Details
BRIGHTON
TQ3004NW VICTORIA ROAD
577-1/31/948 (North side)
20/08/71 Church of St Michael and All Angels
and attached walls
(Formerly Listed as:
VICTORIA ROAD
St Michael and All Angels Church)
I
Anglican church. In origin, this is 2 churches, the first
designed by George Frederick Bodley in 1858 and built in
1861-2, the second designed by William Burges in 1868 but not
built until 1892-c1900, after Burges had died; the architect
responsible was John Starling Chapple. The first building
became the south aisle of the second. Both buildings for the
Rev Charles Beanlands, one of Fr Wagner's curates. Red brick
set in English bond, with dressings and bands of stone and
blue brick to the first building, and of stone to the second;
roofs of slate.
PLAN: nave and chancel under a single roof; north-east
vestries; north aisle; south aisle formed from the first
church with its own south aisle forming an outer aisle;
porches at the north-west and south-west corners; arcaded
fleche over the south aisle.
EXTERIOR: the character of the first building is given by the
banding of the walls and the treatment of the windows which
are usually formed of grouped lancets and a circular window
over, with plate tracery, the whole set under an arch or
archivolt; in these respects the exterior of the second church
follows that of the first.
The east end has 3 stepped and chamfered lancets set back
under a pointed arch, a single lancet in the gable and a cross
to the apex; vestries of 2 and 3 storeys with canted bay to
east, upper windows in the form of paired cusped lancets with
sexfoils over, parapet and low tower with conical stone roof
in north-west corner; south aisle east window has 5 lancets
under a quasi-rose window consisting of a quatrefoil
surrounded by 12 circles, the whole set back under a pointed
arch with voussoirs of brick and stone and a stone hoodmould;
cross to the apex of the gable; the outer south aisle has a
window of 2 lancets with a small circle in the spandrel under
a round-arch with voussoirs of brick and stone.
The south side of the church presents a wall to the original
south aisle, unwindowed apart from a pair of low cusped
lancets; the aisle runs through a gabled buttress attached to
the body of the first building between nave and chancel.
Clerestory of 6 bays, the windows with 2 lancets under
circular openings, set under round arches to the former
chancel and pointed arches to the former nave; the former
chancel and east chapel have bands of nailhead carving to the
eaves.
The north side of the church has a broad aisle of 4 bays, the
windows consisting of 2 lancets under a cinquefoil, the window
openings only dressed in stone and the whole set back under a
pointed arch of brick with stone springing band; clerestory of
6 bays with buttress and gabled chimney between the second and
third; the first 2 bays have single lancets set back under
broad, linked pointed arches with heads of stone; the nave
windows are 2 lancets under a circle set back under a pointed
arch of brick with stone springing bands.
The west end has an offset below the west window except to the
sides where the wall continues up as gabled buttresses; west
window of 4 lancets and a wheel window under a pointed arch of
stone; the west end of the north aisle has 2 lancets under a
blank rose window and billets to the parapet; the north porch
has a flat-arched entrance to the right, with 3 linked windows
to the south: 2 lancets with engaged columns and a circle
under a pointed arch of brick and stone; low walls to this
part with chamfered stone coping. The west end of the first
building has a similar arrangement of offset and buttresses; 2
windows of 2 lancets under a sexfoil, the whole under a
pointed arch of chamfered stonework; rose window in the gable
in the form of a sevenfoil surrounded by 7 circles. The outer
south aisle has a window of 2 lancets with a small circle in
the spandrel under a pointed arch of chamfered stone with
hoodmould. Porch with flat-arched entrance having a stone
lintel supported on engaged columns with a circular window
over; 2 windows facing west and matching those of the north
porch. Ramped wall to steps with chamfered stone coping, and
outer iron railings now missing. Low wall of brick with gabled
coping extends eastwards from the east end of the south aisle
and northwards in Powis Road to the vestry gate.
INTERIOR: the second building has a chancel of 2 short bays, 4
bays to the nave and a short west bay occupied by an organ
gallery; except at the west end, the bays consist of an
arcade, triforium and clerestory and the whole is French C13
Gothic in style. The chancel is stepped up on 3 levels above
the nave, with only the sanctuary proper east of the chancel
arch, so that the choir occupies the first bay of the nave.
Sanctuary walls lined with banded and gilded alabaster; altar
of red and grey marble with fluted columns by Temple Moore of
1914; elaborate late-Gothic reredos by WH Romaine Walker,
c1900, framing a painting of Christ in glory; choir stalls
designed by Burges for the first church; rood beam to chancel
arch; low alabaster walls to the sanctuary and choir,
decorated with marble and mosaic, the choir walls with brass
gates; wrought-iron screens in a Renaissance manner between
the choir and both aisles.
The arcade to the west bay of the sanctuary and to the nave
consists of coupled columns with shaft rings, vault shafts,
foliage capitals and pointed arches with an inner order; blank
circles to the spandrels, bisected by the vault shafts. The
triforium has an arcade of 4 flat-arched openings in each bay,
grouped in twos, and flanked by engaged columns with foliage
capitals carrying a stilted-arched archivolt. Triforium and
clerestory are linked by a secondary, detached, inner arcade
which echoes the main tracery. An arcade of 2 arches carries
the organ gallery: short columns with foliage capitals and
pierced quatrefoils to the gallery; the central spandrel has a
statue of St Michael by Thomas Nicholls, the outer spandrels
trumpeting angels with the date 1912; north and south
entrances with a shouldered arch under a segmental arch.
Wooden, cross-vaulted ceiling.
The north aisle has a similar ceiling carried on vault shafts;
entrance to vestries shoulder-arched under a stilted arch;
twin entrances to porch flat-arched under a segmental arch.
The south aisle or first building consists of chancel, nave,
south-east chapel and its own south aisle. It is faced in
brick with dressings of stone and blue brick, and is early
Italian Gothic in character. Chancel east wall lined with
plain red encaustic tiles up to the level of a painted frieze
of angels in an arcade, now partly obscured by the reredos;
over the frieze, a cornice of foliage ornament which continues
on the side walls of the sanctuary; reredos of late Gothic
character; sanctuary floor paved with grey and white marble
and coloured encaustic tiles. The south wall of the chancel
has sedilia under a single cusped and pointed arch; west of
that, 2 pointed arches to the south chapel set under a single
pointed archivolt, the voussoirs partly of brick and partly of
inlaid marble, the spandrel decorated with a circle filled
with a cinquefoil in coloured marbles; wooden waggon ceiling
painted by William Morris and Philip Webb; low wall to the
chancel of grey, brown and chestnut marble decorated with
segmental inlays in green and white marble, and pierced by 2
pairs of low cusped arches; wrought-iron gates to the chancel;
chancel arch with inner order carried on short corbelled
columns.
The former nave has a 4-bay arcade, now only on the south
side: stout columns with foliage capitals supporting square
abaci, except for the easternmost which substitutes a pair of
granite columns; arches completely unmoulded and banded with
blue brick; blank stone circles to spandrels; walls to the
clerestory banded in brick and stone as for the exterior; pair
of west doors, flat-arched under a pointed arch, with
decorative wrought-iron hinges and strapping, the tympanum
painted with St Michael and angels. Waggon roof with
cross-beam and king post.
South-east chapel entered through internal buttress; panelling
to east end of c1920, C16 Flemish reredos; black-and
white-marble floor; ceiling painted in the style of Temple
Moore; light wrought-iron screen between former chancel and
aisle.
Pulpit designed by Burges: a simple cube faced in green marble
with plain grey and white marble coping, the whole carried on
a complex Burgesian arrangement of stumpy engaged columns and
marble banded with tiles.
Font, in the south aisle and presumably designed by Bodley for
the first church; octagonal, in grey marble, the drum
decorated with blank arcading and carried on an arcade of
short columns.
Triangular painted panel over door between vestry and chancel,
showing the Annunciation in Pre-Raphaelite style, presumably
ex situ.
STAINED GLASS: by Morris and Company of 1862 in the east
window of the south-east chapel (designed by William Morris
and Philip Webb); in the south windows of that chapel
(designed by Burne-Jones); in the west window of the south
aisle of the first building (designed by Burne-Jones) and in
the principal west window of the first building (designed by
William Morris, Ford Madox Brown, Peter Paul Marshall and
Burne-Jones). By Clayton and Bell in the principal east window
of the first building, c1862. By Lonsdale and Saunders in the
principal east and west windows of the second building, the
west window of 1895. By CE Kempe in the 3 westernmost windows
of the north aisle, 1914. And by Jones and Willis in the
easternmost window of the north aisle. The south chancel
windows of the first building are similar in style to the east
window. The glass in the clerestory of the first building, of
c1890, and in the eastern clerestory windows of the nave of
the second building, is of comparable interest.
The place of St Michael and All Angels in the church history
of Brighton, the architectural quality of both buildings and
of their fittings, and the range and quality of the stained
glass, make this a building of outstanding importance.
(Fawcett J (ed): Seven Victorian Architects: London: 1976-:
86-7; Mordaunt Crook J: William Burges and the High Victorian
Dream: London: 1981-: 209-15; Hyde-Smith J: Typescript listing
of stained-glass windows in St Michael's: 1990-; Pevsner N &
Nairn I: The Buildings of England: Sussex: Harmondsworth:
1965-).
Listing NGR: TQ3040104735
