Details
BRIGHTON
TQ3004SE SHIP STREET
577-1/39/845 (West side)
02/03/81 Former Holy Trinity Church
(Formerly Listed as:
SHIP STREET
Holy Trinity Church)
GV II
Nonconformist chapel. 1817. To the designs of Amon Wilds for
Thomas Read Kemp. (All directions are ritual.) The chapel was
consecrated as an Anglican chapel of ease in 1826 and
considerably lengthened at that time; chancel added 1869 in
place of former vestry; interior alterations and south front
carried out in 1885-7 to the designs of George Somers Clarke
junior and John Thomas Micklethwaite, the latter dated 1886 on
the fleche. Stucco, knapped flint with stone dressings; roof
obscured by parapet. The front to Ship Street is Gothic in
style and executed in flint and stone.
EXTERIOR: a single-storey narthex extends across most of the
west front from the north, with 3 pointed-arched entrances
with scroll- and roll-mouldings, the 2 northernmost set in
architraves of pinnacled shafts and ogee hoodmould with
crockets; chamfered corner; parapet of chequerwork. The upper
part of this front is symmetrical: 3 pointed-arched 2-light
windows separated by buttresses, the centre window taller and
under a pointed arch slung between the buttresses; low window
to either side with chequerwork parapets; to the centre, the
parapet steps up to first stage of the tower which converts,
with splayed corners, from square to octagon; the octagon has
pointed-arched windows in each face, each with 2 lights and
one transom; embattled openwork parapet; fleche.
The return in Duke Street is faced with stucco for the most
part, broadly symmetrical, but now altered: 2 storeys, 9- or
10-window range, and all but the 2 westernmost windows now
blank, the easternmost partly cut off by the 1885-7 work. The
front originally read as 2 slightly projecting sections of
3-window range with 2 windows between them and one at either
end, the openings being grouped under a 2-storey, round-arched
arcade. Ground floor decorated with banded rustication; 2
pointed-arched entrances of stone inserted and one late C20
flat-arched entrance to the central bay; the windows in the
projecting bays are linked by a springing band and archivolts;
cornice; panelled frieze; parapet, stepped up, with additional
cornice and blocking course, over the projecting bays.
A plaque on the west front records the fact that, between 1847
and 1853, the church was made famous by the radical preaching
of the Rev. Frederick W Robertson.
INTERIOR: chancel of one bay with 5-light east window, and a
pair of north and south windows, all round-arched; chancel
floor raised 3 steps above the nave; oak panelling to chancel
of 1924, stepped forward to form a reredos. Round chancel arch
supporting by corbelled shafts. Nave of 8 bays, rectangular in
plan with galleries on 3 sides, the 2 easternmost bays
narrower than the rest; the galleries carried on columns,
probably dating from l869, in a variation of the Composite
order, blending Renaissance, Gothic and neo-Grec details; the
gallery fronts have raised and fielded panels and are perhaps
original. Upper tier of gallery columns support the roof, with
cinquefoil, triple lights at this level, in the form of a
clerestory. Chancel roof panelled, boarded and barrel-vaulted;
nave roof of oak, dating from 1885-7, composed of 8 braced and
strutted collar beams; each collar beam supports a strutted
king post; the webbing left between the braces and struts is
filled by pairs of turned balusters; the ceiling area between
the struts is boarded and panelled; the 2 easternmost ceiling
bays have a slightly lower pitch; metal ventilating grilles to
the central section of the roof. Rooms to 2 floors on either
side of chancel. Rooms flanking the nave entered through
4-centred arches from nave and round arches from gallery.
Narrow narthex to west end with sliding doors. Late C19 wooden
pulpit; baptistery at west end formed from 2 thick and
closely-spaced tower buttresses, with late C19 stone font; one
mid-to-late C19 gas standard survives attached to north
gallery.
(Carder T: The Encyclopaedia of Brighton: Lewes: 1990-).
Listing NGR: TQ3096204225
