1933 the parish of St James's Church on Standard Hill — founded in 1807 — was united with St Peter's, giving the church its official title of "St Peter with St James"; St James's was demolished a few years later, and some of its monuments are preserved in St Peter's.

The church has long been celebrated for its music. Records of payments to organists survive from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries — in 1481–82 a payment was made "to the organist in the aforesaid Church" — and the modern choral tradition was developed across the twentieth century by organists such as Vincent Trivett and Kendrick Partington. The choir sings every Sunday and performs widely, having sung in cathedrals across Britain and abroad, beginning with a visit to Lichfield Cathedral in 1969, and singing the services at Westminster Abbey in 2008. Since 1988 the church has also hosted a popular series of Saturday morning "coffee break" concerts. Its organ, the first since the Commonwealth having been installed in 1812, was rebuilt and enlarged many times before a new instrument was installed in 2010, combining new and re-used pipes with digital stops behind a historic eighteenth-century case, designed both as a recital instrument and to accompany the choir and congregation.

The church's clock has a history all of its own. A clock was recorded in the steeple as early as 1552, probably present since the fifteenth century, and the church accounts of 1577 note a payment "to Toms Lockwood for looking after the clock". A new clock installed in 1847, made by Reuben Bosworth at a cost of £125, was the largest in Nottingham, with four seven-foot dials and a pendulum over ten feet long — though its installation was not without drama, for a workman taking down the old clock face was dragged down with it when it gave way, and a hurricane on Christmas Eve 1852 broke off one of its minute hands. The clock was renewed again in 1881 and converted to electric drive in 1965.

Today St Peter's is part of the united city-centre parish of All Saints', St Mary's and St Peter's, Nottingham, and remains an active and welcoming church with a rich musical life at the heart of the city. From its medieval origins around 1180, through its centuries as one of Nottingham's three ancient parish churches, to its thriving choir and concerts today, St Peter's Church, Nottingham, continues to serve the people of the city as it has done since the Middle Ages — a Grade I listed treasure standing quietly amid the bustle of the modern city centre.