The Chancel is the area in front of you at the East end of the church with the high altar and the 5-framed window above.

When the church was restored in the 1890s, the present chancel was created following its earlier demolition.  Beneath the chancel lies the grave of Sir Richard Lee (1513-1575). Lee was the foremost military engineer of his time and was building surveyor to Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s chief minister.  When St Albans Abbey was closed, many of the buildings at the monastery became his.  After the demolition of the chancel in the early 1800s, the area of the old chancel was fenced off and in this area remained a gravestone to Richard Lee. The high altar is located in what is called The Sanctuary at the East end of the church. By the late 1400s St Peter’s had at least seven altars, plus several more in chapels in the churchyard. The Fraternity of Guild of All Saints, otherwise known at the Charnel Brotherhood, was founded during the reign of Edward IV (1442-1483). On the corner of the churchyard nearest to what is the roundabout in St Peter’s Street, stood the Charnel Chapel associated with the Brotherhood.  The Charnel Chapel was where human skeletons were stored after a person’s death.