St Peter's Roman Catholic Church, Liverpool

[1] It was acquired by Signature Living for £3.1m in 2017 to become one of its 60 entities that trade as hospitality, hotel and residential property operators and developers.

However, according to newly-published documents from administrators Kroll, the company faced a winding-up petition from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) due to "unpaid historical and current tax liabilities".

The business did not challenge the winding-up petition and the secured creditor appointed Kroll as administrator of Alma De Cuba in May 2022.

In September 2024 it was announced that the building had been acquired by The 1936 Pub Company who intended to renovate and reopen under the name 'St Peter’s Tavern'.

Referring to the previous night D’Andria wrote: ‘To the Guild Room – doors blown in, big balk of timber across the entrance, stairs covered with sticky chemicals and heaps of rubbish….

Mass on Sunday at [Notre Dame Convent] Mount Pleasant.’ Suggest carrying on at St Peter's but Bruno said it was impossible.’ The Church Notice Book recorded that ‘The church was too wrecked a condition for Mass after the first raids of the first week of May.’[7] D'Andria went on to quote his Rector, Fr Francis Bruno Dawson, O.S.B.

St Peter's Church Guildhall was located on Park Lane, and was completely destroyed during a bombing raid in 1941.

Documents held by the Liverpool Records Office show the problems that the priests had in getting repairs to St Peter’s Church, school and the Presbytery completed following the war damage.

A letter written to Fr Dawson on 4 February 1945 states that "the fault is due not so much to faulty slates as to the fact that the roof timbers were not set and aligned previous to slating…the roll and drip gutter between the schools and church building should definitely have been renewed….the ridge lead still shows shrapnel holes.…to put the roof right by stripping, resetting and reslating would ….be a bigger job than the original one.

[29][30] The following is an extract from the Press Account on the Centenary of St Peter's in 1888, and explains some of the history of Catholic churches in Liverpool leading up to the founding of St Peter's: "In 1701, Father Gillibrand, S. J., Chaplain of the Squire of Crosby, established the first religious services held in the city for Catholics for upwards of a century.

While a new chapel was being built, under the guise of a warehouse, by a wealthy merchant, named Pippard, the Catholics met stealthily for worship in the house of a Mr. and Mrs. Green in Dale Street, and the only friends of the proscribed ones were two large-hearted and tolerant Presbyterians who lived in adjoining houses, and who helped the Papists to gain, without observation, access to their temporary place of meeting.

One hundred years ago, the site of St. Peter's, now pressed by closely clustered dwellings, factories and warehouses, had a rural environment.

The choice of the spot on which to build the new church incurred for the zealous monk the mild displeasure of his superiors, who suggested it was too far out of town.

The founder of this chapel, and for a period of 26 years its liberal, intelligent and revered pastor, to whose memory the Catholicks of Liverpool erect this monument.—R.I.P."

One night during his tenure: "The church was even threatened with destruction by a great fire which seemed likely to cross Back Seel Street.

Fr Basil, roused from sleep, went down, placed a medal of St. Benedict on the church wall and returned to bed.

[33] When St Peter's Church was converted into the Alma de Cuba, much of the interior was left as it was because of it being a Grade II Listed Building.

The statue of St Peter which was in the church, seated (in marble and bronze) is now displayed in the Crypt Chapel at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King.

In 1920 the booklet produced for the Grand Bazaar shows a photograph of the church with the wording on the pediment as "I am the Good Shepherd".

The situation is neatly summed in "A Century and a Half - Notes on St. Peter's (Seel Street) 1788-1938" by an author who clearly has access to the Parish Records: "Even the year (of the extension) has been variously stated.

Sermon preached by Father Baines, O.S.B., of Bath, regarded as principal pulpit orator of his day (Burke, p.

It is also worth noting that the author of "A Century and a half..." again quotes Allanson's volumes regarding the extension around 1818 which state that "gallery enlarged and organ built over the altar."