14. St. Peter‘s Church

St Peters church is situated 500m out along the Freemount Rd. It is now in private ownership ….

St. Peter’s Church was built by the Anglican Community in 1858 and was in use by 1860. It is simple in construction and said to be early-English gothic in style. Entrance is by means of a porch in the south wall which also incorporates four narrow lancet-windows. The interior is enlivened by three chancel windows of stained glass representing ‘Faith’, ‘Hope’ and ‘Charity’. These replaced the old stained glass windows presented by Sir Lionel Darell.

This church, entered by an avenue of beech trees, replaced a former chapel-at-ease in Bluepool. The church itself was deconsecrated in 1977 and became a baronial museum for a while. It is now in private ownership.

The Anglican Community was never strong around Kanturk and Protestants had to wait until 1792 for a church. In the eighteenth century there were many complaints, mainly from Richard Purcell, junior, of Kanturk House (no. 26), of mixed marriages and conversions to Catholicism.  By 1860 the population of the Protestant parish of Kanturk (the townlands from Gooseberry Hill to Kanturk) was just 69.