Details
BRIGHTON
TQ3103NE ST JAMES'S STREET
577-1/47/819 (North side)
20/08/71 Church of St Mary the Virgin
(Formerly Listed as:
ST JAMES'S STREET
St Mary's Church)
II*
Anglican church. 1877-1878. To designs by William Emerson of
No.1 Westminster Chambers, London; his watercolour perspective
of the building shown at the Royal Academy in the spring of
1877; the builders were Messrs E Nash of Hove. Red brick in
Flemish bond with sandstone dressings on the outside; red and
white bricks with Bath stone trim inside. Roofs of slate with
terracotta ridge crests.
PLAN: the church is oriented with the ritual east end to the
north. All directions given below are ritual. Chancel of one
bay with 5-sided apse, 2 vestries to the south of the chancel
and an organ chamber and additional vestry to the north;
transepts of one bay each and nave of 4 bays with north and
south aisles; baptistery in semicircular projection at the
west end; entrance porch set in truncated tower at north-west,
another entrance porch at south-west. Neo-Gothic style.
EXTERIOR: single lancet in each facet of the apse, the hood
moulding of all linked to form a springing band; sill moulding
interrupted by angle buttresses of one setback dying into
springing course. Apse topped by a brick cornice, which is to
be found on most elevations. In the angle between the chancel
and the north transept is an organ chamber with lean-to roof,
a single lancet in each face; to the north of organ chamber a
stair to the loft; between the stair and the north face of the
organ chamber is a low porch with a pointed-arched entrance
and lean-to roof. Attached to organ chamber a low structure
with 3-sided projection to east end, perhaps intended as a
side chapel; brick and stone parapet, single lancet in east
face. Vestries to south obscured. The apse roof not continuous
with that over the transepts and nave.
End walls of transepts project slightly beyond line of
vestries and nave aisles; north transept has a 3-light window
with 6-foiled roundel in the head; between this window and the
5 pointed lights below is a string course. The lower transept
windows have simply chamfered jambs, stone sills and a
sandstone sill band; window arrangements on south transept are
identical. The transept string course returns to continue
along each aisle, each bay of which is illuminated by one
2-light window with 6-foiled head; each aisle bay has one
facing gable; flat buttresses of single set back to aisle
interrupts all hood mouldings and sill bands; clerestory is
relieved only by a string course just above the peak of the
gable ridges. Peak of west gable divided into stepped, brick
arcade of 7 bays, the centre 5 pierced by single stone
lancets; in the top half of the central brick bay is corbelled
niche.
The entrance porch at the ritual north-west corner of the nave
has a polygonal stair turret next to the aisle wall. Upper
stages of tower and spire never built; the tower finished with
a gable roof. The lower stage in the west face of the tower
contains what was meant to be the principal entrance to the
building: gabled aedicule topped by a cross, the tympanum
diapered; pointed arch below, subordered and having jamb
shafts; the haunches of the entrance arch intersected by a
blind, pointed-arch arcade of attached colonnettes with
stiff-leaf capitals. The springing course of the entrance arch
is carved with conventionalized representations of plants.
There is an additional shaft to either side of the entrance
itself, which is formed in stone rather than brick; the lintel
bears the inscription: Domum Tuam Decet Sanctitudo Domine;
niches above; stone tympanum pierced by 6-foiled roundel.
South-west entrance porch is less elaborately ornamented,
square in plan,of a single stage with hipped roof partly
hidden by a high parapet; pointed subordered stone arches over
a door frame in white stone; the jambs chamfered and
subordered; the south face lit by 2 lancets.
The baptistery elevation is treated as 3 bays marked by
buttresses which set back to become bases for paired stone
shafts; spanning each gap a subordered pointed arch; between
each buttress is a pointed stone window of 2 lights with
cinquefoil roundel to the head; each window set in an
elaborate aedicule; diapering to the aedicule gables.
INTERIOR: octapartite stone rib vaulting with brick webbing
over the sanctuary and choir of one bay; ribs spring from
piers with acanthus capitals, which are joined to the wall by
spurs supporting pointed barrel vaults. 6 steps up from nave
to choir and a further 2 to sanctuary. Chancel arch supported
by coupled shafts, the west return of which merge with the
crossing piers. Octapartite vaulting over the crossing,
diaphragm arches to north and south transepts, each of which
has one bay and is roofed by a pointed barrel vault of brick;
transept windows have stone plate tracery set in moulded brick
surrounds, those below have chamfered brick jambs. Chapel
formed to the east of the south transept by late C19 or early
C20 oak screens which come from All Souls, Eastern Road:
panelling below and cusped ogee arches above, the screen's
cornice decorated with flowers. East end of the north aisle
dedicated as a Chapel of Remembrance to the War Dead in 1924.
The nave ceiling is boarded and ribbed; in section it is
trilobed, with a horizontal band introduced between the coving
and barrel vault. Arcade piers comprised of 4 attached columns
with a roof shaft applied to the nave face; each is set on a
socle which is as high as the wood benches in the nave; wooden
rib rises from the shaft; intermediary roof ribs supported by
plain corbels. Each aisle bay is spanned by a pointed barrel
vault perpendicular to the axis of the nave. Spandrils of
plain brick to nave arcades; no triforium or clerestory. Walls
composed, in the upper reaches, of alternating courses of red
and brown brick and stone, becoming brown brick in the lower
areas. Baptistery of one bay raised by 4 steps above the floor
of the nave; entered through a diaphragm arch supported by
carved corbel blocks; roof vault of wood. The sanctuary and
choir floors are composed of mosaic, with marble steps down to
the crossing; white paving stones with small red tiles at the
corner to transept, central and side aisles. Oak blocks set in
herringbone pattern frame this pavement; oak open benches set
on paving of pine blocks laid in pitch; baptistery paved in
white stone. Underfloor hot-water heating grilles set at foot
of walls and along aisles.
Features of note include: very fine carved reredos of 1893
composed of blind, canopied arcade beneath which carving which
represents the resurrected Christ appearing to Mary at the
tomb with angels observing; the altar front shows the
Adoration of the Magi. The carving in the sanctuary is
historiated with figures representing the virtues. Carved
choir stalls arranged on collegiate pattern. The clergy stalls
on the north side date to 1926. All the other seating and
chancel fittings are by Hammer and Lascelles and date to
1877-78. The altar rails were made by Hart and Son were
completed in 1878 for approx 30 pounds. Of the same date is
the Caen stone pulpit at the north-east corner of the nave
with panels depicting Biblical subjects including: Satan and
the Tree of Knowledge and Christ with the Woman at the Well;
carvings by Bennett and Nicholls costing 202 pounds. Further
furnishings by Cox. The organ by Bevington and Joy. The
chancel light standards were taken from an old church and date
to 1869. The font has a base of Italian marble and shaft of
Swiss granite, which was brought as a memorial from the site
where the son of the Vicar had died in a mountaineering
accident. Easternmost window in north aisle designed by CE
Kempe: 3 lights, the Madonna and Child flanked by St Luke and
St John; 1901. The rest of the windows in this aisle are in a
similar style, and depict scenes from the Life of the Virgin:
one, the Soanes Memorial window of 1897, may also be Kempe's
work even though it is not listed in Mrs. Trubshaw's "Index of
Work Executed by Mr. CE Kempe". The third window in the north
aisle depicts the Marys at the Tomb and dates to 1880. The
south-aisle windows show scenes from the Life of Christ and
are of roughly the same date as those in the north aisle. The
windows in the apse depict the Crucifixion, the Resurrection
and are by a different hand; the same artist very likely
executed the windows in the Baptistery; both sets date to
c1880. According to the churchwarden, the 2 south clerestory
lights in the choir, which depict single figures against
tinted glass backgrounds, have been attributed to Morris and
Co.; this attribution has not been confirmed; the style of the
figures is similar to the work of designers in the Morris
circle. The north transept glass, dating to the late C19 and
early C20, was partly destroyed by the storm of October, 1987;
fragments of the smashed centre light were reset with new
designs. AH Wilds built the first church, a Greek Revival
structure, on this site in 1826-27 for Charles Elliott in the
grounds of East Lodge, the home of the Earl of Egremont.
Elliott's son, the Rev. Henry Elliott was the founder of St
Mary's Hall School, Eastern Road (qv) and the first curate of
the church. The choir vestry contains memorials to members of
the Venn Elliott family.
HISTORICAL NOTE: in 1875 the proprietary chapel became a
parish church; accordingly plans were made to enlarge the
chancel, which work had started by the summer of 1876 under
the direction of the builder Nash. At the end of June,
however, the entire chancel and part of the nave collapsed. An
appeal to build an entirely new church was opened in July, at
which time there was call to reorient the building cardinally,
according to the liturgical practice of the day, with its long
axis parallel to St James's Street; in the end, however, the
original orientation was retained. The original estimate of
12,000 pounds was too low, as a result of the quantity
surveyor's error, and a revised estimate of 15,000 was
accepted. Emerson had planned to build a large tower at the
north-west corner; this, like the figure sculpture planned for
the west front, was never executed. By the time the building
was consecrated, in October of 1878, close to 20,000 pounds
had been spent.
(Carder T: The Encyclopaedia of Brighton: Lewes: 1990-: 167C;
The Builder : 1 July : 1876: London: 637; The Architect : 23
June : 1877: London: 400; St Mary's Brighton, Report, List of
Subscribers and Balances: Brighton: 1880-; Evitt Francis C:
Church of St Mary the Virgin, Brighton, 1827-1927: Bridge of
Weir: 1927-: 2-5, 13, 15).
Listing NGR: TQ3184003984
