Details
BRIGHTON
TQ3104NW ST PETER'S PLACE
577-1/33/3 Church of St Peter (Brighton Parish
13/10/52 Church)
GV II*
Anglican church. Nave, aisles and west tower 1824-8 by Sir
Charles Barry; the nave and aisles lengthened by one bay and a
new chancel, vestry and south-east chapel added in 1898-1906
by George Somers Clarke the Younger and JT Micklethwaite;
memorial hall to north added 1927. Ashlar, of Portland stone
for Barry's work, and of Sussex sandstone for that of
1898-1906, roof obscured by parapet.
PLAN: chancel, north-east vestry and south-east chapel, nave,
north and south aisles, west tower, memorial hall (all
directions are ritual). Broadly, Perpendicular Gothic in
style, the windows having rectilinear tracery except where
specified.
EXTERIOR: the east end has pinnacled angle buttresses; east
window 4-centred with 11 lights set under an ogee hoodmould
with a crowstepped gable above and emblems on shields in the
spandrels; on the north side the chancel has an arcade of 6
3-light windows at clerestory level, then a canted tower, and
then 2 more 3-light windows; on the south side there is a
south-east chapel of 4 bays, its east window of 5 lights under
a depressed arch and the south side having a 4-centred-arched
entrance under a lean-to roof with ogee hoodmould, flanking
lesenes, a band of dogtooth ornament and cornice, with four
4-centred, 4-light windows alongside, between pinnacled and
crocketed buttresses; embattled parapet; the chancel
clerestory is as for the north side.
South aisle of 5 bays with pointed-arched, 3-light windows
under hoodmoulds with head stops, the windows divided
horizontally by a broad band of panel tracery corresponding to
the former galleries; pinnacled and crocketed buttresses
between; clerestory of 5 flat-arched windows with trefoiled
and intersecting tracery between pinnacles; parapet pierced by
quatrefoils and punctuated by gablets; the west end of this
aisle has a pointed-arched entrance with steep gabled
extrados, the tympanum filled with blank tracery and flanked
by blind arcading, the whole under a 3-light window with
curvilinear tracery and hoodmould with headstops. The north
aisle is of matching design except that it was extended by
Somers Clarke and Micklethwaite by one bay towards the east,
the window tracery in this bay matching that of the chancel.
Until the parapet is reached, the tower is almost as wide as
the nave; buttressed octagonal piers at the corners; tall,
shallow, pointed-arched and vaulted recesses on each of the
open sides, and of identical design: they are flanked by
moulded and pinnacled buttresses and have 2 orders of
colonnettes crowned by an ogee hoodmould; pointed-arched
entrance under a flat-arched hoodmould with quatrefoils in the
spandrels surmounted by a band of blind arcading and then by a
3-light window with curvilinear tracery; the door itself
panelled with blank tracery.
The parapet of the nave continues round the tower with
octagonal piers as crocketed pinnacles at the 4 corners; then,
also square but set back from the parapet, the tower proper
with small flying buttresses from the corner piers and
octagonal piers at its own 4 corners; clock stage; 2-light
belfry openings under an ogee hoodmould, the hoodmould flanked
by blank tracery; parapet pierced by quatrefoils with corner
and subsidiary side pinnacles.
The memorial hall is rendered with stone dressings and roof of
slate; it is 5-and-a-half bays long and has an 'east window'
with 5 stepped lancets and a transom band; the 5 windows on
the long side of 3 lights, Tudor-arched, between shallow
buttresses; entrance in canted bay.
INTERIOR: chancel and first bay of nave faced in stone, the
rest of the church in plaster. Sanctuary has niches and
sedilia with crocketed canopies to south side; choir arcade of
2 bays, the second bay to the north containing the organ which
is by Henry Willis, of late C19 date, with a case of c1965 by
AJ Denman; the arcades consist of clustered columns with wave
mouldings; vault shafts supporting wooden brackets break
through the coved frieze of scrolling foliage at wall-plate
level; low-pitched, panelled roof with bosses and painted
emblems; 2 corbelled and chamfered piers, each with a niche
in, running up through the roof mark the transition from
chancel to nave. Nave of 6 bays, the easternmost of 1898-1906,
the arcade consisting of clustered columns with hollow
mouldings, the columns to the nave and aisles acting as
vault-shafts; the aisles and west end were galleried until
1898; sexpartite plaster roof to nave, with foliate bosses;
canted apse at west end.
South-east chapel of 1898 with flat panelled ceiling and a
reredos in late Gothic style incorporating a triptych of
c1918, painted by Edward A Fellowes Prynne. First bay of both
aisles has a flat ceiling, and that to the south has a
flat-arched entrance with an ornate crocketed archivolt of
ogee profile. Quadripartite vaulting to aisles. Dado panelling
to aisles and base of nave arcade. Octagonal pulpit of wood on
a stone base, with late Gothic detailing, 1907; 2 trefoiled
lancets either side of the apsed west end whose embrasures are
stencilled in the style of GF Bodley; east window, and east
and south-east windows in south chapel, by CE Kempe; Jesse
window in north aisle by Hugh Easton. Wall monuments at west
end include that to Joseph Allan, who died in 1851, a
bracketed bust with drapery over, and to Emily Jane Crozier, a
female figure with urn on column.
(Carder T: The Encyclopaedia of Brighton: Lewes: 1990-;
Pevsner N & Nairn I: The Buildings of England: Sussex:
Harmondsworth: 1965-; Brighton Parish Church (church guide)).
Listing NGR: TQ3144704857
