St John the Baptist's Church is an Anglican church in Hove

Hove

Hove is a town on the south coast of England, immediately to the west of its larger neighbour Brighton, with which it forms the unitary authority Brighton and Hove. It forms a single conurbation together with Brighton and some smaller towns and villages running along the coast...

, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. It was built between 1852 and 1854 to serve the community of the Brunswick area of Hove, which had originally been established in the 1830s.

History

The land on which the Brunswick estate was built was originally a farming estate known as Wick Farm. It was sold to Thomas Read Kemp

Thomas Read Kemp

Thomas Read Kemp was an English property developer and politician. He was the son of Sussex landowner Thomas Kemp, whose farmhouse in Brighton was rented by the Prince of Wales in 1786.-Biography:...

, who had been responsible for the Kemp Town

Kemp Town

Kemp Town is a 19th Century residential estate in the east of Brighton in East Sussex, England, UK. Kemp Town was conceived and financed by Thomas Read Kemp. It has given its name to the larger Kemptown region of Brighton....

 residential development in neighbouring Brighton

Brighton

Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...

, in 1825. Some houses had been built the previous year, and Read Kemp is believed to have planned to create a similar exclusive development on this land; but little happened until after it had been sold to the Jewish baronet

Baronet

A baronet or the rare female equivalent, a baronetess , is the holder of a hereditary baronetcy awarded by the British Crown...

 Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid

Isaac Lyon Goldsmid

Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid, Baronet was a financier and one of the leading figures in the Jewish emancipation in the United Kingdom....

 in 1830. Even then, it took another 20 years for the scheme to be altered and started properly.

Brunswick Town eventually consisted of 150 houses, many of which were exclusive and expensive, but there was no suitable church nearby. Hove's original parish church, St Andrew's, was difficult to reach, while the nearest church on the way to Brighton, also called St Andrew's, was small. Goldsmid therefore provided some land for a church to be built.

The decision to proceed with construction was taken by the diocese on 21 March 1851, and work started on 15 April 1852 after £4,500 had been raised through borrowings, private donations and a grant. Dr Ashurst Gilbert, 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...

, consecrated the new church on 24 June 1854.

Architecture

The architects William and Edward Habershon, brothers who operated as a partnership, designed the church in the Decorated Gothic style using flint and stone dressings. The cruciform

Cruciform

Cruciform means having the shape of a cross or Christian cross.- Cruciform architectural plan :This is a common description of Christian churches. In Early Christian, Byzantine and other Eastern Orthodox forms of church architecture this is more likely to mean a tetraconch plan, a Greek cross,...

 building has a tower at the eastern end; this was added in about 1870, as was the spire

Spire

A spire is a tapering conical or pyramidal structure on the top of a building, particularly a church tower. Etymologically, the word is derived from the Old English word spir, meaning a sprout, shoot, or stalk of grass....

. The lancet window

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...

s have tracery

Tracery

In architecture, Tracery is the stonework elements that support the glass in a Gothic window. The term probably derives from the 'tracing floors' on which the complex patterns of late Gothic windows were laid out.-Plate tracery:...

 in the Decorated style. A porch was added on the west side in 1906–07 by London-based architectural firm Rogers, Bone & Cole.

The church today

St John the Baptist's Church was listed at Grade II on 12 April 1983. As of February 2001, it was one of 1,124 buildings listed at that grade in Brighton and Hove; the status indicates that the building is considered "nationally important and of special interest".

As well as two Eucharist services on Sundays, there is a weekly Holy Communion service using the official 1662 version of 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...

, a monthly Communion service following the Celtic tradition

Celtic Rite

The term "Celtic Rite" is applied to the various liturgical rites used in Celtic Christianity in Great Britain, Ireland and Brittany, sporadically in Galicia and also in the monasteries founded by the Irish missions of St. Columbanus in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy during the early...

, a film-based discussion group, children's activities and a Sunday school.