Church of St Mark

Details

BRIGHTON

TQ3303NW EASTERN ROAD
577-1/50/248 (North side)
Church of St Mark

II

Anglican church, now chapel and concert hall for St Mary's
Hall School (qv). 1840-1849. Built on land given to St Mary's
Hall School by the Marquess of Bristol; designed by Thomas
Cooper. New chancel, vestry and parish rooms added in
1891-1892 by W Gilbert Scott; chancel decorated in 1913.
Concrete cast in blocks to resemble Kentish ragstone; stucco
scored to imitate ashlaring on the north side; east and
south-east extensions in roughly dressed ashlaring with stone
dressings; all roofs of slate.
PLAN: chancel of one bay, with a vestry and organ chamber to
the north and south respectively. The choir enclosure projects
partly into the 7-bay nave; north and south aisles defined by
tall, thin cast-iron columns. Parish rooms built off the 3
eastern bays of the nave on the south side; the rooms entered
originally by a 2-bay, pointed-arch arcade. West tower of 4
stages with octagonal spire. To either side of the tower,
entrance porches with lean-to roofs. Gothic Revival in the
Early English style.
EXTERIOR: because the fabric is of 2 builds, the following
description will proceed chronologically. There is no trace of
the original east end. The north and south elevations are
identical, each interior bay marked by a single lancet and
separated by a shallow buttress of 4 stages. The west tower
has one lancet with very broad splays to each stage; corner
buttresses set back at each stage; the porches to either side
have lean-to roofs which are slightly lower than the nave roof
behind. 3 pointed-arch entrances in west elevation, all with
dripstones and exceptionally deep splays. Small, spirelet
pinnacles above each of the corner buttresses of the tower
which has a thin, recessed spire. The nave and aisles are
formed from one large, rectangular space subdivided by tall,
thin cast-iron colonnettes. One wood collar-beam truss for
each bay of the nave. The angle between beam and truss is
strutted by an iron traceried spandrel. Running lengthwise
between the post on one side of the nave is a principal
purlin, stiffened by struts filled with tri-lobed Gothic
mouchettes. The boarded ceiling follows the steep roof pitch
to centre of nave, where it flattens. West gallery on separate
supports; traceried gallery front; this may have been added
later as it does not conform to the bay system and occludes
the aisle windows.
The late C19 extensions to the south and south-east have
similar elevations organized around the picturesque massing of
steep facing gables. The 2-bay south extension has two 3-light
tracery windows each under a gable; 3 lancets in the west
wall; corner buttresses of 2 setbacks topped by pinnacles; and
a continuous sill band. The chancel with a separate organ
chamber are connected by a sill band, and have 3- and single
light traceried windows respectively as well as shallow
buttresses. To the south of the organ chamber a single storey
entrance porch and its accompanying stairs and piers. The
single-storey vestry to the north has a 3-light, plate-tracery
window; single storey utility room to the north. The
south-west extension is entered by a 2-bay, pointed-arch
arcade, now blocked, supported by polished granite columns.
There are oak boarded roofs with moulded principals and carved
bosses to the south-east extension and the vestry. The organ
projects from the chamber through a single pointed-arched bay
to the nave and chancel; sedilia applied to the organ case.
The chancel is raised above the nave and demarcated by a low
parapet wall of cast metal (the pulpit is cast of the same
material) painted to resemble stone. This wall projects into
the nave and encloses a choir seated with carved wood stalls
in collegiate arrangement. The sacrarium is further set off
from the nave by a chancel arch supported on polished stone,
corbelled shafts; the ceiling is a boarded barrel vault. The
wall surfaces are marked out by blank pointed-arch arcading
filled with polychromatic revetments. Along the east wall runs
a carved and pointed-arch arcade to the height of the east
window sill; the reredos is formed from a smaller arcade. The
fittings of the chancel date to the 1890s, while the
polychromatic decoration and reredos are, according to a
plaque in the chancel, a memorial to Henry and Fanny Abbey,
and dated 1913. The church was noted in "The Builder" (1847,
V, 443) along with several concrete houses in Brighton.
(Transactions of the Newcommen Society: Crook JM: Sir Robert
Smirke: Pioneer of Concrete Construction: 1965-1966: NOTE ON
PAGE 9; The Builder : 5: London: 1847-: 443).



Listing NGR: TQ3309303711

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

480672

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
The Builder in The Builder, (1847), 443
Crook, J M, Transactions of the Newcommen Society in Sir Robert Smirke Pioneer of Concrete Construction, (1965-1966), 9

End of official list entry

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