St Peter's Church - A History (page 1 of 4)
After the dissolution of St. Swithin's Chantry Chapel the village of
Stanley had no place of worship until recent times, and therefore the
people were served by the Parish Church in Wakefield. To us in 2000 it
seems a long way to have to travel to attend church and I wonder how
many faint hearts would fall by the wayside. It must have been
difficult too for funeral parties to travel the four miles from Stanley
into Wakefield. On the 1850 Ordnance Survey map a road named the
"Corpse Road" can be seen. It appears that this was the road used by
the inhabitants of Stanley when taking their dead to Church for burial.
It no longer exists, as part of it was absorbed into the grounds of
Stanley Royd Hospital, then called the Asylum. When in use the road
linked Ouchthorpe Lane with Jacob's Well Lane in Wakefield. Over the
years trouble arose because of the road being fenced or access impeded
and after its closure in 1827 one or two funeral parties endeavoured to
use the road to reach the Church, the last case being dealt with in
court being in 1832.
In 1723 a survey was made with the purpose of assessing the population
of various parts of the area with a view to providing a new church for
the parish of Wakefield. It was discovered that in Stanley and
Ouchthorpe there were 129 families with 583 souls, 315 of them being
communicants.
At the end of the war with France and after the Battle of Waterloo, the
country of Austria was made to pay a large amount of money to this
country as war indemnity. Out of this a sum of one million pounds was
devoted to providing churches in areas which needed them. Three were
provided for the Wakefield area at Thornes, Alverthorpe and Stanley,
where the popu-lation figures warranted them. The Church at Stanley was
the first to be built. The foundation stone was laid on l3th September,
1822 by Francis Maude of Hatfield Hall who was a barrister in
Wakefield. The Church was opened nearly two years later on 6th
September, 1824.
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