Designed by Edmund Harold Sedding, and with later additions by William Douglas Caröe, it is a Grade I listed building.

[1] In the very late 19th century, and in response to the increasing population of Shaldon, the ecclesiastical authorities determined to build a new church on the foreshore in the centre of the village.

Their chosen architect was Edmund Harold Sedding, son of the notable West Country church architect, Edmund Sedding, and himself a prolific restorer of churches throughout Devon and Cornwall.

St Peter's is one of the few, completely new, church buildings Sedding designed.

[5] Nikolaus Pevsner described St Peter's as "a superlative example of Arts & Crafts inventiveness".