St Nicholas' Church, Brighton
Encyclopedia
The Church of Saint Nicholas
of Myra, usually known as St. Nicholas Church, is an Anglican
church in Brighton
, England
. It is both the original parish church of Brighton and the oldest surviving building in Brighton
. It is located on high ground at the junction of Church Street and Dyke Road in the city centre, very close to the main shopping areas. Due to its architectural significance the church is a Grade II* listed building.
of 1086 records the presence of a church, valued at £
12, in what was then the small fishing village of Bristelmestune. Shortly afterwards, it was granted to the Cluniac priory in nearby Lewes
. Although there is no certainty over where this church was located, it is possible that it stood on the site of the present-day St. Nicholas church: although Bristelmestune was located some distance to the south immediately adjacent to the coast, the ground there was marshy and suffered from erosion, and was vulnerable to attacks from invaders. The higher ground of the hill where the present church stands would have been better strategically and defensively, as well as being highly visible to residents of the village and the fishermen at sea.
origin, which may have come from the original church. Also, a font
from that period is preserved within the church. It was carved in around 1170 in Caen Stone
, and in 2001 was relocated to a prominent position at the west end of the church - the latest of several moves over the centuries.
The church, as originally constructed in the 14th century, consists of a substantial tower at the west end, a chancel
and an aisled nave
. Early additions include a chantry
, dating from the 15th century; these additional chapels were relatively common at that time.
A devastating attack from abroad did occur in June 1514, when French raiders landed on the coast and burned the surrounding village (by now known as Brighthelmstone) in its entirety. Only the church, standing some distance inland and above the fire, survived.
The church was damaged twice in under two years by severe storms which caused significant destruction and loss of life elsewhere in Brighton, especially in the buildings of the "lower town" by the coast. The Great Storm of 1703
, in November of that year, ripped lead from the roof; a subsequent storm, in August 1705, blew off all of the remaining sheets of lead. A commemorative tablet, dated 1705, was laid in the replacement roof.
Later in the 18th century, as Brighton's population began to grow, a series of pews, radiating outwards from the font in the centre, were installed. In the second half of that century, when the town's popularity grew substantially in response to Dr. Russell's
advocacy of the medicinal benefits of seawater (and, subsequently, the Prince Regent's patronage), space was so limited that a series of galleries had to be built around the roof of the church, accessed by external staircases. At the time, St. Nicholas was the only Anglican church in Brighton.
A model of the interior layout prior to the 1853 reconstruction can be seen today in one corner of the church.
; in 1541, following his death by execution in July 1540, the advowson
was granted to Anne of Cleves
; and finally, in 1558, the Bishop of Chichester
gained it. The holder of that title has been the patron of the church ever since.
(the former Prince Regent) from 1820 to 1830. The town continued to be fashionable, and the number of houses doubled during his 10½-year reign. Eight chapels of ease
had been built by 1830 to alleviate the burden on the overcrowded St Nicholas church, but the latter remained popular as it was free to attend. Furthermore, the administrative vestry of the church (the equivalent of the present-day Church of England Parochial Church Council
) was ideologically opposed to the responsibility they faced in raising funds for maintaining the fabric of the church. There were frequent disagreements and clashes with the vicar, Rev. H. W. Wagner, and deadlock was often reached over the issue of funding - to such an extent that the church became somewhat dilapidated and some of the windows in the chancel had to be boarded up.
The situation was resolved, however, in 1852, when the Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley
, died. There were historical links between the Duke and both Rev. Wagner and St. Nicholas Church itself: as a child in the 1780s, he studied for a time at an academy in Nile Street (in what is now The Lanes in the city centre) run by Rev. Wagner's grandfather Rev. H. Michell; he attended St. Nicholas Church, which at the time was under the curacy of Rev. Michell, to worship; and his sons were taught by Rev. Wagner himself for eight years from 1818. Rev. Wagner therefore announced that he would start a fund to pay for the rebuilding of the church as a memorial to the Duke, and donated the first £1,000. Nearly £5,000 more was subsequently raised from public subscriptions and donations.
The architect Richard Cromwell Carpenter
, associated with the architectural aspects of the Cambridge Movement
and Tractarianism
, was chosen to rebuild St Nicholas Church, after authorisation was granted on 15 April 1853 for demolition and reconstruction. The project was completed quite rapidly, given the size of the building, by Carpenter and the appointed building firm (Bushby's of Littlehampton
): the church was reopened on 8 April 1854, about nine months after work started.
Work included a new roof; a doubling of the width of the original aisles, and extensions to some of them; a reduction in the size of the chantry; the creation of an organ-chamber and a new east window; the removal of all galleries and original box-pews; and the moving of the font to a position near the south door, which it occupied until the latest move in 2001. A stone cross was installed to commemorate the Duke of Wellington. Carpenter himself died only a year after the project was completed, and a memorial plaque - now lost - was installed in recognition of his life and works. The reconstruction, which cost £5,769, reduced the capacity of the church by approximately 30% to around 900 because the galleries were removed.
Somers Clarke, the clerk of the administrative vestry for 62 years from 1830, donated a new pulpit
to the church in 1867, after the original three-deck structure was removed by Carpenter and replaced with a much smaller wooden example. Clarke's pulpit was made of iron. A new organ, costing £500, was installed in 1872, and a new vestry was built between 1876 and 1877 to the north of the chancel.
Between 1878 and 1887, a number of stained glass
windows were designed and installed. The noted designer Charles Eamer Kempe
, a cousin of Thomas Read Kemp
, the developer of Brighton's Kemp Town
estate, was responsible for many of these; another was donated by Somers Clarke in memory of Rev. Wagner, who had died in 1870. Also during this period, the east window installed by Carpenter was replaced with a Perpendicular-style window. The original window was taken to the relatively new Church of the Annunciation
in the Hanover area of the town
.
A significant alteration was made in 1892, when the whole roof was removed and lifted mechanically in order to create more space internally. The gap was filled with a series of clerestory
windows, and various paintings and murals were added to the new internal space painted by Charles Eamer Kempe.
The 15th-century chantry chapel underwent another change in 1900. Having been reduced in size in the 1853 redevelopment, it was enlarged again, before being converted into a Lady chapel
in 1909.
, a member of one of the most prominent families in the city of Gloucester
's 700-year bell-founding history. They were installed in the tower at the west end of the church. Two were given to St. Peter's Church upon its completion in 1828, but a bequest from a former warden of the church in 1892 funded the purchase of two more to replace these. The whole peal was then replaced in 1922 by a new ring of ten bells by Gillett and Johnson.
It became traditional for the bells to be rung when important visitors, especially monarchs or other members of the Royal Family, came to the town; a series of tablets preserved at the base of the ringing chamber give details of each "special occasion" on which the bells were rung for an extended period, such as Queen Victoria
's Golden Jubilee
in 1887. More recently, the bells were rung half-muffled for the funeral of Henry Allingham
on 30 July 2009.
with many old tombs. It has not accepted any new burials for many years, and was landscaped by the council in the mid-20th century, although most of the tombs of significant historical interest were left undisturbed and all of those monuments listed below have Grade II status.
The oldest memorial is that of Captain Nicholas Tattersell. He took King Charles II
from Shoreham harbour
to France in 1651 in Surprise, a coal ship he captained. See here for full details of the King's escape from the Battle of Worcester
and his passage to Fécamp in Normandy. Upon King Charles's return to Britain in 1660, he granted Tattersell a pension of £100 per year, and Surprise was transferred into the Royal Navy's fleet and renamed The Royal Escape.
Phoebe Hessel
, a famous 18th- and 19th-century resident of Brighton, is buried close by. She fell in love with a soldier, William Golding, at the age of 15, and disguised herself as a man to enlist alongside him in the British Army
after he was sent overseas. The concealment of her sex was so effective that she served for 17 years until voluntarily revealing the truth to her commanding officer
's wife and being discharged; even after suffering a wounded arm at the Battle of Fontenoy
in 1745, she was not discovered during her treatment. She became a well-known figure after moving to Brighton following the death of Golding in the 1760s, and lived to the age of 108—being granted a special pension by the Prince Regent, and travelling in the procession during his coronation as King George IV.
Martha Gunn
, one of the town's best-known residents in the 18th and 19th centuries, is also buried in the churchyard. She was the most famous of Brighton's dippers
, who helped non-swimmers bathe in the sea (using horse-drawn bathing machines) in the decades after Dr. Richard Russell's advice became popular. Dippers had to be of the same sex as their client (or "bathee"), and Martha Gunn was well regarded for many years by locals and visitors, with her size and strength being a particular advantage in this difficult physical task.
Anna Maria Crouch
, a noted singer and actress contemporary with Hessel and Gunn, is commemorated by an impressive stone urn. For much of her career, she was associated with the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
, London, taking both singing and speaking parts in various plays. However, her romantic life was also noteworthy: she married a Royal Navy lieutenant in 1785 after a brief elope
ment in Ireland the previous year, but took an Irish actor and operatic singer, Michael Kelly, as a lover shortly afterwards. Husband, wife and lover lived together for a time in a ménage à trois
, but Anna Maria Crouch also had a relationship with the Prince Regent; and when she later moved to London with Kelly, the Prince was a frequent visitor to their house. She died in 1805, at the age of 42.
Other people important in the history of Brighton to be buried in the churchyard include Sake Dean Mahomet
—an Indian man who introduced the Turkish bath
to Britain, was appointed masseur and bath attendant to both King George IV and King William IV
, and lived to 102; and Amon Wilds
, one of the most important architects of the Regency era
, who provided Brighton with much Regency architecture
. Meanwhile, the actress Dame Flora Robson
, noted for a long career on stage, television and film, is commemorated with a memorial stone in the churchyard. She lived in a house in Wykeham Terrace
, a short distance from the church, for some years until her death in 1984.
The first extension to the churchyard was built in 1824, across Church Street to the north. This has been converted into a school playground. Another modest extension was made in 1831, but the most significant change came in 1841 when land to the west of what is now Dyke Road (then named Church Hill) was acquired and used to form a much larger burial ground. This western extension was laid out by Regency architect
Amon Henry Wilds
and contains a series of burial vault
s with Grade II listed status.
Having been Brighton's parish church for several centuries, St Nicholas Church lost this status in 1873 when the Bishop of Chichester
reorganised the entire structure of Brighton's parishes. St Peter's Church
had been constructed in 1828 as a chapel of ease
associated with St Nicholas Church; in 1873, the two were separated and each allocated their own parish, and St Peter's became Brighton's parish church—perhaps because of its more central location (following the development of the town around it). St Nicholas Church is still widely known as "The Mother Church of Brighton", though.
Sunday services are held at 8.00am and 10.30am, and 20-minute morning and evening prayer sessions are held on every other day of the week. Other activities include a Sunday school
, a youth group and regular live music.
Saint Nicholas
Saint Nicholas , also called Nikolaos of Myra, was a historic 4th-century saint and Greek Bishop of Myra . Because of the many miracles attributed to his intercession, he is also known as Nikolaos the Wonderworker...
of Myra, usually known as St. Nicholas Church, is an Anglican
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
church in Brighton
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...
. It is both the original parish church of Brighton and the oldest surviving building in Brighton
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
. It is located on high ground at the junction of Church Street and Dyke Road in the city centre, very close to the main shopping areas. Due to its architectural significance the church is a Grade II* listed building.
Early history
The Domesday BookDomesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
of 1086 records the presence of a church, valued at £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
12, in what was then the small fishing village of Bristelmestune. Shortly afterwards, it was granted to the Cluniac priory in nearby Lewes
Lewes Priory
The Priory of St Pancras was the first Cluniac house in England and had one of the largest monastic churches in the country. It was set within an extensive walled and gated precinct laid out in a commanding location fronting the tidal shore-line at the head of the Ouse valley to the south of Lewes...
. Although there is no certainty over where this church was located, it is possible that it stood on the site of the present-day St. Nicholas church: although Bristelmestune was located some distance to the south immediately adjacent to the coast, the ground there was marshy and suffered from erosion, and was vulnerable to attacks from invaders. The higher ground of the hill where the present church stands would have been better strategically and defensively, as well as being highly visible to residents of the village and the fishermen at sea.
Construction of the present church
In its current form, St. Nicholas church dates from the mid-14th century, although the tower that was built at that time used some stones of NormanNorman conquest of England
The Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy. William became known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, defeating King Harold II of England...
origin, which may have come from the original church. Also, a 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:...
from that period is preserved within the church. It was carved in around 1170 in Caen Stone
Caen stone
Caen stone or Pierre de Caen, is a light creamy-yellow Jurassic limestone quarried in northwestern France near the city of Caen.The limestone is a fine grained oolitic limestone formed in shallow water lagoons in the Bathonian Age about 167 million years ago...
, and in 2001 was relocated to a prominent position at the west end of the church - the latest of several moves over the centuries.
The church, as originally constructed in the 14th century, consists of a substantial tower at the west end, a chancel
Chancel
In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar in the sanctuary at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building...
and an aisled nave
Nave
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...
. Early additions include a chantry
Chantry
Chantry is the English term for a fund established to pay for a priest to celebrate sung Masses for a specified purpose, generally for the soul of the deceased donor. Chantries were endowed with lands given by donors, the income from which maintained the chantry priest...
, dating from the 15th century; these additional chapels were relatively common at that time.
A devastating attack from abroad did occur in June 1514, when French raiders landed on the coast and burned the surrounding village (by now known as Brighthelmstone) in its entirety. Only the church, standing some distance inland and above the fire, survived.
The church was damaged twice in under two years by severe storms which caused significant destruction and loss of life elsewhere in Brighton, especially in the buildings of the "lower town" by the coast. The Great Storm of 1703
Great Storm of 1703
The Great Storm of 1703 was the most severe storm or natural disaster ever recorded in the southern part of Great Britain. It affected southern England and the English Channel in the Kingdom of Great Britain...
, in November of that year, ripped lead from the roof; a subsequent storm, in August 1705, blew off all of the remaining sheets of lead. A commemorative tablet, dated 1705, was laid in the replacement roof.
Later in the 18th century, as Brighton's population began to grow, a series of pews, radiating outwards from the font in the centre, were installed. In the second half of that century, when the town's popularity grew substantially in response to Dr. Russell's
Richard Russell (doctor)
Richard Russell was an 18th century British Physician who encouraged his patients to use a form of water therapy that involved the submersion or bathing in, and drinking of, seawater...
advocacy of the medicinal benefits of seawater (and, subsequently, the Prince Regent's patronage), space was so limited that a series of galleries had to be built around the roof of the church, accessed by external staircases. At the time, St. Nicholas was the only Anglican church in Brighton.
A model of the interior layout prior to the 1853 reconstruction can be seen today in one corner of the church.
Patron of the church
The ancient Southover Priory in Lewes was responsible for the church from the end of the 11th century until 1537, when the last prior surrendered it to the Crown. In 1540, it passed to Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of EssexThomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex
Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex, , was an English statesman who served as chief minister of King Henry VIII of England from 1532 to 1540....
; in 1541, following his death by execution in July 1540, the advowson
Advowson
Advowson is the right in English law of a patron to present or appoint a nominee to a vacant ecclesiastical benefice or church living, a process known as presentation. In effect this means the right to nominate a person to hold a church office in a parish...
was granted to Anne of Cleves
Anne of Cleves
Anne of Cleves was a German noblewoman and the fourth wife of Henry VIII of England and as such she was Queen of England from 6 January 1540 to 9 July 1540. The marriage was never consummated, and she was not crowned queen consort...
; and finally, in 1558, the Bishop of Chichester
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 in the City of Chichester where the seat is located at the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity...
gained it. The holder of that title has been the patron of the church ever since.
Rebuilding in 1853
Brighton underwent considerable change during the reign of King George IVGeorge IV of the United Kingdom
George IV was the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and also of Hanover from the death of his father, George III, on 29 January 1820 until his own death ten years later...
(the former Prince Regent) from 1820 to 1830. The town continued to be fashionable, and the number of houses doubled during his 10½-year reign. Eight chapels of ease
Chapel of ease
A chapel of ease is a 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....
had been built by 1830 to alleviate the burden on the overcrowded St Nicholas church, but the latter remained popular as it was free to attend. Furthermore, the administrative vestry of the church (the equivalent of the present-day Church of England Parochial Church Council
Parochial Church Council
The parochial church council , is the executive body of a Church of England parish.-Powers and duties:Two Acts of Parliament define the powers and duties of PCCs...
) was ideologically opposed to the responsibility they faced in raising funds for maintaining the fabric of the church. There were frequent disagreements and clashes with the vicar, Rev. H. W. Wagner, and deadlock was often reached over the issue of funding - to such an extent that the church became somewhat dilapidated and some of the windows in the chancel had to be boarded up.
The situation was resolved, however, in 1852, when the Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...
, died. There were historical links between the Duke and both Rev. Wagner and St. Nicholas Church itself: as a child in the 1780s, he studied for a time at an academy in Nile Street (in what is now The Lanes in the city centre) run by Rev. Wagner's grandfather Rev. H. Michell; he attended St. Nicholas Church, which at the time was under the curacy of Rev. Michell, to worship; and his sons were taught by Rev. Wagner himself for eight years from 1818. Rev. Wagner therefore announced that he would start a fund to pay for the rebuilding of the church as a memorial to the Duke, and donated the first £1,000. Nearly £5,000 more was subsequently raised from public subscriptions and donations.
The architect Richard Cromwell Carpenter
Richard Cromwell Carpenter
Richard Cromwell Carpenter was an English architect. He is chiefly remembered as an ecclesiastical and tractarian architect working in the Gothic style.-Family:...
, associated with the architectural aspects of the Cambridge Movement
Cambridge Movement
The Cambridge Movement was a conservative ideological school of thought closely related to the Oxford Movement.- History :It has been claimed the origins of the movement emanate from the teachings of the Cambridge University professor and intellectual Desiderius Erasmus...
and Tractarianism
Oxford Movement
The Oxford Movement was a movement of High Church Anglicans, eventually developing into Anglo-Catholicism. The movement, whose members were often associated with the University of Oxford, argued for the reinstatement of lost Christian traditions of faith and their inclusion into Anglican liturgy...
, was chosen to rebuild St Nicholas Church, after authorisation was granted on 15 April 1853 for demolition and reconstruction. The project was completed quite rapidly, given the size of the building, by Carpenter and the appointed building firm (Bushby's of Littlehampton
Littlehampton
Littlehampton is a seaside resort town and civil parish in the Arun District of West Sussex, England, on the east bank at the mouth of the River Arun. It lies south southwest of London, west of Brighton and east of the county town of Chichester....
): the church was reopened on 8 April 1854, about nine months after work started.
Work included a new roof; a doubling of the width of the original aisles, and extensions to some of them; a reduction in the size of the chantry; the creation of an organ-chamber and a new east window; the removal of all galleries and original box-pews; and the moving of the font to a position near the south door, which it occupied until the latest move in 2001. A stone cross was installed to commemorate the Duke of Wellington. Carpenter himself died only a year after the project was completed, and a memorial plaque - now lost - was installed in recognition of his life and works. The reconstruction, which cost £5,769, reduced the capacity of the church by approximately 30% to around 900 because the galleries were removed.
Subsequent work
Much work was carried out over the next fifty years, mostly in the form of additions to or replacements of existing fixtures; nevertheless, many of the original mediaeval features of the church were either lost or had their impact reduced.Somers Clarke, the clerk of the administrative vestry for 62 years from 1830, donated 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...
to the church in 1867, after the original three-deck structure was removed by Carpenter and replaced with a much smaller wooden example. Clarke's pulpit was made of iron. A new organ, costing £500, was installed in 1872, and a new vestry was built between 1876 and 1877 to the north of the chancel.
Between 1878 and 1887, a number of stained glass
Stained glass
The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...
windows were designed and installed. The noted designer Charles Eamer Kempe
Charles Eamer Kempe
Charles Eamer Kempe was a well-known Victorian stained glass designer. After attending Twyford School, he studied for the priesthood at Pembroke College, Oxford, but it became clear that his severe stammer would be an impediment to preaching...
, a cousin of Thomas Read Kemp
Thomas Read Kemp
Thomas Read Kemp was an English property developer and politician. He was the son of Sussex landowner Thomas Kemp, whose farmhouse in Brighton was rented by the Prince of Wales in 1786.-Biography:...
, the developer of Brighton's Kemp Town
Kemp Town
Kemp Town is a 19th Century residential estate in the east of Brighton in East Sussex, England, UK. Kemp Town was conceived and financed by Thomas Read Kemp. It has given its name to the larger Kemptown region of Brighton....
estate, was responsible for many of these; another was donated by Somers Clarke in memory of Rev. Wagner, who had died in 1870. Also during this period, the east window installed by Carpenter was replaced with a Perpendicular-style window. The original window was taken to the relatively new Church of the Annunciation
Church of the Annunciation, Brighton
The Church of the Annunciation is an Anglican church in Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. It was one of several churches built in the 1860s on behalf of Rev. Arthur Wagner, the son of Rev. Henry Michell Wagner, Vicar of Brighton , and served a new area of poor housing in...
in the Hanover area of the town
Hanover, Brighton
thumb|right|Hanover Day 2007.Hanover is an area within the city of Brighton and Hove, United Kingdom. It is part of the electoral ward of Hanover & Elm Grove....
.
A significant alteration was made in 1892, when the whole roof was removed and lifted mechanically in order to create more space internally. The gap was filled with a series of 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...
windows, and various paintings and murals were added to the new internal space painted by Charles Eamer Kempe.
The 15th-century chantry chapel underwent another change in 1900. Having been reduced in size in the 1853 redevelopment, it was enlarged again, before being converted into a Lady chapel
Lady chapel
A Lady chapel, also called Mary chapel or Marian chapel, is a traditional English term for a chapel inside a cathedral, basilica, or large church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary...
in 1909.
Bells
The first peal of bells, ten in total, was presented to the church in 1777 by Thomas RudhallRudhall of Gloucester
Rudhall of Gloucester was a family business of bell founders in the city of Gloucester, England, who between 1684 and 1835 produced over 5,000 bells. The business was founded by Abraham Rudhall and the earliest ring of bells he cast was for St Nicholas' Church, Oddington in 1684. He came to be...
, a member of one of the most prominent families in the city of Gloucester
Gloucester
Gloucester is a city, district and county town of Gloucestershire in the South West region of England. Gloucester lies close to the Welsh border, and on the River Severn, approximately north-east of Bristol, and south-southwest of Birmingham....
's 700-year bell-founding history. They were installed in the tower at the west end of the church. Two were given to St. Peter's Church upon its completion in 1828, but a bequest from a former warden of the church in 1892 funded the purchase of two more to replace these. The whole peal was then replaced in 1922 by a new ring of ten bells by Gillett and Johnson.
It became traditional for the bells to be rung when important visitors, especially monarchs or other members of the Royal Family, came to the town; a series of tablets preserved at the base of the ringing chamber give details of each "special occasion" on which the bells were rung for an extended period, such as Queen Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....
's Golden Jubilee
Golden Jubilee
A Golden Jubilee is a celebration held to mark a 50th anniversary.- In Thailand :King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world's longest-reigning monarch, celebrated his Golden Jubilee on 9 June 1996.- In the Commonwealth Realms :...
in 1887. More recently, the bells were rung half-muffled for the funeral of Henry Allingham
Henry Allingham
Henry William Allingham was a British supercentenarian, First World War veteran and, for one month, the verified oldest living man in the world...
on 30 July 2009.
Churchyard
St Nicholas Church is surrounded by a graveyardGraveyard
A graveyard is any place set aside for long-term burial of the dead, with or without monuments such as headstones...
with many old tombs. It has not accepted any new burials for many years, and was landscaped by the council in the mid-20th century, although most of the tombs of significant historical interest were left undisturbed and all of those monuments listed below have Grade II status.
The oldest memorial is that of Captain Nicholas Tattersell. He took King Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
from Shoreham harbour
Shoreham-by-Sea
Shoreham-by-Sea is a small town, port and seaside resort in West Sussex, England. Shoreham-by-Sea railway station is located less than a mile from the town centre and London Gatwick Airport is away...
to France in 1651 in Surprise, a coal ship he captained. See here for full details of the King's escape from the Battle of Worcester
Battle of Worcester
The Battle of Worcester took place on 3 September 1651 at Worcester, England and was the final battle of the English Civil War. Oliver Cromwell and the Parliamentarians defeated the Royalist, predominantly Scottish, forces of King Charles II...
and his passage to Fécamp in Normandy. Upon King Charles's return to Britain in 1660, he granted Tattersell a pension of £100 per year, and Surprise was transferred into the Royal Navy's fleet and renamed The Royal Escape.
Phoebe Hessel
Phoebe Hessel
Phoebe Hessel was best known for disguising herself as a man to serve in the British Army, probably to be with her lover, Samuel Golding....
, a famous 18th- and 19th-century resident of Brighton, is buried close by. She fell in love with a soldier, William Golding, at the age of 15, and disguised herself as a man to enlist alongside him in the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
after he was sent overseas. The concealment of her sex was so effective that she served for 17 years until voluntarily revealing the truth to her commanding officer
Commanding officer
The commanding officer is the officer in command of a military unit. Typically, the commanding officer has ultimate authority over the unit, and is usually given wide latitude to run the unit as he sees fit, within the bounds of military law...
's wife and being discharged; even after suffering a wounded arm at the Battle of Fontenoy
Battle of Fontenoy
The Battle of Fontenoy, 11 May 1745, was a major engagement of the War of the Austrian Succession, fought between the forces of the Pragmatic Allies – comprising mainly Dutch, British, and Hanoverian troops under the nominal command of the Duke of Cumberland – and a French army under Maurice de...
in 1745, she was not discovered during her treatment. She became a well-known figure after moving to Brighton following the death of Golding in the 1760s, and lived to the age of 108—being granted a special pension by the Prince Regent, and travelling in the procession during his coronation as King George IV.
Martha Gunn
Martha Gunn
To Brighton came he,Came George III's son.To be bathed in the sea,By famed Martha Gunn.Martha Gunn was possibly the most famous of the dippers, certainly the most famous in Brighton. She lived at 36 East Street, Brighton; the house still stands. She is buried in St...
, one of the town's best-known residents in the 18th and 19th centuries, is also buried in the churchyard. She was the most famous of Brighton's dippers
Bathing machine
The bathing machine was a device, popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, to allow people to change out of their usual clothes, possibly change into swimwear and then wade in the ocean at beaches. Bathing machines were roofed and walled wooden carts rolled into the sea...
, who helped non-swimmers bathe in the sea (using horse-drawn bathing machines) in the decades after Dr. Richard Russell's advice became popular. Dippers had to be of the same sex as their client (or "bathee"), and Martha Gunn was well regarded for many years by locals and visitors, with her size and strength being a particular advantage in this difficult physical task.
Anna Maria Crouch
Anna Maria Crouch
Anna Maria Crouch , often referred to as Mrs Crouch, was a singer and stage actress in the London theatre. She was a mistress of George, Prince of Wales.-Early life and acting career:...
, a noted singer and actress contemporary with Hessel and Gunn, is commemorated by an impressive stone urn. For much of her career, she was associated with the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
, London, taking both singing and speaking parts in various plays. However, her romantic life was also noteworthy: she married a Royal Navy lieutenant in 1785 after a brief elope
Elope
To elope, most literally, merely means to run away with a girl and to not come back to the point of origination. More specifically, elopement is often used to refer to a marriage conducted in sudden and secretive fashion, usually involving hurried flight away from one's place of residence together...
ment in Ireland the previous year, but took an Irish actor and operatic singer, Michael Kelly, as a lover shortly afterwards. Husband, wife and lover lived together for a time in a ménage à trois
Ménage à trois
Ménage à trois is a French term which originally described a domestic arrangement in which three people having sexual relations occupy the same household – the phrase literally translates as "household of three"...
, but Anna Maria Crouch also had a relationship with the Prince Regent; and when she later moved to London with Kelly, the Prince was a frequent visitor to their house. She died in 1805, at the age of 42.
Other people important in the history of Brighton to be buried in the churchyard include Sake Dean Mahomet
Sake Dean Mahomet
Sake Dean Mahomed was a Bengali traveler, surgeon and entrepreneur who introduced the Indian curry house restaurant in Britain, and was the first Indian to have written a book in English. He also established "shampooing" baths in Great Britain, where he offered therapeutic massage,The word...
—an Indian man who introduced the Turkish bath
Hammam
A Turkish bath is the Turkish variant of a steam bath, sauna or Russian Bath, distinguished by a focus on water, as distinct from ambient steam....
to Britain, was appointed masseur and bath attendant to both King George IV and King William IV
William IV of the United Kingdom
William IV was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death...
, and lived to 102; and Amon Wilds
Amon Wilds
Amon Wilds was an English architect and builder. He formed an architectural partnership with his son Amon Henry WildsIn this article, Amon Wilds is referred to as Wilds senior and his son Amon Henry Wilds as Wilds junior. in 1806 and started working in the fashionable and growing seaside resort...
, one of the most important architects of the Regency era
English Regency
The Regency era in the United Kingdom is the period between 1811—when King George III was deemed unfit to rule and his son, the Prince of Wales, ruled as his proxy as Prince Regent—and 1820, when the Prince Regent became George IV on the death of his father....
, who provided Brighton with much Regency architecture
Regency architecture
The Regency style of architecture refers primarily to buildings built in Britain during the period in the early 19th century when George IV was Prince Regent, and also to later buildings following the same style...
. Meanwhile, the actress Dame Flora Robson
Flora Robson
Dame Flora McKenzie Robson DBE was an English actress, renowned as a character actress, who played roles ranging from queens to villainesses.-Early life:...
, noted for a long career on stage, television and film, is commemorated with a memorial stone in the churchyard. She lived in a house in Wykeham Terrace
Wykeham Terrace, Brighton
Wykeham Terrace is a row of 12 early 19th-century houses in central Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. The Tudor-Gothic building, attributed to prominent local architect Amon Henry Wilds, is built into the hillside below the churchyard of Brighton's ancient parish church...
, a short distance from the church, for some years until her death in 1984.
The first extension to the churchyard was built in 1824, across Church Street to the north. This has been converted into a school playground. Another modest extension was made in 1831, but the most significant change came in 1841 when land to the west of what is now Dyke Road (then named Church Hill) was acquired and used to form a much larger burial ground. This western extension was laid out by Regency architect
Regency architecture
The Regency style of architecture refers primarily to buildings built in Britain during the period in the early 19th century when George IV was Prince Regent, and also to later buildings following the same style...
Amon Henry Wilds
Amon Henry Wilds
Amon Henry Wilds was an English architect. He was part of a team of three architects and builders who—working together or independently at different times—were almost solely responsible for a surge in residential construction and development in early 19th-century Brighton, which until then had...
and contains a series of burial vault
Burial vault
Burial vault may refer to:*Burial vault , protective coffin enclosure*Burial vault , underground tomb...
s with Grade II listed status.
The church today
St Nicholas' Church was listed at Grade II* on 13 October 1952. As of February 2001, it was one of 70 Grade II*-listed buildings and structures, and 1,218 listed buildings of all grades, in the city of Brighton and Hove.Having been Brighton's parish church for several centuries, St Nicholas Church lost this status in 1873 when the Bishop of Chichester
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 in the City of Chichester where the seat is located at the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity...
reorganised the entire structure of Brighton's parishes. 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...
had been constructed in 1828 as a chapel of ease
Chapel of ease
A chapel of ease is a 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....
associated with St Nicholas Church; in 1873, the two were separated and each allocated their own parish, and St Peter's became Brighton's parish church—perhaps because of its more central location (following the development of the town around it). St Nicholas Church is still widely known as "The Mother Church of Brighton", though.
Sunday services are held at 8.00am and 10.30am, and 20-minute morning and evening prayer sessions are held on every other day of the week. Other activities include a Sunday school
Sunday school
Sunday school is the generic name for many different types of religious education pursued on Sundays by various denominations.-England:The first Sunday school may have been opened in 1751 in St. Mary's Church, Nottingham. Another early start was made by Hannah Ball, a native of High Wycombe in...
, a youth group and regular live music.