The church was built as an Anglican
church called St Peter's. It later became an Armenian church, known as St
Peter's Armenian Church and today it is called St Yeghiche Armenian
Church.
The British History website (visit
link) has a detailed history of the church of which the following is an
extract:
"Now called St. Peter's Armenian Church, this is the
second of the two churches which were built by (Sir) Charles James Freake to
serve the needs of the occupants of the houses he had built or was about to
build on the Smith's Charity estate. St. Peter's (Plates 56b, 56c, 58, fig. 31)
was erected in 1866–7 from designs prepared in Freake's own office, but much of
its architectural interest arises from a number of alterations which were made
to the interior during the present century under the direction of W. D.
Caroe.
The church was built on ground which Freake held from
the Smith's Charity trustees by virtue of a building agreement of 1862. Early in
1865 he approached Dr. A. C. Tait, then Bishop of London and later Archbishop of
Canterbury, with a proposal to build a church at his own expense, and sought
Tait's aid in obtaining a sufficiently large district for the church. (ref. 216)
By May 1865 he had obtained a promise from the charity's trustees to convey the
site to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners as a free gift, and in June 1866 he
made a formal proposal to the Commissioners, through his solicitor Charles
Fishlake Cundy, for the erection, endowment and perpetual patronage of a church
to seat 1,500 (500 in free seats) which he estimated would cost £7,000 and for
which he was prepared to provide an endowment of £1,000. (ref. 217) The
Commissioners agreed, and the foundation stone was laid by Mrs. Freake on 21
July 1866. After a dispute with the sponsors of the proposed new church of St.
Augustine's, Queen's Gate, over the size of the respective districts to be
allotted to the two churches, which was resolved by the intervention of Bishop
Tait, St. Peter's was consecrated by him on 29 June 1867. (ref.
218)
Freake seems to have been at pains to conceal the
identity of the actual architect or architects of the building. Some
contemporary journals attributed the design to him personally, but The Builder
was probably more accurate in stating that the church was built by Freake ‘from
drawings prepared in his own office’, with J. Brown as clerk of works and
general foreman. (ref. 219) A number of fledgling architects are known to have
worked under Freake (see page 104), and his principal executant on work of about
this date in Grosvenor Square was William Tasker. (ref. 220) If experienced
outside advice on church-building was needed, however, Thomas Cundy II, who was
the brother of Freake's solicitor, Charles Fishlake Cundy, and who was involved
in the work in Grosvenor Square as the Grosvenor estate surveyor, would have
been well qualified to assist.
The first incumbent to be appointed by Freake, the
Honourable and Reverend F. C. E. Byng, was a son of the second Earl of
Strafford. Some of the cost of the church appears to have been met by him,
perhaps merely the interest charges on a loan which Freake had evidently had to
take out, as (Sir) Henry Cole recorded in his diary instances when he was called
upon to mediate between the two men on monetary matters. (ref. 221) Byng
resigned the living in 1890 and nine years later succeeded his brother as fifth
Earl of Strafford. (ref. 222)
St. Peter's has been described as the High Church
equivalent of St. Paul's, Onslow Square, but its services were never
particularly ‘High’. A later vicar said that it has been difficult to define or
place from the party, or the theological point of view, except that it has been
certainly “Church of England” ’. He characterised the congregation as one that
‘has always been fortunate in its men. Men who are earning their living in
London can hardly live in that part of London unless they are efficient, and on
the other hand it is not so expensive as to make it impossible for the returned
Colonial Governor, the retired Admiral or General, the retired or senior Civil
Servant to live there. We always had a large number of knights in the
congregation, which indicates the type of men. Not great men perhaps, not of the
first rank, but faithful servants of the State, men who had done
something."
The church is also Grade II* listed and the entry at the
English Heritage website (visit
link) tells us:
"Church. 1866-7, designed and built by the office of C J
Freake, with additions by W D Caroe and others, principally of 1907-9 and
1922-3. Kentish ragstone with ashlar dressings. Slate roof. Decorated Gothic
style. Tower in north-west corner, with three-stage broach steeple. Vestries and
hall on north side behind vicarage, by Caroe, 1907-9. Interior is cruciform with
north and south aisles and transepts, apsidal east end. Four-bay nave arcade to
crossing arch with clerestorey having alternate pairs of quatrefoil-headed and
trefoil-headed lights; triple arches flanking transepts, and chancel arch to
sanctuary. Nave walls originally polychrome brick, now whitewashed; west gallery
by Caroe, 1909. Choir (under crossing) and sanctuary altered and embellished by
Caroe and Passmore, 1922-3, with dormer lights, and reredos, sedilia, and canopy
work richly carved by Nathaniel Hitch. Organ case on south side and gallery in
north transept by Caroe. Morning chapel off north transept by Caroe, 1907-9,
with lierne vault and carved figures by Hitch and Harold Whitaker, and
Cosmati-style floor. Oak pulpit byJ S Alder, 1902. Stained glass by many hands,
notably clerestorey windows by Mary Lowndes, 1904-6. St Peter's was built by C J
Freake as an estate church for his building developments on the Smith's Charity
Estate, complementing his previous St Paul's, Onslow Square
(q.v.)."