St Peters Church, St Peters

St Peters Anglican Church, St Peters, 187-209 Princes Highway, St Peters, New South Wales, is one of the oldest churches in the suburbs of Sydney. It was designed by Thomas Bird.The church is sometimes referred to as "St Peters, Cooks River," as it is located in the Anglican Parish of Cooks River, New South Wales. Cooks River itself, named by James Cook in 1770 when he sailed into Botany Bay, is crossed by the Princes Highway, about 3 kilometers to the south of the church. The suburb of St Peters, New South Wales, in which the church is located, was named as a result of the area's proximity to the church.

The site contains three main buildings (St Peters Church and hall; a former rectory, built in 1906; and the present rectory, built in 1996) and a remnant graveyard.

The church building is unique in that it is built of sun-dried bricks with stuccoed finish forming the walls. The surface of the walls are expressed to simulate stonework and have attached buttresses supported on sandstone footings integrated into the sandstone footings of the walls.

The church is listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register and the Register of the National Estate.

The area on which the church stands forms part of the territory of the Darug people.

Land which now contains the church site was granted to Thomas Smyth in 1799. Some of Smyth's grant, including the church site, was acquired by Robert Campbell. The church site comprising 6 acres 14 perches was transferred by Campbell, in 1837, to the "Bishop of Australia" for the erection of the church.

Campbell's land was subdivided into forty-two allotments, thirteen of which were purchased by Alexander Brodie Spark, an established Sydney merchant, who had built and resided at "Tempe House". Spark, as the largest landowner in Campbell's subdivision, was highly active in the local community.

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