St Peter-in-the-East

St Peter-in-the-East is a 12th-century church on Queen's Lane, north of the High Street in central Oxford. It is now deconsecrated and houses the college library of St Edmund Hall. The churchyard to the north is laid out as a garden and contains a seated bronze statue depicting St Edmund as an impoverished student.

A church since the late 10th century

A church has stood on this site since the late 10th century. The 11th-century stone church is mentioned in the Domesday Book of c.1085: "the church of St. Peter Oxenford holds of Robert two hides in Haliwelle… It was worth twenty shillings, now it is worth forty…" In the early 12th century it was renamed St-Peter-in-the-East — because of its location near the East Gate — to differentiate it from St Peter-le-Bailey near Oxford Castle.

The Norman parts of the current church were built around 1140 by Robert D'Oilly, then Governor of Oxford. In 1266 Henry III gave the church to Walter de Merton, and from that point Merton College held the advowson. The churches at Wolvercote and Holywell were originally chapels of ease of St Peter's.

The 12th-century church had a crypt, chancel and nave reaching just beyond the south door. A north aisle was added to the nave in the 13th century; the tower was added in the 14th century; the windows are mostly 14th-century and the door into the tower is 16th-century. At the east end of the aisle is a small chapel dedicated to St Catharine and St Thomas, built in the early 16th century. The Lady Chapel was built in the early 13th century — donated by Edmund Rich, later Archbishop of Canterbury, when he was a resident of the Hall later named after him.

Closure and conversion

The congregation declined sharply in the twentieth century — partly as a result of First World War demographic changes in central Oxford — and the church closed in 1965. It was deconsecrated in the 1970s and renovated to serve as the St Edmund Hall library.