The Hounsom Memorial Church is a United Reformed place of worship in Hove in the English city of Brighton and Hove. One of six churches of that denomination in the city, it was built in 1938 for the Congregational Church, which became part of the United Reformed Church in 1972. Its name commemorates William Allin Hounsom, a local man and longstanding member of the Congregational church in central Hove, who had wide-ranging business interests and landholdings across Sussex. The red-brick building, one of many local works by Brighton-based architect John Leopold Denman, is embellished with carvings that have been called "quite startling for a Nonconformist church".
Hove was a village and parish that developed rapidly as a residential area in the 19th century in response to the growth of neighbouring Brighton.[1] The Union Chapel, founded in the 17th century in Brighton, extended its mission to Hove in 1823, when some members established a Sunday school and temporary place of worship in a building belonging to local resident John Vallance. The congregation grew, and land was bought in 1861 for a permanent church in the rapidly developing Cliftonville area of Hove.[2] Cliftonville Congregational Church was designed by Horatio Nelson Goulty and opened in 1870 as the first Nonconformist church in the town.[3]
The church's local influence grew, and in 1899 it expanded its reach by opening a mission church, Rutland Hall, in the Aldrington area of Hove. A major benefactor of this new place of worship[4] was William Allin Hounsom jp (1848–1934), a longstanding member of Cliftonville Congregational Church:[5] he raised funds, gave land for the church and donated a house.[4] Described as "a stalwart figure in Congregationalism in Sussex and beyond",[6] Hounsom had also contributed money to the founding of a Congregational chapel at Horsted Keynes in West Sussex.[7] In 1909, he was living at 41 New Church Road in Hove and was recorded as owning much land in the West Sussex parish of Yapton, near Arundel.[8] He also held land in Ashdown Forest in East Sussex.[9] Later in the 20th century he moved to 29 New Church Road, where he died on 28 January 1934.[5][10] In the meantime, Rutland Hall's fortunes were declining: it was requisitioned for wartime use and most of the male members of the congregation were called up for military service.[4]
Rutland Hall was sold to finance the Hounsom Memorial Church.Small clerestory windows light the interior of the church.
During the interwar period, Hove experienced rapid residential development, mostly northwards on to the southern slopes of the South Downs. Before the mid-1920s, the Old Shoreham Road to Shoreham-by-Sea formed the boundary of the urban area; thereafter, housing estates such as Hangleton grew rapidly (especially after it became part of the Borough of Hove in 1928).[11][12] From the beginning, it was expected to be a large suburb;[11] by 1935, houses covered 1,120 acres (450ha).[12]
A group called the Sussex Pioneers, associated with the Sussex Congregational Union, was formed in the early 1930s with the aim of finding sites to establish new Congregational and Free churches.[11] Its members included Congregational ministers and church laymen, including Hounsom himself.[5] As a "quickly developing district" where no Nonconformist church had yet been founded,[13] Hangleton was considered ideal, and in 1936 the Sussex Pioneers advised Cliftonville Congregational Church that a new place of worship should be founded there.[14] Both parties started raising funds towards this, as did the Sussex Congregational Union; the Cliftonville Church made the largest contribution by selling Rutland Hall for £2,000.[15][16] (It continued in religious use—first by Plymouth Brethren until 1947 or later,[16] and as of 2008[update] by Baptists as the West Hove Community Baptist Church.)[17] The congregation also raised a further £1,000, and £50 was promised annually for three years to pay the minister's stipend.[11]
Several sites in the new suburb were considered, including Applesham Avenue, Hangleton Road and Nevill Avenue. The last named was found to be best, as the building could be set back from the road in a quiet setting, and a plot of land was purchased.[11] Around this time, Rev. Jason S. Wright became the minister of the new church,[18] and two local residents started a Sunday school in their house.[19] They and the minister built up support for the church by visiting people in their houses and publicising it. Attendance at the Sunday school increased, and many people expressed an interest in attending services when the church opened.[15] Some members of Cliftonville Congregational Church also decided to support the new venture by worshipping there when it opened.[14]
The name Hounsom Memorial Church was agreed upon in memory of William Allin Hounsom's life and activities,[6] and the church was founded with that name on 16 March 1938. At the ceremony, William Allin Hounsom's cousin Winifred Pike, Rev. Stanley Blomfield (representing Cliftonville Congregational Church) and Scott Graves (representing the Sussex Pioneers) each laid a foundation stone.[5] Other local Christian groups were also represented: The Salvation Army provided music, and the nearby Bishop Hannington Memorial Church (Anglican) hosted a party afterwards.[5] Cliftonville Church formed a committee to supervise construction work and manage the affairs of the new church; members included Revs Blomfield and Wright and a member of the Sussex Congregational Union.[13] Local architect John Leopold Denman, "the master of ... mid-century Neo-Georgian" architecture,[20] was commissioned to design the church; in a presentation at the founding ceremony, he discussed his proposed plan. "There [are] aisles and clerestory windows without those divisional units which usually separate aisles from the central part of the church. As to the tower ... cost meant that it could not be too imposing."[21] The church would be heated by panels and flat radiators which were designed as part of the ceiling.[18] Local firm Braybon & Son built the church, and it opened for worship on 17 September 1939.[18] J. Ernest James bd, the Chairman-Elect of the Congregational Union of England and Wales, conducted the first service.[6] The church had 70 members at this stage; when the membership roll was inaugurated in 1938 there were 52.[13] It was officially constituted as a Congregational church on 22 October 1939,[18][22] and on 8 November 1939 it was registered for marriages.[23] After being constituted, the original administrative committee was replaced by a conventional diaconate of six members, and the church quickly became independent from the Cliftonville Congregational Church[22] (although close links were maintained).[14] The new church had its own schoolroom,[24] which enabled the Sunday school to grow significantly: by 1939 there were 98 members, and the roll increased further when Hangleton received wartime evacuees from London and elsewhere.[22]
A church hall was built in 1951.
Financial difficulties during World War II were overcome with the help of grants from the Sussex Congregational Union and the Congregational Central Fund,[25] and the church was debt-free by July 1947. The congregation then began to raise money to build a church hall; the £500 cost was met in May 1948, and construction work started on a site to the east of the church.[26] Work was completed in 1951; John Leopold Denman was again responsible for the design.[27] Having its own hall enabled the church's many groups and organisations to thrive: in 1938 a Women's Fellowship was formed,[28] followed by the Girls' Brigade (1939;[29] still extant),[18]Boys' Brigade (1941;[30] disbanded in the 1990s),[18] Life Boy Team (1941),[31] Young People's Fellowship (1943),[32] and a Men's Fireside Group (1944).[33] After observing "Junior Churches" set up for children at the Clermont Congregational Church in Preston Village and another church in Beckenham, members of the congregation set one up in 1944.[34] The hall also served as Hangleton's original community centre and library: the suburb did not get a purpose-built library until 1962.[18] Other innovations included "Dramatic Services" (worship in the form of plays) from 1945 onwards—these attracted interest from across Brighton and Hove and further afield—and screenings of religious films.[35]
The church bought a Kawai grand piano with money left as a bequest. In April 1990, Tony Bennett was due to perform a concert at the Brighton Dome. During his warm-up, he broke the venue's piano, putting the show in jeopardy. An employee who looked after the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra's pianos when they played at the Dome mentioned the Hounsom Memorial Church's instrument—and it was brought to the Dome in time for Bennett's performance.[18]
Along with most Congregational and Presbyterian churches in England, Hounsom Memorial Church became part of the United Reformed Church in 1972.[18] It is designated as a "local congregation" of that denomination.[36] It is one of six belonging to that denomination in the city of Brighton and Hove. As well as the former Cliftonville Congregational Church (now styled the Central United Reformed Church),[27] the others are at North Road in central Brighton (Brighthelm Church and Community Centre), Lewes Road,[37]Portslade[38] and Saltdean (St Martin's Church).[39] Proposals to change the name of the church to St Christopher's Church, referring to the bas-relief depiction of that saint on the front of the building, were put forward in the 1950s but were not acted upon.[18]
Saint Christopher is represented in bas-relief form at the top of the tower.
The brief given to John Leopold Denman by the founders was specific: the new church had to be "...unlike a 15th-century church or a Nonconformist chapel or a cinema, but [instead] a modern type of building in keeping with the area".[11] His design has elements of the Vernacular and his favoured[20]Neo-Georgian style, with some elements of Modernism.[27] The 350-capacity[18] church has a single internal space measuring 36 by 24 feet (11.0m ×7.3m)[41] lit by small clerestory windows at the top of the aisles. The walls are of "mottled" red brick made at the Ringmer brickworks in East Sussex; the red roof tiles were also produced there.[18] A stubby tower topped with a shallow pantile-covered spire stands at the north end;[27] this has three "startling" bas-relief representations of Saint Christopher, a pelican and a lamb—the latter two representing sacrifice and the Lamb of God.[18] Such allegorical depictions are unusual for a Nonconformist church.[18]
Hove is a seaside resort in East Sussex, England. Alongside Brighton, it is one of the two main parts of the city of Brighton and Hove.
Hangleton is a suburb of Brighton and Hove, in the ceremonial county of East Sussex, England. The area was developed in the 1930s after it was incorporated into the Borough of Hove, but has ancient origins: its parish church was founded in the 11th century and retains 12th-century fabric; the medieval manor house is Hove's oldest secular building. The village became depopulated in the medieval era and the church fell into ruins, and the population in the isolated hilltop parish only reached 100 in the early 20th century; but rapid 20th-century development resulted in more than 6,000 people living in Hangleton in 1951 and over 9,000 in 1961. By 2013, the population exceeded 14,000.
St Helen's Church, an Anglican church in the Hangleton area of Hove, is the oldest surviving building in the English city of Brighton and Hove. It is the ancient parish church of Hangleton, an isolated South Downs village that was abandoned by the Middle Ages and was open farmland until the Interwar Period, when extensive residential development took place.
St Peter's Church is an Anglican church in the West Blatchington area of Hove, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. Although it has 11th- and 12th-century origins, the church was rebuilt from a ruined state in the late 19th century and extended substantially in the 1960s, and little trace remains of the ancient building. The church serves the parish of West Blatchington, a residential area in the north of Hove near the border with Brighton.
Holland Road Baptist Church is a Baptist church in Hove, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. Built in 1887 to replace a temporary building on the same site, which had in turn superseded the congregation's previous meeting place in a nearby gymnasium, it expanded to take in nearby buildings and is a landmark on Holland Road, a main north–south route in Hove. It is one of ten extant Baptist church buildings in the city, and is the only one to have been listed by English Heritage in view of its architectural importance.
Bristol Road Methodist Church is a former Methodist place of worship in the Kemptown area of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. Built in 1873 to an Italian Romanesque Revival design, it served this part of eastern Brighton for more than a century until its closure in 1989, after which it became a recording studio. It is owned by Brighton College, a private school based nearby. The building has been listed at Grade II in view of its architectural importance.
West Street Baptist Church is a Baptist church in East Grinstead, a town in the district of Mid Sussex, one of seven local government districts in the English county of West Sussex. Founded in 1810 as a chapel linked to the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion, it was the first Nonconformist place of worship in East Grinstead; the town's subsequent development made it a local centre of both Protestant Nonconformity and alternative religions. The red-brick building is still used by a Baptist community, and is protected as a Grade II listed building.
Providence Strict Baptist Chapel is a former Strict Baptist place of worship in the town of Burgess Hill in Mid Sussex, one of seven local government districts in the English county of West Sussex. Founded in 1875 by two prominent residents of the town at a time when Protestant Nonconformism was well established in Sussex, the chapel continued in religious use for over a century until it was sold for conversion to a family home in 1999. The Neoclassical building stands in a conservation area opposite Burgess Hill's main park. English Heritage has listed the building at Grade II for its architectural and historical importance.
St Leonards-on-Sea Congregational Church is a former Congregational church in St Leonards-on-Sea, part of the town and borough of Hastings in East Sussex, England. Considered "one of the most ambitious Nonconformist buildings in Sussex", the sandstone building of 1863 forms a significant landmark on one of the Victorian resort's main roads—despite the loss of its copper spire in the Great Storm of 1987. Unlike most churches of its denomination, it did not join the United Reformed Church when that denomination was formed in 1972. It fell out of religious use in 2008 and had stood empty and was at risk of demolition. English Heritage has listed the building at Grade II for its architectural and historical importance. Bought by a new owner in 2012 it was almost completely renovated, but was then sold again in 2019. The new owner plans to open the church to the public as an arts and antiques centre with a cafe in the tower.
Trinity Congregational Church, later known as Union Chapel, is a former place of worship for Congregationalists and Independent Christians in Arundel, an ancient town in the Arun district of West Sussex, England. Protestant Nonconformism has always been strong in the town, and the chapel's founding congregation emerged in the 1780s. After worshipping elsewhere in the town, they founded the present building in the 1830s and remained for many years. Former pastors included the poet George MacDonald. Robert Abraham's distinctive neo-Norman/Romanesque Revival building was converted into a market in the 1980s and has been renamed Nineveh House. The church is a Grade II Listed building.
Robertsbridge United Reformed Church is a former United Reformed Church place of worship in Robertsbridge, a village in the district of Rother in the English county of East Sussex. Built for Congregational worshippers in 1881 following their secession from a long-established Wesleyan Methodist chapel, it was the third Nonconformist place of worship in the village, whose nearest parish church was in the neighbouring settlement of Salehurst. Like the former Strict Baptist and Methodist chapels in the village, which have both closed, it no longer serves Robertsbridge as a place of worship. Local architect Thomas Elworthy's distinctive design—a "rich" and highly decorated blend of several styles—has divided opinion amongst architectural historians. English Heritage has listed the church at Grade II for its architectural and historical importance.
Bethel Baptist Chapel is a Strict Baptist place of worship in the village of Wivelsfield in East Sussex, England. The cause was founded in 1763 by members of a chapel at nearby Ditchling; Henry Booker and other worshippers seceded and began to meet at Wivelsfield after hearing a sermon by George Whitefield. Although some members of the new church soon returned to the Ditchling congregation, the cause thrived under Booker's leadership, and the present chapel—a building of "quiet and unassuming elegance" set in its own graveyard—was erected in 1780. It has served the Strict Baptist community continuously since then, and members founded other chapels elsewhere in Sussex during the 18th and 19th centuries. The chapel is a Grade II Listed building.
John Leopold DenmanFRIBA was an architect from the English seaside resort of Brighton, now part of the city of Brighton and Hove. He had a prolific career in the area during the 20th century, both on his own and as part of the Denman & Son firm in partnership with his son John Bluet Denman. Described as "the master of ... mid-century Neo-Georgian", Denman was responsible for a range of commercial, civic and religious buildings in Brighton, and pubs and hotels there and elsewhere on the south coast of England on behalf of Brighton's Kemp Town Brewery. He used other architectural styles as well, and was responsible for at least one mansion, several smaller houses, various buildings in cemeteries and crematoria, and alterations to many churches. His work on church restorations has been praised, and he has been called "the leading church architect of his time in Sussex"; he also wrote a book on the ecclesiastical architecture of the county.
St Giles' Church is an Anglican church in the village of Horsted Keynes in Mid Sussex, one of seven local government districts in the English county of West Sussex. Serving an extensive rural parish in the Sussex Weald, it stands at the north end of its village on the site of an ancient pagan place of worship. The present building succeeds the original wattle and daub church, its wooden successor and a Saxon stone building—although the Norman architects who erected the cruciform structure in the 12th century preserved parts of the Saxon fabric.
Horatio Nelson Goulty was an English architect. He designed several buildings in Brighton and was an important figure in the town's public affairs in the early Victorian era.
John Nelson Goulty was an English Nonconformist Christian pastor. He is best known for his sermons against mandatory tithing to the Church of England and against colonial slavery. After early work at Nonconformist chapels in Godalming and Henley-on-Thames, he moved to Brighton where he became "one of the most important persons" in the 300-year history of the town's Union Chapel. He also helped to found schools and a cemetery in Brighton.
Ote Hall Chapel is a place of worship belonging to the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion—a small Nonconformist Christian denomination—in the village of Wivelsfield in East Sussex, England. The Connexion was established as a small group of Evangelical churches during the 18th-century Evangelical Revival by Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, and this chapel is one of the earliest: founded by the Countess herself in 1778 as a daughter church of the original chapel in Brighton, it has been in continuous use since 1780. Historic England has listed the building at Grade II for its architectural and historical importance.
Antram, Nicholas; Morrice, Richard (2008). Brighton and Hove. Pevsner Architectural Guides. London: Yale University Press. ISBN978-0-300-12661-7.
Elleray, D. Robert (2004). Sussex Places of Worship. Worthing: Optimus Books. ISBN0-9533132-7-1.
Middleton, Judy (2002). The Encyclopaedia of Hove & Portslade. Brighton: Brighton & Hove Libraries.
Officers of Hounsom Memorial Church (1948). Roberts, G.N. (ed.). The First Ten Years 1938–1948: The Story of the Hounsom Memorial Congregational Church, Hove, Sussex. Brighton: Pell (Brighton) Ltd.
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