St George's Church, Worthing
Encyclopedia
St George's Church is an Anglican
church in the East Worthing area of the Borough of Worthing
, one of seven local government districts in the English
county of West Sussex
. Built in 1868 to serve new residential development in the southeast of the town, the Decorated Gothic-style structure was extended later in the 19th century, and expanded its reach further by founding three mission halls elsewhere in Worthing. English Heritage
has listed it at Grade C for its architectural and historical importance.
to the coast
: the land was marsh
y and difficult to develop. The few houses in existence were economically dependent on the 18th-century brickworks
and two smock mill
s in the vicinity, both of which existed by 1831.
Gradually, the town expanded to the east, and in the 1860s a church was proposed to serve the area, which had become known as East Worthing. Work started in 1867, when the Bishop of Chichester
Ashurst Turner Gilbert
laid the foundation stone. The architect George Truefitt was commissioned to design the church. In its original form, it opened on 10 July 1868 after Bishop Gilbert consecrated it. Long-time East Worthing resident Alfred Longley, who wrote several books about the area, recorded the name of the builder as a Mr Longhurst.
St George's Church was extended twice in the first 16 years of its existence. As built in 1868, it consisted of a chancel
with apsidal end
, nave
and a small belfry
. In 1875, two porches and a vestry
were built. Nine years later, the interior was changed by the addition of a transept
between the nave and the sanctuary. A tower was planned, but only a stump was ever built. Architectural sketches of the proposed tower showed a tall, spire-topped structure with lancet
openings rising at the southwest corner. Architect H. Overnell designed the church hall, which stands to the south, in 1935. A vicarage was established in nearby Selden Road in the early 1900s.
The church was always parished
: in 1867, a parish was created out of the southeastern part of the area administered by St Mary's Church at Broadwater. The advowson
originally lay with the rector of that church, but passed to the National Protestant Church Union in 1903. Its successor, the Church Society Trust, retains it as of . The rector had owned the land originally, and offered it free of charge to allow the church to be built.
St George's Church founded a school
in the parish in 1874. St George's National School stood on Lyndhurst Road (50.8146°N 0.3676°W); its popularity resulted in the brick and flint buildings being enlarged twice by 1897, but in 1940 it was closed and the pupils dispersed to other schools. In 1985, the site was cleared to make way for a supermarket.
are different. The building is in the Decorated Gothic style with some Perpendicular Gothic elements, and is of Bargate stone
rubble
with courses
of ashlar
. The roof is covered with red tiles.
The plan features a wide chancel and aisled nave, both of which have prominent apse
s at the geographical north end, a gable
-roofed entrance porch leading to a narthex
with hipped roofs
, a small belfry topped with a stone spirelet, and a vestry. Most of the windows are small lancets, such as the range of six above the entrance porch, but the five around the chancel apse are taller. The interior is simple and open, and reminded architectural historians Ian Nairn
and Nikolaus Pevsner
of Sir Christopher Wren's
ecclesiastical works: they described it as "very intelligent, rational, [...] logical [and lacking] the artificial piety of the 1860s".
served by the clergy of the founding church, and were intended to be used temporarily until proper provision could be made for worship, in the form of a new permanent church or an extension to an existing building. Three such chapels were established by St George's Church; two still stand as of , and the other became a separate church in its own right before being demolished.
Newland Road Mission Hall was the first to be established. It was built in 1883 at the corner of Newland Road and Station Road (50.8184°N 0.3686°W). The brick building was used for worship until 1936, and is now used as a studio. Two years later, the tiny Ham Arch Mission was created in a hut on Ham Road (50.8194°N 0.3538°W) in the east of the parish. The structure, one of the smallest places of worship in Sussex
and now used as a garage, was referred to in jest as "The Cathedral" by locals during its 29 years of religious use. The Emmanuel Mission Hall, on Brougham Road (50.8169°N 0.3507°W), was built in 1911 and replaced by an octagonal permanent church, also dedicated to Emmanuel, in 1976. This was closed and demolished in 2008.
on 21 May 1976. Grade C was the lowest rank on an old grading system used for Anglican churches, before English Heritage extended the standard Grade I, II* and II scheme to all types of building. A small number of churches remain on the old scheme, on which Grade C is equivalent to Grade II. As of February 2001, it was one of 198 Grade II- or C-listed buildings, and 213 listed buildings of all grades, in the Borough of Worthing. (These totals have since changed because of new listings and delistings.)
The parish covers the southeastern part of Worthing borough. Its boundaries are the railway line
to the north, the border with Adur district to the east, the English Channel
to the south and the High Street and Steyne to the west.
Worship is in a Conservative evangelical style in the Anglican tradition, mostly using the Common Worship
series of worship materials. There are two services on Sundays, one of which is a Eucharistic service using the Book of Common Prayer
; Sunday evening prayer services; and a range of community and church-related events during the week.
Anglicanism
Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English...
church in the East Worthing area of the Borough of Worthing
Worthing
Worthing is a large seaside town with borough status in West Sussex, within the historic County of Sussex, forming part of the Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton conurbation. It is situated at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of the county town of Chichester...
, one of seven local government districts in the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
county of West Sussex
West Sussex
West Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering onto East Sussex , Hampshire and Surrey. The county of Sussex has been divided into East and West since the 12th century, and obtained separate county councils in 1888, but it remained a single ceremonial county until 1974 and the coming...
. Built in 1868 to serve new residential development in the southeast of the town, the Decorated Gothic-style structure was extended later in the 19th century, and expanded its reach further by founding three mission halls elsewhere in Worthing. English Heritage
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...
has listed it at Grade C for its architectural and historical importance.
History
Worthing experienced rapid development in the first quarter of the 19th century, encouraged by royal patronage and the effect of nearby Brighton—one of England's most fashionable and desirable resorts at the time. In the first few decades of the town's existence, however, little building work took place east of the road from BroadwaterBroadwater, West Sussex
Broadwater is a neighbourhood of the Borough of Worthing in West Sussex, England. Situated between the South Downs and the English Channel, Broadwater was once a parish in its own right and included Worthing when the latter was a small fishing hamlet. Before its incorporation into the Borough of...
to the coast
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
: the land was marsh
Marsh
In geography, a marsh, or morass, is a type of wetland that is subject to frequent or continuous flood. Typically the water is shallow and features grasses, rushes, reeds, typhas, sedges, other herbaceous plants, and moss....
y and difficult to develop. The few houses in existence were economically dependent on the 18th-century brickworks
Brickworks
A brickworks also known as a brick factory, is a factory for the manufacturing of bricks, from clay or shale. Usually a brickworks is located on a clay bedrock often with a quarry for clay on site....
and two smock mill
Smock mill
The smock mill is a type of windmill that consists of a sloping, horizontally weatherboarded tower, usually with six or eight sides. It is topped with a roof or cap that rotates to bring the sails into the wind...
s in the vicinity, both of which existed by 1831.
Gradually, the town expanded to the east, and in the 1860s a church was proposed to serve the area, which had become known as East Worthing. Work started in 1867, when the Bishop of Chichester
Bishop of Chichester
The Bishop of Chichester is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Chichester in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers the Counties of East and West Sussex. The see is in the City of Chichester where the seat is located at the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity...
Ashurst Turner Gilbert
Ashurst Turner Gilbert
Ashurst Turner Gilbert was an English churchman and academic, Principal of Brasenose College, Oxford from 1822 and bishop of Chichester.-Life:...
laid the foundation stone. The architect George Truefitt was commissioned to design the church. In its original form, it opened on 10 July 1868 after Bishop Gilbert consecrated it. Long-time East Worthing resident Alfred Longley, who wrote several books about the area, recorded the name of the builder as a Mr Longhurst.
St George's Church was extended twice in the first 16 years of its existence. As built in 1868, it consisted of a chancel
Chancel
In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar in the sanctuary at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building...
with apsidal end
Apse
In architecture, the apse is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome...
, nave
Nave
In Romanesque and Gothic Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar, the main body of the church. "Nave" was probably suggested by the keel shape of its vaulting...
and a small belfry
Bell tower
A bell tower is a tower which contains one or more bells, or which is designed to hold bells, even if it has none. In the European tradition, such a tower most commonly serves as part of a church and contains church bells. When attached to a city hall or other civic building, especially in...
. In 1875, two porches and a vestry
Vestry
A vestry is a room in or attached to a church or synagogue in which the vestments, vessels, records, etc., are kept , and in which the clergy and choir robe or don their vestments for divine service....
were built. Nine years later, the interior was changed by the addition of a transept
Transept
For the periodical go to The Transept.A transept is a transverse section, of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In Christian churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform building in Romanesque and Gothic Christian church architecture...
between the nave and the sanctuary. A tower was planned, but only a stump was ever built. Architectural sketches of the proposed tower showed a tall, spire-topped structure with lancet
Lancet window
A lancet window is a tall narrow window with a pointed arch at its top. It acquired the "lancet" name from its resemblance to a lance. Instances of this architectural motif are most often found in Gothic and ecclesiastical structures, where they are often placed singly or in pairs.The motif first...
openings rising at the southwest corner. Architect H. Overnell designed the church hall, which stands to the south, in 1935. A vicarage was established in nearby Selden Road in the early 1900s.
The church was always parished
Parish church
A parish church , in Christianity, is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish, the basic administrative unit of episcopal churches....
: in 1867, a parish was created out of the southeastern part of the area administered by St Mary's Church at Broadwater. The advowson
Advowson
Advowson is the right in English law of a patron to present or appoint a nominee to a vacant ecclesiastical benefice or church living, a process known as presentation. In effect this means the right to nominate a person to hold a church office in a parish...
originally lay with the rector of that church, but passed to the National Protestant Church Union in 1903. Its successor, the Church Society Trust, retains it as of . The rector had owned the land originally, and offered it free of charge to allow the church to be built.
St George's Church founded a school
National school (England and Wales)
A national school was a school founded in 19th century England and Wales by the National Society for Promoting Religious Education.These schools provided elementary education, in accordance with the teaching of the Church of England, to the children of the poor.Together with the less numerous...
in the parish in 1874. St George's National School stood on Lyndhurst Road (50.8146°N 0.3676°W); its popularity resulted in the brick and flint buildings being enlarged twice by 1897, but in 1940 it was closed and the pupils dispersed to other schools. In 1985, the site was cleared to make way for a supermarket.
Architecture
St George's Church has been praised for its architectural quality, especially in view of its relatively low cost of construction: the budget was set at £5,000 (£ as of ). Unusually, it was built on a north–south alignment, so the geographical and ritual directionsCathedral diagram
In Western ecclesiastical architecture, a cathedral diagram is a floor plan showing the sections of walls and piers, giving an idea of the profiles of their columns and ribbing. Light double lines in perimeter walls indicate glazed windows. Dashed lines show the ribs of the vaulting overhead...
are different. The building is in the Decorated Gothic style with some Perpendicular Gothic elements, and is of Bargate stone
Bargate stone
Bargate stone is a highly durable form of sandstone, which was quarried for centuries in south west Surrey, England - particularly around Guildford and Godalming. It owes its yellow, ‘butter’ colouring to the high iron oxide content....
rubble
Rubble
Rubble is broken stone, of irregular size, shape and texture. This word is closely connected in derivation with "rubbish", which was formerly also applied to what we now call "rubble". Rubble naturally found in the soil is known also as brash...
with courses
Course (architecture)
A course is a continuous horizontal layer of similarly-sized building material one unit high, usually in a wall. The term is almost always used in conjunction with unit masonry such as brick, cut stone, or concrete masonry units .-Styles:...
of ashlar
Ashlar
Ashlar is prepared stone work of any type of stone. Masonry using such stones laid in parallel courses is known as ashlar masonry, whereas masonry using irregularly shaped stones is known as rubble masonry. Ashlar blocks are rectangular cuboid blocks that are masonry sculpted to have square edges...
. The roof is covered with red tiles.
The plan features a wide chancel and aisled nave, both of which have prominent apse
Apse
In architecture, the apse is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome...
s at the geographical north end, a gable
Gable
A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of a sloping roof. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system being used and aesthetic concerns. Thus the type of roof enclosing the volume dictates the shape of the gable...
-roofed entrance porch leading to a narthex
Narthex
The narthex of a church is the entrance or lobby area, located at the end of the nave, at the far end from the church's main altar. Traditionally the narthex was a part of the church building, but was not considered part of the church proper...
with hipped roofs
Hip roof
A hip roof, or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope. Thus it is a house with no gables or other vertical sides to the roof. A square hip roof is shaped like a pyramid. Hip roofs on the houses could have two triangular side...
, a small belfry topped with a stone spirelet, and a vestry. Most of the windows are small lancets, such as the range of six above the entrance porch, but the five around the chancel apse are taller. The interior is simple and open, and reminded architectural historians Ian Nairn
Ian Nairn
Ian Nairn was a British architectural critic and topographer.He had no formal architecture qualifications; he was a mathematics graduate and a Royal Air Force pilot...
and Nikolaus Pevsner
Nikolaus Pevsner
Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner, CBE, FBA was a German-born British scholar of history of art and, especially, of history of architecture...
of Sir Christopher Wren's
Christopher Wren
Sir Christopher Wren FRS is one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history.He used to be accorded responsibility for rebuilding 51 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666, including his masterpiece, St. Paul's Cathedral, on Ludgate Hill, completed in 1710...
ecclesiastical works: they described it as "very intelligent, rational, [...] logical [and lacking] the artificial piety of the 1860s".
Mission chapels
Many mission chapels, or mission halls, were established in Worthing in the late 19th and early 20th century, as the population grew faster than the existing parish churches could cater for. Such buildings were rudimentary chapels of easeChapel of ease
A chapel of ease is a church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently....
served by the clergy of the founding church, and were intended to be used temporarily until proper provision could be made for worship, in the form of a new permanent church or an extension to an existing building. Three such chapels were established by St George's Church; two still stand as of , and the other became a separate church in its own right before being demolished.
Newland Road Mission Hall was the first to be established. It was built in 1883 at the corner of Newland Road and Station Road (50.8184°N 0.3686°W). The brick building was used for worship until 1936, and is now used as a studio. Two years later, the tiny Ham Arch Mission was created in a hut on Ham Road (50.8194°N 0.3538°W) in the east of the parish. The structure, one of the smallest places of worship in Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
and now used as a garage, was referred to in jest as "The Cathedral" by locals during its 29 years of religious use. The Emmanuel Mission Hall, on Brougham Road (50.8169°N 0.3507°W), was built in 1911 and replaced by an octagonal permanent church, also dedicated to Emmanuel, in 1976. This was closed and demolished in 2008.
The church today
St George's Church was listed at Grade C by English HeritageEnglish Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...
on 21 May 1976. Grade C was the lowest rank on an old grading system used for Anglican churches, before English Heritage extended the standard Grade I, II* and II scheme to all types of building. A small number of churches remain on the old scheme, on which Grade C is equivalent to Grade II. As of February 2001, it was one of 198 Grade II- or C-listed buildings, and 213 listed buildings of all grades, in the Borough of Worthing. (These totals have since changed because of new listings and delistings.)
The parish covers the southeastern part of Worthing borough. Its boundaries are the railway line
West Coastway Line
The West Coastway Line is a railway line in England, along the south coast of West Sussex and Hampshire, between Brighton and Southampton, plus the short branches to Littlehampton and Bognor Regis....
to the north, the border with Adur district to the east, the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
to the south and the High Street and Steyne to the west.
Worship is in a Conservative evangelical style in the Anglican tradition, mostly using the Common Worship
Common Worship
Common Worship is the name given to the series of services authorised by the General Synod of the Church of England and launched on the first Sunday of Advent in 2000. It represents the most recent stage of development of the Liturgical Movement within the Church and is the successor to the...
series of worship materials. There are two services on Sundays, one of which is a Eucharistic service using the Book of Common Prayer
Book of Common Prayer
The Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...
; Sunday evening prayer services; and a range of community and church-related events during the week.