St. Michael's Church (in full, St. Michael and All Angels Church) 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 in

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

, England, dating from the mid-

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

. Located on Victoria Road in the Montpelier area, to the east of Montpelier Road, it is one of the largest churches in the city of

Brighton and Hove Brighton and Hove () is a city and unitary authority in East Sussex, England. It consists primarily of the settlements of Brighton and Hove, alongside neighbouring villages. Often referred to synonymously as Brighton, the City of Brighton and H ...

. The church is a Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

Origins and the local area

The church serves the loosely defined Montpelier and Clifton Hill areas of Brighton, which lie west of the major Dyke Road and cover the steep slopes between the Seven Dials district and the seafront. St Stephen's Church had served parts of the district since 1851, when it had been moved to Montpelier Place from its previous location in Castle Square, close to the

Royal Pavilion The Royal Pavilion, and surrounding gardens, also known as the Brighton Pavilion, is a Grade I listed former royal residence located in Brighton, England. Beginning in 1787, it was built in three stages as a seaside retreat for George, Princ ...

. However, it was not convenient for the area as a whole, with most of its parishioners being drawn instead from the streets to the south of the church. Development of the Montpelier and Clifton Hill areas started in the 1820s, and by the 1840s they had essentially taken the form they remain in today, with a range of high-quality houses, many in the form of Regency terraces and crescents such as Clifton Terrace. However, one area of open land remained: at the time (the 1850s) it was known as Temple Fields, and consisted of a field, a pond and a partly built house. This was chosen as the site for a new church to serve the area. On present-day maps, Temple Fields is the area bounded by Denmark Terrace, Clifton Hill, Powis Road and Victoria Road. The church faces three streets: St. Michael's Place, Powis Road and Victoria Road (on which the main entrance is located).

History and construction

Original church

St Michael and All Angels Church, Brighton 05

St Michael and All Angels Church, Brighton 08

Plans for the church were drawn up in 1858, and construction took place between 1860 and 1861 to a design by

George Frederick Bodley George Frederick Bodley (14 March 182721 October 1907) was an English Gothic Revival architect. He was a pupil of Sir George Gilbert Scott, and worked in partnership with Thomas Garner for much of his career. He was one of the founders of Watt ...

(whose father had been a doctor in Brighton and a resident of the Furze Hill area of Hove, close to the Montpelier and Clifton Hill districts). Bodley was also working on St Paul's Church in West Street, Brighton at the time, on an interior alterations project. The design of the exterior was reminiscent of the Italianate style, in red brick with horizontal bands of white stone and a steeply pitched slate roof. This featured a modest

flèche Flèche or Fleche may refer to: *Flèche (architecture), a type of church spire *Flèche (cycling), a team cycling competition *Flèche (fencing) The flèche is an aggressive offensive fencing technique used with foil and épée. Background ...

spire containing a bell recovered from

Sevastopol Sevastopol (; uk, Севасто́поль, Sevastópolʹ, ; gkm, Σεβαστούπολις, Sevastoúpolis, ; crh, Акъя́р, Aqyár, ), sometimes written Sebastopol, is the largest city in Crimea, and a major port on the Black Sea ...

during the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...

(1854–1856). The church took two years to build at a cost of £6,728, and was

consecrated Consecration is the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service. The word ''consecration'' literally means "association with the sacred". Persons, places, or things can be consecrated, and the term is used in various ways by different grou ...

by the

Bishop of Chichester The Bishop of Chichester is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Chichester in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers the counties of East and West Sussex. The see is based in the City of Chichester where the bishop's sea ...

on 29 September 1862. There was room for a congregation of 700; pew rent was charged on 300 of these seats at first. Rev. Charles Beanlands, who had been a

curate A curate () is a person who is invested with the ''care'' or ''cure'' (''cura'') ''of souls'' of a parish. In this sense, "curate" means a parish priest; but in English-speaking countries the term ''curate'' is commonly used to describe clergy w ...

at St Paul's Church since his ordination in 1849, was given the perpetual curacy of St Michael's Church, and he remained in this position until his death in 1898.

Extension

The building quickly became too small and, in 1865,

William Burges William Burges (; 2 December 1827 – 20 April 1881) was an English architect and designer. Among the greatest of the Victorian art-architects, he sought in his work to escape from both nineteenth-century industrialisation and the Neoc ...

designed a new church which would incorporate Bodley's building as its two south aisles. The rebuilding was not carried out until 1893, under the direction of Burges's pupil, J.S.Chapple, and took two years. Burges was a contemporary of Bodley; both men were born in 1827. It is not known why a different architect was chosen for the redesign, and the changes reportedly caused Bodley some upset. Burges did not live to see his designs realised: he died in 1881. The exterior decoration of the new building broadly matched that of the original church, consisting of bands of white stone contrasting with dark red brick, but there is a considerable difference in height. The original building's north aisle was demolished, and its remaining structure became the south aisle of the new church. In terms of the church's present arrangement, therefore, the main body and the adjacent north aisle date from 1893, while the south aisle is original. The designs, as originally submitted, showed that a

cloister A cloister (from Latin ''claustrum'', "enclosure") is a covered walk, open gallery, or open arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cathedral or church, commonly against a ...

and a

campanile A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...

were planned to be built as well. Inside, additional decoration was to have been made in the chancel, and various additions were proposed for the

sanctuary A sanctuary, in its original meaning, is a sacred place, such as a shrine. By the use of such places as a haven, by extension the term has come to be used for any place of safety. This secondary use can be categorized into human sanctuary, a sa ...

area. A

predella In art a predella (plural predelle) is the lowest part of an altarpiece, sometimes forming a platform or step, and the painting or sculpture along it, at the bottom of an altarpiece, sometimes with a single much larger main scene above, but oft ...

(altar platform) behind the

altar An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, churches, and other places of worship. They are used particularly in paga ...

, a set of

sedilia In church architecture, sedilia (plural of Latin ''sedīle'', "seat") are seats, usually made of stone, found on the liturgical south side of an altar, often in the chancel, for use during Mass for the officiating priest and his assistants, the ...

within the sanctuary area and a

baldacchino A baldachin, or baldaquin (from it, baldacchino), is a canopy of state typically placed over an altar or throne. It had its beginnings as a cloth canopy, but in other cases it is a sturdy, permanent architectural feature, particularly over h ...

above the altar were all shown in the plans. However, none of these proposals were implemented, and no changes took place in this area until around 1900, when architect and interior designer W. H. Romaine-Walker (1854–1940) provided a marble wall with Cosmatesque-style decoration between the chancel and the nave, a screen for the chancel itself, a new marble altar (in his wife's memory) and extra marble ornamentation for the sanctuary. A rood screen and new reredos were also installed at this time. A parish hall was built in 1970 on the site, to the north of the church, where the cloister was originally proposed.

Architecture and fixtures

St Michael and All Angels Church, Brighton 06

Burges's enlargement substantially altered the character of the building, abandoning Bodley's

polychrome Polychrome is the "practice of decorating architectural elements, sculpture, etc., in a variety of colors." The term is used to refer to certain styles of architecture, pottery or sculpture in multiple colors. Ancient Egypt Colossal statu ...

brickwork interior for proper stone dressings, but he retained the polychrome style for the somewhat brutal exterior. The interior featured a series of clerestory windows facing south, a stone arch in the

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

and a row of stone columns with foliated decoration (carved with leaf ornamentations). The

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood 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 ...

, a group of people active in various areas of the arts who were influenced by the

Quattrocento The cultural and artistic events of Italy during the period 1400 to 1499 are collectively referred to as the Quattrocento (, , ) from the Italian word for the number 400, in turn from , which is Italian for the year 1400. The Quattrocento encom ...

period of Italian art, were closely involved with the decoration of the interior. Bodley was informally associated with this recently formed group, in particular with

Edward Burne-Jones Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman Hun ...

and

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 ...

, a long-term friend of his. William Morris himself, along with

Philip Webb Philip Speakman Webb (12 January 1831 – 17 April 1915) was a British architect and designer sometimes called the Father of Arts and Crafts Architecture. His use of vernacular architecture demonstrated his commitment to "the art of commo ...

and Charles Faulkner, was responsible for the painting of the chancel roof. The large windows on the western face of the church were made and installed by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., the predecessor of Morris's firm Morris & Co. There are also many

stained-glass Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

windows by Morris in the old building and Burne-Jones in the new. The east end of Burges' building features a large trio of stepped lancets with basic two-light

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

. As a whole, the architectural writers Nicholas Antram and Richard Morrice consider that; "no church in Sussex has better Victorian glass." Internal fixtures include a grey marble

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mod ...

and a green serpentine and calcite (verde antique) pulpit, both designed and made by Bodley. The noted stained glass designer

Charles Eamer Kempe Charles Eamer Kempe (29 June 1837 – 29 April 1907) was a British Victorian era designer and manufacturer of stained glass. His studios produced over 4,000 windows and also designs for altars and altar frontals, furniture and furnishings, lich ...

was responsible for the restoration and installation of a 15th-century reredos of Flemish origin. This depicts three scenes from Christ's life in the form of a

triptych A triptych ( ; from the Greek language, Greek adjective ''τρίπτυχον'' "''triptukhon''" ("three-fold"), from ''tri'', i.e., "three" and ''ptysso'', i.e., "to fold" or ''ptyx'', i.e., "fold") is a work of art (usually a panel painting) t ...

The church today

St Michael and All Angels, Brighton interior 1

The area covered by St Michael's—a portion of the western end of St Nicholas' parish—was made a parish in its own right in the early 20th century. St Michael's had previously been a mere

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 ...

. Following the closure and

deconsecration Deconsecration, also called secularization, is the act of removing a religious blessing from something that had been previously consecrated by a minister or priest of that religion. The practice is usually performed on churches or synagogues to b ...

of St Stephens Church in Montpelier Place and another local church, All Saints Church in Compton Avenue, Seven Dials, their parishes were absorbed into that of St Michael's; it now covers an area bounded (approximately) by

Brighton railway station Brighton railway station is the southern terminus of the Brighton Main Line in England, and the principal station serving the city of Brighton, East Sussex. It is from via . The station is managed by Govia Thameslink Railway, which operates ...

, Montefiore Road, Upper North Street and the streets between the church and Dyke Road. Services have always been in the

ritualist Ritualism, in the history of Christianity, refers to an emphasis on the rituals and liturgical ceremonies of the church. Specifically, the Christian ritual of Holy Communion. In the Anglican church in the 19th century, the role of ritual became ...

tradition, reflecting

Anglo-Catholic Anglo-Catholicism comprises beliefs and practices that emphasise the Catholic heritage and identity of the various Anglican churches. The term was coined in the early 19th century, although movements emphasising the Catholic nature of Anglica ...

and "

High Church The term ''high church'' refers to beliefs and practices of Christian ecclesiology, liturgy, and theology that emphasize formality and resistance to modernisation. Although used in connection with various Christian traditions, the term originate ...

" views and doctrine. This caused some controversy in the church's early years, although to a lesser extent than was experienced at St. Bartholomew's and St. Paul's Churches. Services consist of a daily Mass at various times, and a Sunday morning Sung Mass at 10.30am. A priest is available for

Confession A confession is a statement – made by a person or by a group of persons – acknowledging some personal fact that the person (or the group) would ostensibly prefer to keep hidden. The term presumes that the speaker is providing information th ...

after Saturday Masses. In the parish hall, there are Saturday breakfast meetings, a parent and toddler group, dance groups, choir practices and various other activities.

Notes

Bibliography

* Nairn, I and Pevsner, N, ''The Buildings of England: Sussex'', Penguin Books, 1965 * * *

External links

*
Diocese of Chichester directory of churches: entry for St. Michael and All AngelsA Church Near You - entry for St. Michael and All AngelsMy Brighton and Hove - St. Michael and All Angels main page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Michael's Church, Brighton Churches completed in 1862 19th-century Church of England church buildings Church of England church buildings in Brighton and Hove Brighton, Saint Michael and All Angels Grade I listed buildings in Brighton and Hove William Burges church buildings 1862 establishments in England

George Frederick Bodley church buildings