St Bartholomew's Church, Brighton
Encyclopedia
St Bartholomew's Church, dedicated to the apostle Bartholomew, is an Anglican church in Brighton
, England
. The neo-gothic
building is located on Ann Street, on a sloping site between Brighton railway station
and the A23 London Road
, adjacent to the New England Quarter
development. It is notable for its height – dominating the streets around it and being visible from many parts of the city – and its distinctive red-brick construction.
of St Paul's Church
in West Street), the opportunity to continue and improve his father's proposals for new parish churches in Brighton. He undertook three such schemes in the 1870s, two in conjunction with his two half-brothers, but Saint Bartholomew's is the only church which was his sole responsibility throughout.
In 1868, Arthur Wagner had built a temporary church on Providence Place, a back street parallel with the main London Road, along with a school accommodating 400 pupils. After his father's death, he resolved to build a more impressive new church in the same area. The original plan, which was submitted to the Town Council in 1871 and approved on 7 June of that year, consisted of a combined church and school building, 322 feet in length, 46 feet wide, and 41¾ feet high. This was amended shortly afterwards to reduce the number of bays in the interior
from 13 to 11½; the additional space formed a "courtyard" area between the church and the existing school building, which was to be retained.
Building work began on 8 February 1872; but Wagner's plans changed again, in favour of a significantly taller structure. When they were submitted on 16 September 1873, the revised plans reduced the length to 170 feet, but widened the building to 59 feet and, most significantly, proposed a height of 135 feet to the ridge of the roof. The cross on the roof at the south end (the liturgical west end
) adds a further 9 feet to this.
Construction based on the new plan started shortly after its submission, and continued for 19 months. The official opening was on 18 September 1874, while building work was still taking place; and with entirely free seating throughout (for up to 1,500 worshippers) it became the first church in Brighton to offer universal free entrance from the date of opening. This was not welcomed by local members of the clergy, who had historically gained reliable incomes from the practice of "pew rents".
St Botolph's Church
in the Heene
area of nearby Worthing
, built in 1873, remains an important example of his work. Two earlier examples of his less grand designs still remain in Portslade
in the form of the Early English style St Andrew's Church, built in 1864 as a free and open church with no "pew
rents", and the original St Nicolas Church School, built in 1872 and now in use as an annex of Portslade Infants School.
High walls of reddish-brown brick, now aged to a purplish-brown colour, are topped by a steeply pitched roof with dark tiling. A mixture of red and black tiles were originally applied, but the roof was re-tiled in its present monochrome form in 1930. Running the length of the east and west sides of the exterior walls are a series of narrow buttress
es with tall, pointed windows. On the south side, an unusually large rose window
dominates the area below the apex of the roof, upon which stands a 9-foot gilt
cross which brings the total height of the structure to 144 feet.
The building work was undertaken by a Brighton company, Stanning & Co., and cost £18,000 (1874 prices). This was in contrast to the £25,000 spent on St Peter's church
around 50 years previously, under the supervision of Arthur Wagner's father, Henry Michell Wagner. The use of Portland stone
on the latter added to the expense; the use of bricks for St Bartholomew's helped to reduce it, as did the abandonment of the revised plan's intention to build 11½ bays. (Only nine were constructed.) Additionally, the northern face of the church was never properly completed, and proposals for additional features such as transept
s and a spire
mentioned in contemporary publications were never carried out.
. Above this is a shallow triforium
, and above this, immediately below the roof line, is the clerestory
with its tall pointed windows.
The interior walls are mostly made up of unadorned brickwork identical to that of the exterior. However, built into the northern end wall, above the altar, is a substantial cross, 30 feet high and built from Sussex chalk; and a set of carved wood and stone Stations of the Cross
brought from Bruges
in 1881 are located on the walls of the side-chapels. Also, the walls above the altar support a range of mosaics by F. Hamilton Jackson, a follower of the Arts and Crafts movement
.
The High altar and sanctuary themselves are highly decorative, and are among a range of new features introduced under the stewardship of the Revd Arthur W. C. Cocks, who became vicar of St Bartholomomew's in 1895. Architect and designer Henry Wilson
, who was the first editor of the Architectural Review
magazine when it was founded in 1896 and who was also involved in the Arts and Crafts movement, was responsible for the work undertaken at this time, having been appointed in 1895 upon the death of Edmund Scott. The sanctuary is dominated by a 45-foot baldacchino
in red and green marble, with a new altar below housing a silver tabernacle
and a white marble shelf with a large crucifix and six candlesticks. In 1908 this was flanked by a pair of white marble columns bearing two further candles.
One of the side chapels contains a Lady altar designed in intricate repoussé
silver on copper by Wilson in 1902. The High altar's original crucifix was moved to this altar in 1912, with a new crucifix of a different design replacing it.
Wilson designed and built a new pulpit
, again in a variety of marbles, in 1906. Six red marble columns stand on a base of black marble and support a large block of green Irish marble, similar in colour to that of the baldacchino's marble canopy. At the same time, a large organ gallery was built at the south end of the church to house the organ and up to 150 choristers and orchestra members; and in 1908, a large octagonal font
, again in green marble, is located in a recess on the south-eastern side of the church.
Wilson's association with St Bartholomew's ended in 1911, when Arthur Cocks left (having converted to Roman Catholicism
) and his successor, the Revd Henry Ross, brought his own ideas in. Few of these were carried out, partly because of the disruption caused by World War I
, although the mosaics above the altar were completed in 1912. The aborted plans included a second attempt at completing the north end, which was still unfinished; a subsequent third attempt failed to proceed because of a lack of funding, with the re-tiling of the roof being the priority at that time (1930).
s are included, and even the tallest church – St Walburge's Church
in Preston, Lancashire, whose spire reaches 309 feet – is exceeded in height by four English cathedrals.
However, St Bartholomew's lacks any form of steeple or tower, and the quoted height of 135 feet is therefore the height to the apex of the roof — with the gilt cross adding a further 9 feet. If towers, steeples and spires are excluded, therefore, the "tallest church" claim has greater merit. Similarly, when cathedrals are excluded and only parish churches considered, the nave is the largest in Britain. Nevertheless, comparative measurements are difficult to obtain.
nature of Wagner and, by extension, his church. Musgrave (1981) notes that a letter written to a local newspaper in 1874, by a writer "who signed himself 'a true Protestant and no sham', expressed the deepest disquiet over such features as a certain 'dark spiral staircases... off which little and almost dark rooms, or cells... are built.'" The writer accuses these of housing nunneries or anchorite
s, and questions whether the building is indeed being used solely as a church. In fact, the staircases and "cells" are merely parts of the triforium
.
A remarkable debate at the Town Council in 1893, at which it was reported that the overall height of the building was two feet higher than that approved in the plans of 1873, led to a further barrage of criticism. As the statutory fine for the planning violation was only 40 shilling
s (£2), it was considered irrelevant to impose it on the rich Wagner; but records of the debate indicate that a variety of derogatory descriptions of the building were made, including (as per Musgrave) "a cheese warehouse", "a Noah's Ark
in brick", "a monster excrescence", "a brick parallelogram
", "a huge barn", "uselessly large, painfully ugly and sadly out of place", and "Wagner's folly". (References to "Noah's Ark" are sometimes still heard today, mainly in relation to the shape and dimensions of the building.)
Additionally, residents of the houses formerly occupying the land immediately to the west of the church—where the London Road car park, St Bartholomew's school, and the eastern end of the New England Quarter stand today—complained to Wagner that the height of the church caused downward draughts of wind which caused their chimneys to smoke excessively. Wagner's financial resources allowed him to buy some of the houses and reduce the tenants' rents, in order to avoid continued objections.
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. The neo-gothic
Gothic Revival architecture
The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...
building is located on Ann Street, on a sloping site between Brighton railway station
Brighton railway station
Brighton railway station is the principal railway station in the city of Brighton and Hove, on the south coast of England. The station master is Mark Epsom...
and the A23 London Road
A23 road
The A23 road is a major road in the United Kingdom between London and Brighton, East Sussex. It became an arterial route following the construction of Westminster Bridge in 1750 and the consequent improvement of roads leading to the bridge south of the river by the Turnpike Trusts...
, adjacent to the New England Quarter
New England Quarter
The New England Quarter is a mixed-use development in the city of Brighton and Hove, England. It was built between 2004 and 2008 on the largest brownfield site in the city, adjacent to Brighton railway station...
development. It is notable for its height – dominating the streets around it and being visible from many parts of the city – and its distinctive red-brick construction.
History and construction
The Revd Henry Michell Wagner, who had occupied the position of Vicar of Brighton since 1824, died in 1870, giving his son, the Revd Arthur Douglas Wagner (the curateCurate
A curate is a person who is invested with the care or cure of souls of a parish. In this sense "curate" correctly means a parish priest but in English-speaking countries a curate is an assistant to the parish priest...
of St Paul's Church
St Paul's Church, Brighton
St Paul's Church, dedicated to the missionary and Apostle to the Gentiles Paul of Tarsus, is a Church of England parish church in Brighton in the English county of Sussex. It is located on West Street in the city centre, close to the seafront and the main shopping areas.-History and...
in West Street), the opportunity to continue and improve his father's proposals for new parish churches in Brighton. He undertook three such schemes in the 1870s, two in conjunction with his two half-brothers, but Saint Bartholomew's is the only church which was his sole responsibility throughout.
In 1868, Arthur Wagner had built a temporary church on Providence Place, a back street parallel with the main London Road, along with a school accommodating 400 pupils. After his father's death, he resolved to build a more impressive new church in the same area. The original plan, which was submitted to the Town Council in 1871 and approved on 7 June of that year, consisted of a combined church and school building, 322 feet in length, 46 feet wide, and 41¾ feet high. This was amended shortly afterwards to reduce the number of bays in the interior
Bay (architecture)
A bay is a unit of form in architecture. This unit is defined as the zone between the outer edges of an engaged column, pilaster, or post; or within a window frame, doorframe, or vertical 'bas relief' wall form.-Defining elements:...
from 13 to 11½; the additional space formed a "courtyard" area between the church and the existing school building, which was to be retained.
Building work began on 8 February 1872; but Wagner's plans changed again, in favour of a significantly taller structure. When they were submitted on 16 September 1873, the revised plans reduced the length to 170 feet, but widened the building to 59 feet and, most significantly, proposed a height of 135 feet to the ridge of the roof. The cross on the roof at the south end (the liturgical west end
Cathedral diagram
In Western ecclesiastical architecture, a cathedral diagram is a floor plan showing the sections of walls and piers, giving an idea of the profiles of their columns and ribbing. Light double lines in perimeter walls indicate glazed windows. Dashed lines show the ribs of the vaulting overhead...
) adds a further 9 feet to this.
Construction based on the new plan started shortly after its submission, and continued for 19 months. The official opening was on 18 September 1874, while building work was still taking place; and with entirely free seating throughout (for up to 1,500 worshippers) it became the first church in Brighton to offer universal free entrance from the date of opening. This was not welcomed by local members of the clergy, who had historically gained reliable incomes from the practice of "pew rents".
Architecture and design
A Brighton-based architect, Edmund Scott, was commissioned by Wagner to undertake the design work—although modern interpretations of the modest nature of the work he undertook elsewhere in Brighton and surrounding areas tend to agree that he may have been directed and influenced extensively by Wagner, "a client who was prepared to disregard expense" on this project. Scott was not associated with any particular architectural movement, and worked alone on most of his projects, many of which no longer survive, although the Gothic RevivalGothic Revival architecture
The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...
St Botolph's Church
St Botolph's Church, Heene
St Botolph's Church is an Anglican church in the Heene area of the borough of Worthing, one of seven local government districts in the English county of West Sussex. It had 11th-century origins as a chapelry within the parish of West Tarring, but declined and fell into disuse by the 18th century...
in the Heene
Heene
Heene is a neighbourhood of the Borough of Worthing in West Sussex, England. It lies on the A259 road 0.6 miles west of the town centre.Heene comes from the word Hīun or Hīwun meaning family or household....
area of nearby Worthing
Worthing
Worthing is a large seaside town with borough status in West Sussex, within the historic County of Sussex, forming part of the Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton conurbation. It is situated at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of the county town of Chichester...
, built in 1873, remains an important example of his work. Two earlier examples of his less grand designs still remain in Portslade
Portslade
Portslade is the name of an area of the city of Brighton and Hove, England. Portslade Village, the original settlement a mile inland to the north, was built up in the 16th century...
in the form of the Early English style St Andrew's Church, built in 1864 as a free and open church with no "pew
Pew
A pew is a long bench seat or enclosed box used for seating members of a congregation or choir in a church, or sometimes in a courtroom.-Overview:Churches were not commonly furnished with permanent pews before the Protestant Reformation...
rents", and the original St Nicolas Church School, built in 1872 and now in use as an annex of Portslade Infants School.
Exterior
The exterior appearance is unusual and severe, especially because of the building's height and the manner in which it towers above nearby streets of low-level buildings. Many of the houses and other buildings which originally surrounded the church have been cleared, accentuating the contrast. However, the slightly taller buildings of the nearby New England Quarter development now reduce the church's visual impact from some angles, especially as the land they are built on is at a slightly higher level.High walls of reddish-brown brick, now aged to a purplish-brown colour, are topped by a steeply pitched roof with dark tiling. A mixture of red and black tiles were originally applied, but the roof was re-tiled in its present monochrome form in 1930. Running the length of the east and west sides of the exterior walls are a series of narrow buttress
Buttress
A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall...
es with tall, pointed windows. On the south side, an unusually large rose window
Rose window
A Rose window is often used as a generic term applied to a circular window, but is especially used for those found in churches of the Gothic architectural style and being divided into segments by stone mullions and tracery...
dominates the area below the apex of the roof, upon which stands a 9-foot gilt
Gilding
The term gilding covers a number of decorative techniques for applying fine gold leaf or powder to solid surfaces such as wood, stone, or metal to give a thin coating of gold. A gilded object is described as "gilt"...
cross which brings the total height of the structure to 144 feet.
The building work was undertaken by a Brighton company, Stanning & Co., and cost £18,000 (1874 prices). This was in contrast to the £25,000 spent on St Peter's church
St Peter's Church, Brighton
St Peter's Church is a Church of England parish church in Brighton in the English city of Brighton and Hove. It is near the centre of the town, on an island between two major roads, the A23 London Road and A270 Lewes Road. Built from 1824-28 to a design by Sir Charles Barry, it is arguably the...
around 50 years previously, under the supervision of Arthur Wagner's father, Henry Michell Wagner. The use of Portland stone
Portland stone
Portland stone is a limestone from the Tithonian stage of the Jurassic period quarried on the Isle of Portland, Dorset. The quarries consist of beds of white-grey limestone separated by chert beds. It has been used extensively as a building stone throughout the British Isles, notably in major...
on the latter added to the expense; the use of bricks for St Bartholomew's helped to reduce it, as did the abandonment of the revised plan's intention to build 11½ bays. (Only nine were constructed.) Additionally, the northern face of the church was never properly completed, and proposals for additional features such as transept
Transept
For the periodical go to The Transept.A transept is a transverse section, of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In Christian churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform building in Romanesque and Gothic Christian church architecture...
s and a spire
Spire
A spire is a tapering conical or pyramidal structure on the top of a building, particularly a church tower. Etymologically, the word is derived from the Old English word spir, meaning a sprout, shoot, or stalk of grass....
mentioned in contemporary publications were never carried out.
Interior
Openness and a relative lack of division into smaller sections characterises the interior, giving an impression of vast space which is enhanced by the uninterrupted height: the church is effectively one large hall. Each side wall has several tall arches underneath which side-chapels are located, but these are well integrated with the naveNave
In Romanesque and Gothic Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar, the main body of the church. "Nave" was probably suggested by the keel shape of its vaulting...
. Above this is a shallow triforium
Triforium
A triforium is a shallow arched gallery within the thickness of inner wall, which stands above the nave of a church or cathedral. It may occur at the level of the clerestory windows, or it may be located as a separate level below the clerestory. It may itself have an outer wall of glass rather than...
, and above this, immediately below the roof line, is the clerestory
Clerestory
Clerestory is an architectural term that historically denoted an upper level of a Roman basilica or of the nave of a Romanesque or Gothic church, the walls of which rise above the rooflines of the lower aisles and are pierced with windows. In modern usage, clerestory refers to any high windows...
with its tall pointed windows.
The interior walls are mostly made up of unadorned brickwork identical to that of the exterior. However, built into the northern end wall, above the altar, is a substantial cross, 30 feet high and built from Sussex chalk; and a set of carved wood and stone Stations of the Cross
Stations of the Cross
Stations of the Cross refers to the depiction of the final hours of Jesus, and the devotion commemorating the Passion. The tradition as chapel devotion began with St...
brought from Bruges
Bruges
Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located in the northwest of the country....
in 1881 are located on the walls of the side-chapels. Also, the walls above the altar support a range of mosaics by F. Hamilton Jackson, a follower of the Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...
.
The High altar and sanctuary themselves are highly decorative, and are among a range of new features introduced under the stewardship of the Revd Arthur W. C. Cocks, who became vicar of St Bartholomomew's in 1895. Architect and designer Henry Wilson
Henry Wilson (architect and designer)
Henry Wilson was a British architect, jeweller and designer.-Career:He was born at 91 Red Rock Street in West Derby near Liverpool on 12 March 1864....
, who was the first editor of the Architectural Review
Architectural Review
The Architectural Review is a monthly international architectural magazine published in London since 1896. Articles cover the built environment which includes landscape, building design, interior design and urbanism as well as theory of these subjects....
magazine when it was founded in 1896 and who was also involved in the Arts and Crafts movement, was responsible for the work undertaken at this time, having been appointed in 1895 upon the death of Edmund Scott. The sanctuary is dominated by a 45-foot baldacchino
Baldachin
A baldachin, or baldaquin , is a canopy of state 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 high altars in cathedrals, where such a structure is more correctly called a ciborium when it is...
in red and green marble, with a new altar below housing a silver tabernacle
Church tabernacle
A tabernacle is the fixed, locked box in which, in some Christian churches, the Eucharist is "reserved" . A less obvious container, set into the wall, is called an aumbry....
and a white marble shelf with a large crucifix and six candlesticks. In 1908 this was flanked by a pair of white marble columns bearing two further candles.
One of the side chapels contains a Lady altar designed in intricate repoussé
Repoussé and chasing
Repoussé or repoussage is a metalworking technique in which a malleable metal is ornamented or shaped by hammering from the reverse side to create a design in low relief. There are few techniques that offer such diversity of expression while still being relatively economical...
silver on copper by Wilson in 1902. The High altar's original crucifix was moved to this altar in 1912, with a new crucifix of a different design replacing it.
Wilson designed and built a new pulpit
Pulpit
Pulpit is a speakers' stand in a church. In many Christian churches, there are two speakers' stands at the front of the church. Typically, the one on the left is called the pulpit...
, again in a variety of marbles, in 1906. Six red marble columns stand on a base of black marble and support a large block of green Irish marble, similar in colour to that of the baldacchino's marble canopy. At the same time, a large organ gallery was built at the south end of the church to house the organ and up to 150 choristers and orchestra members; and in 1908, a large octagonal font
Baptismal font
A baptismal font is an article of church furniture or a fixture used for the baptism of children and adults.-Aspersion and affusion fonts:...
, again in green marble, is located in a recess on the south-eastern side of the church.
Wilson's association with St Bartholomew's ended in 1911, when Arthur Cocks left (having converted to Roman Catholicism
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
) and his successor, the Revd Henry Ross, brought his own ideas in. Few of these were carried out, partly because of the disruption caused by World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, although the mosaics above the altar were completed in 1912. The aborted plans included a second attempt at completing the north end, which was still unfinished; a subsequent third attempt failed to proceed because of a lack of funding, with the re-tiling of the roof being the priority at that time (1930).
"Tallest church" claims
Many sources claim that St Bartholomew's is the "tallest church in England", "the British Isles", or a variation on this. This requires some clarification; many churches are taller when their spires or steepleSteeple (architecture)
A steeple, in architecture, is a tall tower on a building, often topped by a spire. Steeples are very common on Christian churches and cathedrals and the use of the term generally connotes a religious structure...
s are included, and even the tallest church – St Walburge's Church
St Walburge's Church
St Walburge's Church is a Roman Catholic church located in Preston, Lancashire, England, northwest of the city centre on Weston Street. The church was built in the mid 19th century by the Gothic revival architect Joseph Hansom, designer of the hansom cab, and is famous as having the tallest spire...
in Preston, Lancashire, whose spire reaches 309 feet – is exceeded in height by four English cathedrals.
However, St Bartholomew's lacks any form of steeple or tower, and the quoted height of 135 feet is therefore the height to the apex of the roof — with the gilt cross adding a further 9 feet. If towers, steeples and spires are excluded, therefore, the "tallest church" claim has greater merit. Similarly, when cathedrals are excluded and only parish churches considered, the nave is the largest in Britain. Nevertheless, comparative measurements are difficult to obtain.
Reaction to the building
The stark and unusual design and the relatively opulent interior caused considerable controversy at first, especially among more reactionary Anglicans mistrustful of the Anglo-CatholicAnglo-Catholicism
The terms Anglo-Catholic and Anglo-Catholicism describe people, beliefs and practices within Anglicanism that affirm the Catholic, rather than Protestant, heritage and identity of the Anglican churches....
nature of Wagner and, by extension, his church. Musgrave (1981) notes that a letter written to a local newspaper in 1874, by a writer "who signed himself 'a true Protestant and no sham', expressed the deepest disquiet over such features as a certain 'dark spiral staircases... off which little and almost dark rooms, or cells... are built.'" The writer accuses these of housing nunneries or anchorite
Anchorite
Anchorite denotes someone who, for religious reasons, withdraws from secular society so as to be able to lead an intensely prayer-oriented, ascetic, and—circumstances permitting—Eucharist-focused life...
s, and questions whether the building is indeed being used solely as a church. In fact, the staircases and "cells" are merely parts of the triforium
Triforium
A triforium is a shallow arched gallery within the thickness of inner wall, which stands above the nave of a church or cathedral. It may occur at the level of the clerestory windows, or it may be located as a separate level below the clerestory. It may itself have an outer wall of glass rather than...
.
A remarkable debate at the Town Council in 1893, at which it was reported that the overall height of the building was two feet higher than that approved in the plans of 1873, led to a further barrage of criticism. As the statutory fine for the planning violation was only 40 shilling
Shilling
The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...
s (£2), it was considered irrelevant to impose it on the rich Wagner; but records of the debate indicate that a variety of derogatory descriptions of the building were made, including (as per Musgrave) "a cheese warehouse", "a Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark is a vessel appearing in the Book of Genesis and the Quran . These narratives describe the construction of the ark by Noah at God's command to save himself, his family, and the world's animals from the worldwide deluge of the Great Flood.In the narrative of the ark, God sees the...
in brick", "a monster excrescence", "a brick parallelogram
Parallelogram
In Euclidean geometry, a parallelogram is a convex quadrilateral with two pairs of parallel sides. The opposite or facing sides of a parallelogram are of equal length and the opposite angles of a parallelogram are of equal measure...
", "a huge barn", "uselessly large, painfully ugly and sadly out of place", and "Wagner's folly". (References to "Noah's Ark" are sometimes still heard today, mainly in relation to the shape and dimensions of the building.)
Additionally, residents of the houses formerly occupying the land immediately to the west of the church—where the London Road car park, St Bartholomew's school, and the eastern end of the New England Quarter stand today—complained to Wagner that the height of the church caused downward draughts of wind which caused their chimneys to smoke excessively. Wagner's financial resources allowed him to buy some of the houses and reduce the tenants' rents, in order to avoid continued objections.
The church today
The church is a Grade I-listed building, meaning that it is a building "of outstanding or national architectural or historic interest". Its size gives it unique acoustics and the ability to accommodate large numbers of people, which have made it an ideal venue for classical and other music concerts.See also
- List of places of worship in Brighton and Hove
- List of Grade I listed buildings in Brighton and Hove