St Martin's Church, Brighton
Encyclopedia
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
, England
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...
, dating from the mid-Victorian era
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
. It is located on the Lewes Road (the present A270) in the Round Hill
Round Hill, Brighton
Round Hill is an inner suburban area of Brighton, part of the coastal city of Brighton and Hove in England. The area contains a mix of privately owned and privately rented terraced housing, much of which has been converted for multiple occupancy, and small-scale commercial development...
area of the city, northeast of the city centre and approximately 1.1 miles (1.8 km) north of the seafront. It is part of the parish of The Resurrection, together with St Luke's Church
St Luke's Church, Queen's Park, Brighton
St Luke's Church is an Anglican church in the Queen's Park area of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. Occupying a large corner site on Queen's Park Road, it was designed in the 1880s by Sir Arthur Blomfield in the Early English style, and has been given listed building status...
(on Queen's Park Road, further to the east) and the now redundant St Alban's Church (on nearby Coombe Road).
Selecting the site
Although the church was built between 1872 and 1875 and consecrated on 1 May 1875, its founding was closely connected with the former Vicar of Brighton, Rev. Henry Michell Wagner, who had served the town from 1824 until his death in 1870. He had been responsible for the construction of several churches during his period of office, including St. Peter's, which later became the town's parish church. At the time of his death, he was planning the construction of another, and had set aside £3,000 from his personal wealth, but had not decided on a location or any other details.Rev. Wagner's son, Arthur, had been ordained in 1850. When his father died, Arthur inherited his wealth, and set out to build a church both to commemorate him and to fulfil the plans he had towards the end of his life. To achieve this, he convened with his half-brothers Joshua and Henry (junior) and decided on a site. The area chosen was largely under construction at the time, with large numbers of small terraced house
Terraced house
In architecture and city planning, a terrace house, terrace, row house, linked house or townhouse is a style of medium-density housing that originated in Great Britain in the late 17th century, where a row of identical or mirror-image houses share side walls...
s for poorer people being built to fill the space around the Lewes Road. Some of this development was funded by Arthur Wagner himself, and as neither this area nor the nearby Round Hill
Round Hill, Brighton
Round Hill is an inner suburban area of Brighton, part of the coastal city of Brighton and Hove in England. The area contains a mix of privately owned and privately rented terraced housing, much of which has been converted for multiple occupancy, and small-scale commercial development...
district had a proper church, it was considered appropriate to finance and oversee the building of a church at the same time. (A small temporary church which had been built on a nearby street became a school when St. Martin's Church opened.)
One action Rev. Henry Wagner had taken before his death was the creation of a "building committee", consisting of other prominent members of the local clergy. The three Wagners offered this committee a choice between constructing a new church on a site chosen by the committee members - in which case only the original £3,000 set aside for the project would be granted, with the committee paying for any work beyond this - and accepting a site chosen by the Wagners, in which case the brothers would bear the full cost. The committee decided to allow the Wagners to choose the site themselves; accordingly, a position on the west side of Lewes Road, just north of the bottom of Elm Grove, was selected.
Construction
The first bricks were laid in October 1872. A building contractor named Jabez Reynolds, son of Jabez Reynolds senior who had built about 1,000 houses including many significant buildings in Brighton and Hove, including the Cliftonville area of neighbouring HoveHove
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...
in the 1850s and 1860s, was chosen for the building work, while the architect was George Somers Leigh Clarke
George Somers Leigh Clarke
George Somers Clarke was an English architect. He became a RIBA Associate in March 1845 and a Fellow in June 1859. He sat on RIBA Council. In 1868 he had offices at 20 Cockspur Street, London...
, a long-standing friend of the Wagner family: his father had been Clerk of the Vestry (the equivalent of a modern-day parochial church council
Parochial Church Council
The parochial church council , is the executive body of a Church of England parish.-Powers and duties:Two Acts of Parliament define the powers and duties of PCCs...
) of Brighton since 1830, and had provided support to Rev. Henry Wagner during periods of tension between different sects and groups within the Vestry.
Clarke (junior) studied under the prominent architect Sir George Gilbert Scott
George Gilbert Scott
Sir George Gilbert Scott was an English architect of the Victorian Age, chiefly associated with the design, building and renovation of churches, cathedrals and workhouses...
, and his other projects included a collaboration with J. T. Micklethwaite on the design of the new 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...
at St. Peter's, the clerestory
Clerestory
Clerestory is an architectural term that historically denoted an upper level of a Roman basilica or of the nave of a Romanesque or Gothic church, the walls of which rise above the rooflines of the lower aisles and are pierced with windows. In modern usage, clerestory refers to any high windows...
at St. Nicholas, work on Chichester Cathedral
Chichester Cathedral
The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, otherwise called Chichester Cathedral, is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Chichester. It is located in Chichester, in Sussex, England...
and an 8-year surveying role at St Paul's Cathedral
St Paul's Cathedral
St Paul's Cathedral, London, is a Church of England cathedral and seat of the Bishop of London. Its dedication to Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on this site, founded in AD 604. St Paul's sits at the top of Ludgate Hill, the highest point in the City of London, and is the mother...
, London.
Design
Gothic Revival architecture
The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...
of the Early English style associated with 13th century churches. Its most notable exterior feature is its considerable height, accentuated by the modest height of the majority of the surrounding buildings; brown brick, offset in some places with red, predominates on the outside, and the layout of the church is standard: an aisled nave with chapels on each side, and a chancel. A tower was included in the original plans, but was not built: a small bell-arch with a single bell was built instead, towards the north end. The church is on a north-south (liturgical east-liturgical west
Cathedral 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...
) alignment parallel with the Lewes Road.
The entrance, at the south end, is raised above the rest of the church, and there is an unimpeded view across the nave and into the chancel and beyond. Octagonal stone columns topped by brick arches separate the aisles from the nave; above these arches are a series of clerestory windows. Twelve of these are stained glass
Stained glass
The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...
.
Although the marble altar is not original, dating from 1949, the large reredos
Reredos
thumb|300px|right|An altar and reredos from [[St. Josaphat's Roman Catholic Church|St. Josaphat Catholic Church]] in [[Detroit]], [[Michigan]]. This would be called a [[retable]] in many other languages and countries....
above it is. It consists of 20 pictures and 69 statues, all of which were carved in the German town of Oberammergau
Oberammergau
Oberammergau is a municipality in the district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in Bavaria, Germany. The town is famous for its production of a Passion Play, its woodcarvers, and the NATO School.-Passion Play:...
, noted worldwide for its woodcarving tradition. The original pulpit, dating from 1880, also remains: this, and the font
Baptismal font
A baptismal font is an article of church furniture or a fixture used for the baptism of children and adults.-Aspersion and affusion fonts:...
in the raised entrance area, are decorated with materials from the collection of the late Rev. Henry Wagner. The base of the pulpit contains olive wood
Olive
The olive , Olea europaea), is a species of a small tree in the family Oleaceae, native to the coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean Basin as well as northern Iran at the south end of the Caspian Sea.Its fruit, also called the olive, is of major agricultural importance in the...
collected from the Mount of Olives
Mount of Olives
The Mount of Olives is a mountain ridge in East Jerusalem with three peaks running from north to south. The highest, at-Tur, rises to 818 meters . It is named for the olive groves that once covered its slopes...
; and the font, built of Sussex marble
Sussex Marble
West Sussex has a good concentration of relatively thin layers of Sussex Marble within the Weald Clay, a freshwater limestone referred to as "marble" as it takes a polish. It is not a geologically described one as it has not been subject to metamorphosis...
and installed in 1907, contains a variety of other stones and marble from sites such as Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
and Pompeii
Pompeii
The city of Pompeii is a partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, Pompeii was destroyed and completely buried during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning...
, brought back to England by Rev. Wagner himself during his lifetime.
Consecration, opening and later events
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 church on 1 May 1875, and the vicar in charge of the temporary church nearby, Rev. R. I. Salmon, was appointed to the perpetual curacy of the new church by Rev. John Hannah, Rev. Wagner's successor as Vicar of Brighton.
Later in 1875, St. Martin's was granted its own parish: that of Brighton The Resurrection. This covers parts of the Lower Bevendean
Bevendean
Bevendean is a district of the city of Brighton and Hove, in East Sussex, England.The estate lies to the north-east of central Brighton, and was largely developed after World War II with a mixture of council housing and private development. A large proportion of the council houses are now privately...
, Queen's Park
Queen's Park, Brighton
Queen's Park is an administrative ward and a public park in Brighton, England.The area lies to the east of the centre of Brighton, north of Kemptown and south-east of Hanover. It is largely made up of Victorian terraced houses, with a smaller number of detached and semi-detached houses...
, Round Hill and South Moulsecoomb
Moulsecoomb
Moulsecoomb is a large suburb of Brighton, part of the city of Brighton and Hove. It is located on the northeastern side of Brighton, around the A270 Lewes Road, between the areas of Coldean and Bevendean and approximately 2¼ miles north of the seafront. The eastern edges of the built-up area...
areas.
The Lady chapel
Lady chapel
A Lady chapel, also called Mary chapel or Marian chapel, is a traditional English term for a chapel inside a cathedral, basilica, or large church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary...
was improved in 1925, the fiftieth anniversary of the consecration, as a memorial to Rev. Wagner, using money raised through a special collection. At the same time, part of the reredos was replaced.
The church was closely connected with the former Preston Barracks, situated further up the Lewes Road in the north of the parish. A gallery was built on the east side of the chancel for troops and members of military bands to participate in services; also, two different regiments erected memorials to comrades killed in the Battle of Khartoum
Battle of Khartoum
The Battle of Khartoum or Siege of Khartoum lasted from March 13, 1884 to January 26, 1885. It was fought in and around Khartoum between Egyptian forces led by British General Charles George Gordon and a Mahdist Sudanese army led by the self-proclaimed Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad...
in 1884 and 1885.
Organ
The organ at St. Martin's Church is a three-manual tracker action instrument, built in 1888 by the London firm of William Hill & Son—still named as such, despite the fact that William had died 18 years previously. The organ has 29 speaking stops; a full specification can be seen here.The present organist is Mr John Smee FASC FNMSM who was appointed in 1990 following a move from Cornwall, where he was an organist of St Budock Parish Church, Falmouth
Falmouth, Cornwall
Falmouth is a town, civil parish and port on the River Fal on the south coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It has a total resident population of 21,635.Falmouth is the terminus of the A39, which begins some 200 miles away in Bath, Somerset....
. Mr Smee is also Treasurer of the Parish, Foundation Governor of the Parish School and also Bursar to the North and Midland School of Music.
The church today
The church is a Grade II* listed building, defined as a "particularly significant building of more than local interest". As of February 2001, it was one of 70 Grade II*-listed buildings and structures, and 1,218 listed buildings of all grades, in the city of Brighton and Hove. A Sunday schoolSunday school
Sunday school is the generic name for many different types of religious education pursued on Sundays by various denominations.-England:The first Sunday school may have been opened in 1751 in St. Mary's Church, Nottingham. Another early start was made by Hannah Ball, a native of High Wycombe in...
operates every Sunday during term time. Sunday Mass takes place at 10.00am, with an Evening Prayer and Benediction service at 6.00pm. There is one service per day for the rest of the week, at 9.30am (Saturdays), 12.30pm (Wednesdays and Fridays) or 6.30pm (other days).