History
Brighton's increasing popularity in the early 19th century, especially among high society, encouraged wealthy people to build proprietary chapels—private churches with no parish but with an Anglican minister. The original St Mary's was one of four such chapels built in the 1820s. [1] Acts of Parliament were granted to people wishing to build proprietary chapels. Barnard Gregory had obtained such an Act in 1825 to allow him to build St Margaret's Church in Cannon Place in central Brighton; the same Act permitted him to build one in St James's Street, [1] a road running eastwards from the town and developed in the 1790s. [2] In 1826 he sold this right to Charles Elliott, a merchant who divided his time between London and Brighton. Elliott was a member of the Clapham Sect, a group of Anglican social reformers which included William Wilberforce; one of his daughters, Charlotte, became a well-known hymnwriter; and the wider Elliott family were influential in Brighton's religious life for much of the 19th century. [1] [3]
The 3rd Earl of Egremont, who lived on the Petworth House estate in West Sussex, also owned East Lodge, whose grounds extended down to St James's Street. He donated some of his land to Gregory to allow him to build a church. [1] [2] Gregory commissioned Amon Henry Wilds, a leading architect in Regency-era Brighton, [4] to design it. [3] Wilds adopted the then-fashionable Neoclassical style for his design, and created a temple-style structure which bore some resemblance to the Brighton Unitarian Church which he had built six years earlier. That building was inspired by the appearance of the Temple of Thesæus in Athens, [5] [6] and Wilds based St Mary's design on another Ancient Greek edifice, the Temple of Nemesis. [2] [3] a The Act of Parliament relating to the proprietary chapel allowed the owner to appoint a curate for 40 years on a stipend of £150 per year (equivalent to £15,900 in 2024, based on 1826 prices). [1] [7] Charles Elliott appointed his eldest son, Henry Venn Elliott, as the first curate of St Mary's Chapel in August 1826, when he purchased the half-finished building from Gregory. Henry had been ordained as a priest in 1824 after spending a year as a deacon, and initially held the curacy of a rural parish in Suffolk. [3] [8]
The Bishop of Chichester, Robert James Carr, consecrated the church on 18 January 1827. [9] It had cost about £10,000 (£1.09 million in 2024), five times more than the contract price. [3] [9] The stuccoed exterior featured four large Doric columns beneath a frieze and pediment. The side walls had sash windows. [3] Inside, there were galleries on three sides; one gallery had a private pew for the Earl of Egremont. The capacity was 947, and 240 free pews were offered at a time when pew-rents were the norm (and helped to pay for Henry Venn Elliott's stipend). [1] [9]
Elliott served as the curate of the church until his death in 1865. His brother-in-law took over temporarily until Julius Marshall Elliott, Henry Venn Elliott's youngest son, was ordained and took up the position. In 1873, St Mary's became a parish church for the first time when Brighton's parishes and ecclesiastical districts were reorganised. The ownership of the building transferred from the Elliott family to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and all pews became rent-free. [10] By this time, the church was in a dilapidated condition; in June 1876, just as some money had been set aside for reconstruction, and initial repairs were being carried out, the chancel walls caved in, the roof fell inwards and the building collapsed. [2] [10] [11] Instead of trying to repair the ruin, it was decided that a new church should be built in the Gothic style which was by that time the most popular design for ecclesiastical buildings in England. Future President of the RIBA Sir William Emerson, who until then had worked almost exclusively on architectural commissions in India, was asked to design the new building. [2] [11] [12] [13] [14]
The congregation worshipped in the Royal Pavilion while Emerson's building took shape. Its foundation stone was laid on 29 May 1877. [11] The church took two years to complete and cost £15,231 (£1.78 million in 2024), [15] about 25% more than expected. A building firm based in nearby Hove were responsible for the construction. [14] Richard Durnford, the new Bishop of Chichester, dedicated the new church on 15 October 1878. [11] [16]
St Mary's parish was extended in 1948 when the nearby St James's Church closed, and when it was demolished in 1975 some memorials and fixtures were moved. [16] St Mary's Church itself then came under threat of closure, after the Diocese of Chichester carried out a review of Anglican churches in the city of Brighton and Hove between 2002 and 2003. Its report, published in June 2003, noted that the building needed significant maintenance work, the congregation was relatively small and unable to make the church financially viable, and the nearby St George's Church had become the de facto parish church of the Kemptown area. As a result, it recommended either complete closure or the use of most of the building for a community project in conjunction with Brighton and Hove City Council, leaving space for a small Anglican chapel to be created. [17] Since the report was published, however, no closure plans have been submitted, and the church is still open and continues to offer regular services.
St Paul's Church, dedicated to the missionary and Apostle to the Gentiles Paul of Tarsus, is a Church of England parish church in Brighton, Sussex, England. It is located on West Street in the city centre, close to the seafront and the main shopping areas.
St George's Church is an Anglican church in the Kemptown area of Brighton, in the English city of Brighton and Hove. It was built at the request of Thomas Read Kemp, who had created and financed the Kemp Town estate on the cliffs east of Brighton in the early 19th century, and is now regarded as the parish church of the wider Kemptown area. It is a Grade II listed building.
St Andrew's Church is an Anglican church in Church Road, Hove, in the English city of Brighton and Hove. It is usually referred to as St Andrew (Old Church) to distinguish it from another St Andrew's Church in Waterloo Street, elsewhere in Hove. It served as Hove's parish church for several centuries until 1892, although the building was in a state of near-ruin until Hove began to grow from an isolated village to a popular residential area in the early 19th century.
St Patrick's Church is an Anglican church in Hove, in the English city of Brighton and Hove. Situated on a narrow site at 3 Cambridge Road, off Western Road close to the boundary with Brighton, it is still in use as a place of worship. Since 1985 St Pat's developed a special ministry with homeless people, setting up a night shelter and a homeless hostel. In 2012, St Patrick's night shelter was closed. The homeless hostel continues to operate under new management, and is currently run by Riverside Housing Association. The church closed as a parish in 2015, and was then entrusted by the Bishop of Chichester to the Chemin Neuf Community under a Bishop's Mission Order. The leader of the Chemin Neuf Mission at St Patrick's is currently the Revd Tim Watson.
The Church of the Holy Trinity is a Greek Orthodox church in Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. Built in 1838 in one of Brighton's most notorious slum districts, Carlton Hill, it was an Anglican church for most of its life: dedicated to St John the Evangelist, it was used by the Anglican community until it was declared redundant in 1980. After some uncertainty about its future, it was sold to Brighton's Greek Orthodox community in 1985 and has been used as their permanent place of worship since then. Reflecting its architectural and historical importance, it has been listed at Grade II since 1971.
The former Holy Trinity Church, a closed Anglican church in the centre of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove, now serves as an art gallery. Established in the early 19th century by Thomas Read Kemp, an important figure in Brighton's early political and religious life, it was originally an independent Nonconformist chapel but became an Anglican chapel of ease when Kemp returned to the Church of England. The church closed in 1984, but was converted into a museum and later an art gallery. Reflecting its architectural and historical importance, it has been listed at Grade II since 1981.
St Philip's Church is a Church of England parish church in Hove, in the city of Brighton and Hove, England. It was opened in 1895 and consecrated in 1898 on New Church Road, near Aldrington's parish church of St Leonard's. It has come under threat of closure but is still active as of 2012. It is a Grade II listed building.
Holy Trinity Church is a former Anglican church in Hove, in the English city of Brighton and Hove. Built in the early 1860s to provide extra capacity for Anglican worshippers in the rapidly growing town of Hove, its use declined in the 20th century and it was closed in 2007 following a Diocesan review. Until 2015—when a planning application to convert the building into a doctors surgery was approved—its future was uncertain, and a heritage group has described it as one of Britain's top ten threatened Victorian and Edwardian buildings. The church, which has been a medical centre since 2017, has Grade II listed status, reflecting its architectural and historic importance.
St John the Evangelist's Church is an Anglican church in the Preston Village area of Brighton, in the English city of Brighton and Hove. The Grade II listed building, designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield, was started in 1901 but did not take its present form for another quarter of a century. In the meantime, the nearby parish church of Preston was severely damaged by fire, and the new church was granted the parish church status which it still retains.
St Wilfrid's Church is a former Anglican church in the Elm Grove area of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. Designed and built in the 1930s to replace a temporary building in the densely populated Elm Grove area, its unusual design—not conforming with architectural norms of the era—was widely praised. It was declared redundant after less than 50 years as a place of worship, and was converted into sheltered housing with minimal alteration to the exterior. Shortly after its closure, it was granted Grade II listed status.
St Mary Magdalen's Church is a Roman Catholic church in the Montpelier area of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. Dedicated to Jesus' companion Mary Magdalene, it is one of six Roman Catholic churches in Brighton and one of eleven in the city area. Built by ecclesiastical architect Gilbert Blount in a 13th-century Gothic style to serve the rapidly expanding residential area on the border of Brighton and Hove, it has been listed at Grade II by English Heritage in view of its architectural importance. An adjacent presbytery and parish hall have been listed separately at Grade II.
The Church of the Good Shepherd is an Anglican church on Dyke Road on the border of Brighton and Hove, constituent parts of the English city of Brighton and Hove. Although just inside Brighton, most of the parish is within the boundaries of Hove, and the official name of the parish reflects the fact that it was originally part of the large ecclesiastical parish of Preston—a village north of Brighton. The building, designed by Edward Prioleau Warren in a simple Gothic style in the 1920s, has been given Grade II listed status in view of its architectural importance.
St Stephen's Church is a former Anglican church in the Montpelier area of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. The building, which dates from 1766 in its original incarnation as the ballroom of Brighton's most fashionable Georgian-era inn, has been used for many purposes since then, and now stands 1 mile (1.6 km) away from where it was built. It spent less than 90 years as an Anglican church, and is now used as a centre for homeless people. In view of its architectural and historical importance, it has been listed at Grade II* by English Heritage.
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.
St Mark's Church is a former Anglican church in the Kemptown area of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. Originally intended as the private chapel of the adjacent St Mary's Hall school, it was partly built in 1838 at the request of Frederick Hervey, 1st Marquess of Bristol; but arguments over whether or not it should also be open to the public delayed its completion for more than 10 years. It became the parish church of Kemptown in 1873, but declining attendances resulted in a declaration of redundancy in 1986. At that time it was taken over by the school and became its chapel, nearly 150 years after this was first proposed. The Early English-style stone and concrete structure has been criticised by architectural historians, but has been listed at Grade II by English Heritage for its architectural and historical importance.
St Andrew the Apostle is an Anglican church in Worthing, West Sussex, England. Built between 1885 and 1886 in the Early English Gothic style by Sir Arthur Blomfield, "one of the last great Gothic revivalists", the church was embroiled in controversy as soon as it was founded. During a period of religious unrest in the town, theological tensions within Anglicanism between High church Anglo-Catholics and Low church Anglicans were inflamed by what the latter group saw as the church's "idolatrous" Roman Catholic-style fittings—in particular, a statue of the Virgin Mary which was seized upon by opponents as an example of a reversion to Catholic-style worship in the Church of England. The "Worthing Madonna" dispute delayed the consecration of the church by several years. English Heritage has listed the building at Grade C for its architectural and historical importance, and the adjacent vestry and vicarage are listed separately at Grade II.
St Mary Magdalene's Church is a Greek Orthodox place of worship in St Leonards-on-Sea, a town and seaside resort which is part of the Borough of Hastings in East Sussex, England. Dedicated to Mary Magdalene and built in 1852 for Anglican worshippers in the growing new town of St Leonards-on-Sea, a seaside resort which had been laid out from the 1820s, the church's prominent position on the skyline overlooking the town was enhanced in 1872 by the addition of a tower. No longer required by the Anglican community in the 1980s, it was quickly bought by the Greek Orthodox Church and converted into a place of worship in accordance with their requirements. The alterations were minimal, though, and the building retains many of its original fittings and its "archaeologically correct Gothic" exterior which reflected architectural norms of the early Victorian era. English Heritage has listed the church at Grade II for its architectural and historical importance.
Christ Church is an Anglican church in the town and seaside resort of St Leonards-on-Sea, part of the Borough of Hastings in East Sussex, England. Opened as the town's third Anglican church in 1860 to serve a rapidly developing residential area and to accommodate poor worshippers who could not afford pew rents at the fashionable St Leonard's and St Mary Magdalene's Churches, the original building was superseded by a much larger church built next to it between 1873 and 1875. Prolific ecclesiastical architect Sir Arthur Blomfield's simple Gothic Revival design forms a landmark on one of St Leonards-on-Sea's main roads, continues to serve a large area of the town and maintains a strong Anglo-Catholic tradition. It has been described as Blomfield's "finest achievement in Sussex" and "one of the main centres of Anglo-Catholic worship in Southern England". The interior fittings are the best of any church in the borough, and the design has been called one of Blomfield's most successful. St John the Evangelist's Church, founded as a daughter church nearby in 1865, also continues to thrive as a separate parish church. Historic England has listed Christ Church at Grade II* for its architectural and historical importance.
Henry Michell Wagner (1792–1870) was a Church of England clergyman who was Vicar of Brighton between 1824 and 1870. He was a descendant of Melchior Wagner, hatmaker to the Royal Family, and married into a wealthy Sussex family who had a longstanding ecclesiastical connection with Brighton. Wagner paid for and oversaw the building of five churches in the rapidly growing seaside resort, and "dominated religious life in the town" with his forceful personality and sometimes controversial views and actions. His son Arthur Wagner (1824–1902) continued the family's close association with Brighton.
