All Saints Church is the

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...

Patcham Patcham () is a suburb in the city of Brighton and Hove, in the ceremonial county of East Sussex, England. It is about north of the city centre. It is bounded by the A27 (Brighton bypass) to the north, Hollingbury to the east and southeast, ...

, an ancient

Sussex Sussex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈsʌsɪks/; from the Old English ''Sūþseaxe''; lit. 'South Saxons'; 'Sussex') is an area within South East England that was historically a kingdom of Sussex, kingdom and, later, a Historic counties of England, ...

village which is now part of the English city of

Brighton and Hove Brighton and Hove ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority area, ceremonially in East Sussex, England. There are multiple villages alongside the seaside resorts of Brighton and Hove in the district. It is administe ...

. A place of worship has existed on the hilltop site for about 1,000 years, but the present building has

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 9th and 10th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norma ...

internal features and a 13th-century exterior. Several rounds of restoration in the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the reign of Queen Victoria, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. Slightly different definitions are sometimes used. The era followed the ...

included some structural additions. A wide range of monuments and wall paintings survive inside, including one commemorating Richard Shelley—owner of nearby

Patcham Place Patcham Place is a mansion in the ancient village of Patcham, now part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. Built in 1558 as part of the Patcham Place estate, it was owned for many years by Anthony Stapley, one of the signatories of King ...

and one of the most important noblemen in the early history of Brighton. The church, which is Grade II* listed, continues to serve as the Anglican place of worship for residents of Patcham, which 20th-century residential development has transformed from a vast rural parish into a large outer suburb of Brighton. Patcham's first church served a large rural area north of the fishing village of Brighthelmston—the ancient predecessor of Brighton. A nucleated settlement developed around this building, which was reconstructed during the

Norman era Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 9th and 10th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norma ...

. A wide-ranging series of alterations were carried out by Victorian church restorers to improve the building's structural condition and provide more space to cater for the growing population. As Patcham developed into a suburb in the 20th century, more churches opened in the area and were administered from All Saints Church. The building's plain exterior contrasts with its well-preserved and, in parts, ancient interior whose features include wall paintings and stone memorials. The churchyard has a set of Grade II-listed tombs.

History

The ''

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the ninth century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of ...

'' records that the area now covered by the county of Sussex was reached by Saxon forces in 477. Within a few years, they controlled land along the

English Channel The English Channel, also known as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Southern England from northern France. It links to the southern part of the North Sea by the Strait of Dover at its northeastern end. It is the busi ...

coast as far as

Pevensey Pevensey ( ) is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Wealden District, Wealden district of East Sussex, England. The main village is located north-east of Eastbourne, one mile (1.6 km) inland from Pevensey Bay. The ...

. By the 10th century, the Kingdom of the South Saxons was fully established; its boundaries match those of the present county. The area was divided into smaller administrative areas called hundreds. Patcham and its neighbouring village of Preston were part of Preston Hundred, one of four hundreds covering present-day Brighton and Hove. The lowest administrative level was the parish, based around a church. The parish of Patcham was recorded (under the name ''Piceham'') at the time of the

Domesday survey Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

in 1086, by which time a church existed at the centre of a small village on a spur of land near the top of the

South Downs The South Downs are a range of chalk hills in the south-eastern coastal counties of England that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, in the ...

. The parish, which covered , was unusually large, and its 11th-century population of about 1,750 was one of the largest for any Sussex parish.

William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, Lord of Lewes, Seigneur de Varennes (died 1088), was a Norman nobleman created Earl of Surrey under William II Rufus. He is among the few known from documents to have fought under William the Conquero ...

, who held most of the land in the local hundreds, owned the manor. The area around the church gradually became the centre of population within the parish, and a village developed on the hillside leading up to the church, east of the modern London Road. The Saxon church was rebuilt in the 12th and 13th centuries, and the only feature which may survive from that era is a blocked doorway. It was reset in the north aisle when that was built in 1898. The doorway has been described as "Norman or possibly earlier", "pre-

orman Orman may refer to: People *Aldona Orman (born 1968), Polish actress *Alen Orman (born 1978), Austrian football player *Charles Orman (1859–1927), British cricketer and soldier *Fikret Orman (born 1967), Turkish businessman *Greg Orman (born ...

Conquest" and "could be Saxon" by various sources. The ''

Victoria County History The Victoria History of the Counties of England, commonly known as the Victoria County History (VCH), is an English history project which began in 1899 with the aim of creating an encyclopaedic history of each of the historic counties of Englan ...

of Sussex'' goes further by stating it was originally in the north wall of the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

, but identifies it as 12th-century. The chancel arch, a "plain" structure, was inserted between the

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...

and the nave in the 12th century, and the nave is of the same period. The 12th-century chancel was added to in the following 200 years; its

Decorated Gothic English Gothic is an architectural style that flourished from the late 12th until the mid-17th century. The style was most prominently used in the construction of cathedrals and churches. Gothic architecture's defining features are pointed a ...

windows are 14th-century. Similar windows were inserted in the nave at the same time. In the 13th century, a narrow tower was built at the west end, with thin

lancet window A lancet window is a tall, narrow window with a sharp pointed arch at its top. This arch may or may not be a steep lancet arch (in which the compass centres for drawing the arch fall outside the opening). It acquired the "lancet" name from its rese ...

s characteristic of the era. Its

broach spire A broach spire is a type of spire (tall pyramidal structure), which usually sits atop a tower or turret of a church. It starts on a square base and is carried up to a tapering octagonal spire by means of triangular faces. File:Leicester Cathedral ...

dates from the mid-19th century. The tower was given substantial diagonal

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient (typically Gothic) buildings, as a means of providing support to act ...

es with

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

quoins Quoins ( or ) are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner. According to one 19th-century encyclopedia, ...

. Also at this time, the exterior underwent complete restoration with some rebuilding work. The only other changes made before the 19th century was the addition of a porch at the south end and some buttresses on the south wall of the nave, both in the 16th or 17th century. Having stood for more than 600 years with little alteration, the church was completely changed by four reconstructions and restorations in a 74-year period in the 19th century. The last of these, in 1898, was the most substantial: it added a north aisle, much larger and taller than the rest of the building, and a

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government of a parish in England, Wales and some English colony, English colonies. At their height, the vestries were the only form of local government in many places and spen ...

. In the early 19th century, the building had been in better structural condition than many in Sussex—a survey in 1825 by Sir Stephen Glynn of the

Ecclesiological Society The Cambridge Camden Society, known from 1845 (when it moved to London) as the Ecclesiological Society,

—but rebuilding ancient churches was fashionable in the Victorian era, and the condition of a surviving medieval

corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal keyed into and projecting from a wall to carry a wikt:superincumbent, bearing weight, a type of bracket (architecture), bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in t ...

suggests that the exterior walls were in poor condition. The three earlier periods of restoration were 1824–25, 1856 and 1880–83. During the third of these, a 13th-century wall painting of Christ in Judgement was discovered above the chancel arch, hidden under 30 layers of whitewash and the remains of two later paintings; it may be one of the oldest such murals in England, but it was repainted after its rediscovery. In 1898, at the same time as the north-side extension, the outside walls of the west, east and south sides were coated with grey

cement A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mi ...

, probably to improve their structural condition; although this has been described as "unsightly" and "kill ngthe exterior stone dead", one historian has argued that because many medieval churches were rendered in this way, rather than having uncovered flint walls, it gives the impression of what a typical church of that era may look like. Patcham's proximity to the ever-growing resort of Brighton—it is north of the Palace Pier on the English Channel coast—encouraged suburban growth from the mid-19th century. From a low point of 286 in 1801, the population of the village steadily rose and had nearly quadrupled by the time of the

United Kingdom Census 1901 The United Kingdom Census 1901 was the 11th nationwide census conducted in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and was done on 31 March 1901 "relating to the persons returned as living at midnight on Sunday, March 31st". The total pop ...

. Brighton Corporation (the forerunners of the present city council) built an estate of

council housing Public housing in the United Kingdom, also known as council housing or social housing, provided the majority of rented accommodation until 2011, when the number of households in private rental housing surpassed the number in social housing. D ...

in Moulsecoomb (then still part of Patcham parish) in the early 1920s, and on 1 April 1928 all but of the parish were annexed by Brighton to become part of the urban area, known at the time as Greater Brighton. Four large housing estates were built, and the population reached 5,241 in 1930 and continued to rise thereafter. The opening of the north aisle improved capacity at a time when new houses were already surrounding the ancient village centre; but as development spread to more distant parts of the parish, two more churches were opened—both initially as chapels of ease to All Saints Church: a temporary building erected on the Braybon Avenue estate in south Patcham became the Church of Christ the King, which was replaced by a permanent brick-built church in 1958; and in the same year, architect John Wells-Thorpe designed and built the Church of the Ascension in

Westdene Westdene is an area of the city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex. It is a northern suburb of the city, west of Patcham, the A23 road, A23 (London Road) and the Brighton Main Line, London to Brighton railway line, north of Withdean and northe ...

, a newly developed suburb west of the London Road. The original temporary church at Braybon Avenue became a church hall for Christ the King's congregation, and All Saints Church gained its own hall in 1937 when Mackie Hall was built on Mackie Avenue. It was closed in 1995. Another round of restoration took place in 1989. The interior was redesigned, and a

reredos A reredos ( , , ) is a large altarpiece, a screen, or decoration placed behind the altar in a Church (building), church. It often includes religious images. The term ''reredos'' may also be used for similar structures, if elaborate, in secular a ...

was made out of old

choir stall A choir, also sometimes called quire, is the area of a church or cathedral that provides seating for the clergy and church choir. It is in the western part of the chancel, between the nave and the sanctuary, which houses the altar and Church tab ...

s which had been removed.

Memorials

The church contains several memorials, of which the oldest is a wall tablet commemorating Richard Shelley, one of the earliest owners of

, who died in 1594. Patcham Place has its origins in a 16th-century

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were usually held the lord's manorial courts, communal mea ...

in an isolated position west of the London Road. Its first owner,

William West, 1st Baron De La Warr William West, 1st Baron De La Warr ( ) of the second creation ( – 30 December 1595) was the elder son of Sir George West (d.1538), second son of Thomas West, 8th Baron De La Warr, by his third wife, Eleanor Copley, and Elizabeth Morton, wido ...

, passed it to Richard Shelley—son of Sir John Shelley of Michelgrove and a member of the family which later became the first Shelley Baronetcy. Shelley lived in Patcham from 1546, and was an important figure in Brighton's early history: in 1579, he and three other local noblemen were appointed by the Privy Council to form a commission to record and regulate the "ancient customs" of the villagers and to mediate between the fishermen and the farmers, who often had conflicting needs. The commissioners produced a book, ''The Book of All The Auncient'' ncient''Customs heretofore used amonge the fishermen of the Toune of Brighthelmston'', whose orders were enshrined in

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

. The memorial, of which only parts remain intact, is flanked by

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

s, the Shelley

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the last two being outer garments), originating in Europe. The coat of arms on an escutcheon f ...

and a naked grave-digger on each side. Elsewhere in the church, three generations of the Paine family are commemorated by tablets in the chancel; John Paine of the second generation rebuilt Patcham Place in 1764. He was the uncle by marriage of

Thomas Read Kemp Thomas Read Kemp (23 December 1782 – 20 December 1844) was an English property developer and politician. Life He was the son of Sussex landowner and Member of Parliament Thomas Kemp, and his wife Anne, daughter of Henry Read of Brookla ...

, who developed Brighton's high-class

Kemp Town Kemp Town Estate, also known as Kemp Town, is a 19th-century Regency architecture residential estate in the east of Brighton in East Sussex, England. It consists of Arundel Terrace, Lewes Crescent, Sussex Square, Chichester Terrace, and th ...

estate in the 19th century. The Roe family and its descendants of Withdean are also represented. William Roe and his son William Thomas Roe were closely involved with the former Board of Customs (now

Her Majesty's Customs and Excise HM Customs and Excise (properly known as Her Majesty's Customs and Excise at the time of its dissolution) was a department of the British Government formed in 1909 by the merger of HM Customs and HM Excise; its primary responsibility was t ...

); William Roe was its chairman for 14 years. William Thomas Roe also served on The Board of Admiralty. His son, his daughter's husband and their son also have their own memorials. The manor of Withdean Cayliffe, one of the manors within the parish of Patcham, passed through the family after William Roe acquired it in 1794. Outside, there are seven nearly identical chest-tombs, all of which are several centuries old and appear to belong to members of the Scrase family. Together with two unrelated tombs nearby, which are 18th- or early 19th-century, they were listed at Grade II by

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Lis ...

on 26 August 1999. On the north side of the churchyard, which is traditionally used for burials of criminals and those who committed suicide, a memorial survives to "a

smuggler Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. More broadly, soc ...

, unfortunately shot". The churchyard contains 16 Commonwealth war graves, comprising two British Army soldiers of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

buried in the south part, and eight

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

personnel, five soldiers and a

WREN Wrens are a family, Troglodytidae, of small brown passerine birds. The family includes 96 species and is divided into 19 genera. All species are restricted to the New World except for the Eurasian wren that is widely distributed in the Old Worl ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

who are all buried in the churchyard extension.

Architecture and fittings

The plan of All Saints Church comprises a west tower with heavy buttresses and a

, a three-

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...

nave with a tall aisle on the north side (described by one historian as "quite out of proportion to the rest of the building, particularly in height"), and a porch on the south wall, a chancel and a vestry. Although the north aisle of 1898 was

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Historically, flint was widely used to make stone tools and start ...

-built with

courses Course may refer to: Directions or navigation * Course (navigation), the path of travel * Course (orienteering), a series of control points visited by orienteers during a competition, marked with red/white flags in the terrain, and corresponding ...

of red brick, the rest of the church's exterior was clad in

at the same time. Before this, the outside walls had been entirely flint with stone dressings and

. Both sides of the nave are

ed, as is the southwest corner of the tower. These buttresses may have been added in the 16th century. The roof of the tower, below the squat 19th-century spire, is of

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

; the rest of the church has a tiled roof. The porch has a

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

d roof above a 14th-century archway. The tower contains three bells. One is dated 1639, and another is known to have been repaired in 1724. The chancel roof is panelled, while the nave roof has vertical

queen-post A queen post is a tension member in a truss that can span longer openings than a king post truss. A king post uses one central supporting post, whereas the queen post truss uses two. Even though it is a tension member, rather than a compression ...

supports with ancient tie-beams. The nave and chancel are separated by an ancient chancel arch which has recesses for a

on each side. These may be contemporary with the 12th-century structure. Above the chancel arch are the remains of a 13th-century wall painting showing Christ in Judgement. It has been dated to 1230, and depicts the ascension to Heaven of the dead and the weighing of their souls by Jesus Christ, who is flanked by the

Virgin Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...

and

John the Baptist John the Baptist ( – ) was a Jewish preacher active in the area of the Jordan River in the early first century AD. He is also known as Saint John the Forerunner in Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, John the Immerser in some Baptist ...

. The fresco was in fragmentary condition when it was discovered in the 1880s, and has been redrawn. Other paintings may have existed elsewhere on the walls, but none are visible now. There are

s in the north and south walls and on the tower, some with stone

tracery Tracery is an architectural device by which windows (or screens, panels, and vaults) are divided into sections of various proportions by stone ''bars'' or ''ribs'' of moulding. Most commonly, it refers to the stonework elements that support th ...

(including the east window in the main body of the church). The chancel and nave windows are 14th-century and in the Decorated Gothic style common at the time, while the tower windows and bell-openings are smaller and in the Early English style popular in the 13th century, when the tower was built. The largest window, which sits under a hoodmould, is in the east end of the chancel; it is a three-light lancet with prominent

in the curvilinear/reticulated style. The window dates from the 14th century, which may make it the same age as a small window next to the porch, which has twin lights with foliated heads set below a

quatrefoil A quatrefoil (anciently caterfoil) is a decorative element consisting of a symmetrical shape which forms the overall outline of four partially overlapping circles of the same diameter. It is found in art, architecture, heraldry and traditional ...

in an

ogive An ogive ( ) is the roundly tapered end of a two- or three-dimensional object. Ogive curves and surfaces are used in engineering, architecture, woodworking, and ballistics. Etymology The French Orientalist Georges Séraphin Colin gives as ...

arch. Both windows also have scrollwork drip-moulds. Most other windows are plain

trefoil A trefoil () is a graphic form composed of the outline of three overlapping rings, used in architecture, Pagan and Christian symbolism, among other areas. The term is also applied to other symbols with a threefold shape. A similar shape with f ...

-headed single lancets. The blocked doorway in the modern north aisle is the oldest surviving part of the church. Its

lintel A lintel or lintol is a type of beam (a horizontal structural element) that spans openings such as portals, doors, windows and fireplaces. It can be a decorative architectural element, or a combined ornamented/structural item. In the case ...

is thick and sits below 11

voussoir A voussoir ( UK: ; US: ) is a wedge-shaped element, typically a stone, which is used in building an arch or vault.“Voussoir, N., Pronunciation.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, June 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/7553486115. Acces ...

s, each about across. Below the lintel, the former opening is high and wide; gradual settling into the ground has masked its original height. The

jamb In architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and cons ...

s are made up of five stones of equal height, but the uppermost is wider because it served as an impost. Inside the church, the jambs and arch are visible, but there is no lintel. The wall of the chancel retains a trefoil-arched

piscina A piscina is a shallow basin placed near the altar of a church, or else in the vestry or sacristy, used for washing the communion vessels. The sacrarium is the drain itself. Lutherans and Anglicans usually refer to the basin, calling it a pisci ...

added during the 14th-century restoration work. The

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts " Roman" (or "regul ...

—a "rather florid circular" example—dates from 1864, and the church possesses

Eucharist The Eucharist ( ; from , ), also called Holy Communion, the Blessed Sacrament or the Lord's Supper, is a Christianity, Christian Rite (Christianity), rite, considered a sacrament in most churches and an Ordinance (Christianity), ordinance in ...

ic objects dating from the 16th and 17th centuries, such as a

chalice A chalice (from Latin 'cup', taken from the Ancient Greek () 'cup') is a drinking cup raised on a stem with a foot or base. Although it is a technical archaeological term, in modern parlance the word is now used almost exclusively for the ...

of 1568 and a

paten A paten or diskos is a small plate used for the celebration of the Eucharist (as in a mass). It is generally used during the liturgy itself, while the reserved sacrament are stored in the tabernacle in a ciborium. Western usage In many Wes ...

dating from 1666. The west wall has a wide range of old carved prayer and

commandment Commandment may refer to: * The Ten Commandments * One of the 613 mitzvot of Judaism * The Great Commandment * The New Commandment * Commandment (album), ''Commandment'' (album), a 2007 album by Six Feet Under * Commandments (film), ''Commandments' ...

boards, which are a common feature of Sussex churches. Ancient examples of graffiti, consisting of etched crosses and dates, also survives inside; such "curious carvings" are also common in Sussex.

Current status

All Saints' Church was listed at Grade II* on 13 October 1952. Worship at All Saints is in the

Open Evangelical An open evangelical attempts to uphold Evangelicalism, evangelical doctrines, morality, and spirituality, while also being Inclusive theology, inclusive of others. It is a term which is commonly used in the United Kingdom in reference to both indivi ...

style. There is a

Sunday school ] A Sunday school, sometimes known as a Sabbath school, is an educational institution, usually Christianity, Christian in character and intended for children or neophytes. Sunday school classes usually precede a Sunday church service and are u ...

and regular youth group. All Saints is the church in the Benefice#Church of England, Benefice of Patcham All Saints, which also incorporates the Church of the Ascension in

, a postwar suburb west of Patcham. This is a modern building of brick and glass, designed in 1958 by architect John Wells-Thorpe. The ecclesiastical parish of All Saints covers the north of Brighton and its rural hinterland, incorporating

Withdean Withdean is a former village, now part of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex. Overview The area was originally named in the 12th century, when it was called Wictedene. The area was historically farm land but has been developed, mainly in the 1920 ...

Hollingbury Hollingbury is an area of the city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex. The area sits high on a hillside across the north of the city, east of Patcham which lies in a valley to the west, Coldean in a valley to the east, and the A27 bypass form ...

, part of Preston (as far south as

Preston Park railway station Preston Park railway station is on the Brighton Main Line in England, serving Preston Village and the northern suburban areas of the city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex. It is from via , between and . The station is managed by Southern ...

), and the scattered residential buildings north of the A27 Brighton Bypass and south of

Pyecombe Pyecombe is a village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England. Pyecombe is located 7 miles (11 km) to the north of Brighton. The civil parish covers an area of and has a population of 200 (2001 census), increa ...

. Following a review by the

Diocese of Chichester The Diocese of Chichester is a Church of England diocese based in Chichester, covering Sussex. It was founded in 681 as the ancient Diocese of Selsey, which was based at Selsey Abbey, until the see was translated to Chichester in 1075. The cathe ...

in 2005, parts of the west side of the parish were transferred to the Church of the Good Shepherd on Dyke Road in Brighton, and at the south end another section was ceded to St John the Evangelist's Church in Preston Village. At the same time the decision was taken to close the Church of Christ the King (which had been the parish church of South Patcham) and divide its parish between All Saints and St John the Evangelist's churches. All Saints' Church therefore received the congregation from the northern part of the Church of Christ the King's parish. The diocese declared the Church of Christ the King redundant from 1 December 2006, but from 20 July 2007 it was in use again as a place of worship. In that year, two displaced congregations whose churches had been demolished joined to form a new church community, which bought the building and renamed it the Fountain Centre. The Elim Balfour Road Church in Preston Village, a

Pentecostal Pentecostalism or classical Pentecostalism is a movement within the broader Evangelical wing of Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that emphasizes direct personal experience of God in Christianity, God through Baptism with the Holy Spirit#Cl ...

church, was demolished in 2007, and the Immanuel Community Church had been using the former St Augustine's Church building near Preston Park since the destruction by fire of their church in Hanover, Brighton in 2003.

References

Notes

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * {{B&H Buildings Buildings and structures completed in the 12th century

Grade II* listed buildings in Brighton and Hove Patcham, All Saints Church