St Nicholas Church, Brighton
St. Nicholas of Myra, Brighton | |
---|---|
Chichester | |
Deanery | Brighton |
Parish | Brighton, St Nicholas |
Clergy | |
Vicar(s) | Fr Dominic Keech |
Assistant priest(s) |
|
Laity | |
Organist(s) | Dominic Desouza-Campbell |
Churchwarden(s) | Stephen Tucker Amanda Ogilvie |
The Church of
Early history
The
Construction of the present church
In its current form, St. Nicholas church dates from the mid-14th century. A font from that period is preserved within the church.[3] It was carved in around 1170 and in 2001 was relocated to a prominent position at the west end of the church - the latest of several moves over the centuries.[2]
The church, as originally constructed in the 14th century, consists of a substantial tower at the west end, a chancel and an aisled nave. Early additions include a chantry, dating from the 15th century; these additional chapels were relatively common at that time.
A devastating attack from abroad occurred in June 1514,[5] when French raiders landed on the coast and burned the surrounding village (by now known as Brighthelmstone)[6] in its entirety. Only the church, standing some distance inland and above the fire, survived.
The church was damaged twice in under two years by severe storms which caused significant destruction and loss of life elsewhere in Brighton, especially in the buildings of the "lower town" by the coast. The
Later in the 18th century, as Brighton's population began to grow, a series of pews, radiating outwards from the font in the centre, were installed. In the second half of that century, when the town's popularity grew substantially in response to
A model of the interior layout prior to the 1853 reconstruction can be seen today in one corner of the church.[2]
Patron of the church
The ancient Southover Priory in Lewes was responsible for the church from the end of the 11th century until 1537, when the last prior surrendered it to
Rebuilding in 1853
Brighton underwent considerable change during the reign of
The situation was resolved, however, in 1852, when the Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, died. There were historical links between the Duke and both Rev. Wagner and St. Nicholas Church itself: as a child in the 1780s, he studied for a time at an academy in Nile Street (in what is now The Lanes in the city centre) run by Rev. Wagner's grandfather Rev. Henry Michell; he attended St. Nicholas Church, which at the time was under the curacy of Rev. Michell, to worship; and his sons were taught by Rev. Wagner himself for eight years from 1818.[11] Rev. Wagner therefore announced that he would start a fund to pay for the rebuilding of the church as a memorial to the Duke, and donated the first £1,000. Nearly £5,000 more was subsequently raised from public subscriptions and donations.[12]
The architect Richard Cromwell Carpenter, associated with the architectural aspects of the Cambridge Movement and Tractarianism, was chosen to rebuild St Nicholas Church, after authorisation was granted on 15 April 1853 for demolition and reconstruction.[12] The project was completed quite rapidly, given the size of the building, by Carpenter and the appointed building firm (Bushby's of Littlehampton): the church was reopened on 8 April 1854, about nine months after work started.[13]
Work included a new roof; a doubling of the width of the original aisles, and extensions to some of them; a reduction in the size of the chantry; the creation of an organ-chamber and a new east window; the removal of all galleries and original box-pews; and the moving of the font to a position near the south door, which it occupied until the latest move in 2001.[12] A stone cross was installed to commemorate the Duke of Wellington. Carpenter himself died only a year after the project was completed, and a memorial plaque - now lost - was installed in recognition of his life and works. The reconstruction, which cost £5,769, reduced the capacity of the church by approximately 30% to around 900 because the galleries were removed.[14]
Subsequent work
Much work was carried out over the next fifty years, mostly in the form of additions to or replacements of existing fixtures; nevertheless, many of the original mediaeval features of the church were either lost or had their impact reduced.
Somers Clarke, the clerk of the administrative vestry for 62 years from 1830, donated a new pulpit to the church in 1867, after the original three-deck structure was removed by Carpenter and replaced with a much smaller wooden example. Clarke's pulpit was made of iron.[14] A new organ, costing £500, was installed in 1872, and a new vestry was built between 1876 and 1877 to the north of the chancel.[9][14]
Between 1878 and 1887, a number of
A significant alteration was made in 1892, when the whole roof was removed and lifted mechanically in order to create more space internally. The gap was filled with a series of clerestory windows, and various paintings and murals were added to the new internal space painted by Charles Eamer Kempe.[9][16]
The 15th-century chantry chapel underwent another change in 1900. Having been reduced in size in the 1853 redevelopment, it was enlarged again, before being converted into a Lady chapel in 1909.[16]
Bells
The first peal of bells, ten in total, was presented to the church in 1777 by
It became traditional for the bells to be rung when important visitors, especially monarchs or other members of the Royal Family, came to the town; a series of tablets preserved at the base of the ringing chamber give details of each "special occasion" on which the bells were rung for an extended period, such as
Churchyard
St Nicholas Church is surrounded by a
The oldest memorial is that of Captain Nicholas Tattersell. He took King Charles II from Shoreham harbour to France in 1651 in Surprise, a coal ship he captained. See here for full details of the King's escape from the Battle of Worcester and his passage to Fécamp in Normandy. Upon King Charles's return to Britain in 1660, he granted Tattersell a pension of £100 per year, and Surprise was transferred into the Royal Navy's fleet and renamed The Royal Escape.[22]
John Weiss of John Weiss & Son, the eminent surgical instrument makers, was entombed here in 1843. Weiss had an abiding fear of being buried alive and to ensure his death he devised a metal spike which would penetrate his heart when the lid was lowered on his coffin.[23]
Phoebe Hessel, a famous 18th- and 19th-century resident of Brighton, is buried close by. She fell in love with a soldier, William Golding, at the age of 15, and disguised herself as a man to enlist alongside him in the British Army after he was sent overseas. The concealment of her sex was so effective that she served for 17 years until voluntarily revealing the truth to her commanding officer's wife and being discharged; even after suffering a wounded arm at the Battle of Fontenoy in 1745, she was not discovered during her treatment. She became a well-known figure after moving to Brighton following the death of Golding in the 1760s, and lived to the age of 108—being granted a special pension by the Prince Regent, and travelling in the procession during his coronation as King George IV.[24]
Martha Gunn, one of the town's best-known residents in the 18th and 19th centuries, is also buried in the churchyard. She was the most famous of Brighton's dippers, who helped non-swimmers bathe in the sea (using horse-drawn bathing machines) in the decades after Dr. Richard Russell's advice became popular. Dippers had to be of the same sex as their client (or "bathee"), and Martha Gunn was well regarded for many years by locals and visitors, with her size and strength being a particular advantage in this difficult physical task.[25][26]
Other people important in the history of Brighton to be buried in the churchyard include
The first extension to the churchyard was built in 1824, across Church Street to the north. This has been converted into a playground. Another modest extension was made in 1831, but the most significant change came in 1841 when land to the west of what is now Dyke Road (then named Church Hill) was acquired and used to form a much larger burial ground.[32] This western extension was laid out by Regency architect Amon Henry Wilds and contains a series of burial vaults with Grade II listed status.
The church today
St Nicholas' Church was listed at Grade II* on 13 October 1952.[1] 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.[33]
Having been Brighton's parish church for several centuries, St Nicholas Church lost this status in 1873 when the Bishop of Chichester reorganised the entire structure of Brighton's parishes. St Peter's Church had been constructed in 1828 as a chapel of ease associated with St Nicholas Church; in 1873, the two were separated and each allocated their own parish, and St Peter's became Brighton's parish church—perhaps because of its more central location (following the development of the town around it).[34][35] St Nicholas Church is still widely known as "The Mother Church of Brighton", though.[36][37]
Sunday services are held at 8.00am and 10.30am, and 20-minute morning and evening prayer sessions are held on every other day of the week. Other activities include a Sunday school, a youth group and regular live music.[36]
Photo gallery
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View of St Nicholas Church from the graveyard
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Plaque on the east wall of the church
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The tower, incorporating stones and blocks of Norman origin
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A closer look at the tower
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View of the northern and western sides
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The south doorway
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The south side of the church, showing the clerestory windows dating from 1892
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The Perpendicular east window
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The font
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View of the tower from the northwestern side
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Phoebe Hessel's tombstone
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Martha Gunn's tombstone
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View across the original churchyard
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The 1841 burial ground
See also
- Cemeteries and crematoria in Brighton and Hove
- List of places of worship in Brighton and Hove
- List of works by R. C. Carpenter
References
Notes
- ^ a b Historic England (2007). "Church of St Nicholas of Myra, Dyke Road (east side), Brighton (1380453)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 14 January 2010.
- ^ a b c "St. Nicholas, Brighton: the building and its history". Archived from the original on 27 October 2009.
- ^ a b Dale 1989, p. 1.
- ^ Musgrave 1981, p. 24.
- ^ Musgrave 1981, pp. 25–26.
- ^ Musgrave 1981, p. 26.
- ^ Musgrave 1981, pp. 44–45.
- ^ a b c Dale 1989, p. 2.
- ^ a b c "The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland: St. Nicholas, Brighton". Archived from the original on 27 September 2007.
- ^ Dale 1989, Introduction, p. xi.
- ^ a b Dale 1989, p. 3.
- ^ a b c Dale 1989, p. 4.
- ^ Dale 1989, pp. 4–5.
- ^ a b c Dale 1989, p. 5.
- ^ Dale 1989, pp. 5–6.
- ^ a b Dale 1989, p. 6.
- ^ "Living Gloucester - the origins of Gloucester bell founding". Archived from the original on 29 May 2007.
- ^ "Brighton S Nicholas". Dove's Guide for Church Bell Ringers. 17 November 2006. Retrieved 30 July 2009.
- ^ Dale 1989, pp. 8–9.
- ^ "Performance Details—Non Association—Brighton, Sussex—St Nicolas of Myra Thursday, 30 July 2009". Campanophile. 30 July 2009. Retrieved 30 July 2009.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Dale 1989, p. 10.
- ^ Dale 1989, pp. 10–11.
- ^ "Mr Weiss and his Instrument of Certain Death". 18 September 2010.
- ^ Dale 1989, pp. 11–12.
- ^ Dale 1989, pp. 12–13.
- ^ "Women of Brighton: Martha Gunn (note that this page misquotes her birth date as 1776 instead of 1726)". Archived from the original on 22 July 2003.
- ^ Dale 1989, pp. 13–14.
- ^ "Women of Brighton: Anna Maria Crouch". Archived from the original on 23 August 2010.
- ^ The travels of Dean Mahomet, pp. 148–149, 155–156, 160.
- S2CID 161906676.
- ^ Dale 1989, pp. 15–16.
- ^ a b Dale 1989, p. 17.
- ^ "Images of England — Statistics by County (East Sussex)". Images of England. English Heritage. 2007. Archived from the original on 23 October 2012. Retrieved 27 December 2012.
- ^ Dale 1989, p. 22.
- ^ "The History of St Peter's Church Brighton". Archived from the original on 21 October 2006.
- ^ a b "A Church Near You - St. Nicholas of Myra Church".
- ^ "Regency Square Area Society - St. Nicholas Church".
Bibliography
- Dale, Antony (1989). Brighton Churches. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-00863-8.
- Musgrave, Clifford (1981). Life in Brighton. Rochester: Rochester Press. ISBN 0-571-09285-3.
External links
- Brighton Mortiquarian - Gazetteer of St Nicholas Burial Ground
- Church website
- Diocese of Chichester directory of churches: entry for St Nicholas
- A Church Near You - entry for St Nicholas
- Regency Square Area Society - entry for St Nicholas
- My Brighton and Hove - St Nicholas main page
- The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland