St Aubin on the Hill is an

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chris ...

located in the Parish of St Brelade, Jersey, and is dedicated to

Saint Aubin of Angers Saint Albinus of Angers (french: Saint-Aubin) (c. 470 – March 1, 550), also known as Saint Albin () in English, was a French abbot and bishop. Born to a noble Gallo-Roman family at Vannes, Brittany, St. Albinus was a monk and from 504 C.E. A ...

. Building of the present church began on 4 June 1889, with the laying of the foundation stone by the

Bishop of Guildford The Bishop of Guildford is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Guildford in the Province of Canterbury. The title had first appeared as a suffragan See in the Diocese of Winchester in 1874. The Bishop suffragan of Guildford assi ...

. It was opened on 13 October 1892.

History

Saint Aubin was a busy port at least as far back as the 16th century, with its own harbour and

Court House A courthouse or court house is a building that is home to a local court of law and often the regional county government as well, although this is not the case in some larger cities. The term is common in North America. In most other English-sp ...

. In 1747 a church was built at St Aubin, the first to be erected in the island since the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

. This was the result of a petition to the

Bishop of Winchester The Bishop of Winchester is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Winchester in the Church of England. The bishop's seat (''cathedra'') is at Winchester Cathedral in Hampshire. The Bishop of Winchester has always held ''ex officio'' (except dur ...

from the merchants of St Aubin in which they made their case for the erection of a

chapel of ease A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a church architecture, church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently. Often a chapel of ea ...

, in which they mentioned the difficulty of travelling to St Brelade, a distance of about two miles: " e road to the said Church is very difficult by reason of many rugged steep ascents and descents, and a great way of moving sands, and the said inhabitants are exposed to great fatigue by sheer scorching heat in the summer, and the storms of impetuous westerly winds which usually blows there in Winter …" The original church was a square building which stood on the site of the present church car park. In 1888 it was pronounced unsafe. A meeting was held on 19 April 1889, and it was resolved that a committee be formed to collect funds and arrange the building of a new church. The foundation stone of the present building was laid by the Bishop of Guildford on 4 June 1889. The

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

of the old building was re-used and the funds raised ( £2,500) also allowed extra columns, arches and windows in Mont Mado granite. St Aubin on the Hill is very fine example of a Victorian

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

style building. The small north window in the

Lady Chapel A Lady chapel or lady chapel is a traditional British term for a chapel dedicated to "Our Lady", Mary, mother of Jesus, particularly those inside a cathedral or other large church. The chapels are also known as a Mary chapel or a Marian chapel, an ...

is notable for being the only

Pre-Raphaelite The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James ...

window in Jersey, created by the firm of

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...

from designs by

Sir Edward Burne-Jones Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, J ...

. At the north end of the nave, the altar which bears the logo of the St Brelade Group of Churches, and the platform on which it stands, were added in the 1980s under the curacy of Robert Booth. In the early part of 1992 further re-ordering saw the removal of a number of pews and the construction of a platform around the font at the south end. There were no burials at St Aubin until the 1980s, when authority was granted by the

Ecclesiastical Court An ecclesiastical court, also called court Christian or court spiritual, is any of certain courts having jurisdiction mainly in spiritual or religious matters. In the Middle Ages, these courts had much wider powers in many areas of Europe than be ...

of Jersey to allow the curate, the Reverend Robert Booth to inter some ashes which had been sent for burial from England.

Bibliography

* {{coord, 49.1881, -2.1722, type:landmark_region:JE, display=title History of Jersey Churches in Jersey Buildings and structures in Saint Brélade