Church Of St Peter

HOVE

TQ20NE HOLMES AVENUE, West Blatchington 579-1/3/178 (West side) 24/03/50 Church of St Peter

GV II*

Parish church. C12 nave and C13 chancel restored from ruinous state 1890-1, sedilia and aumbry added 1940, northern addition of larger nave and chancel 1960, porch restored 1987. C19 work by Somers Clarke, 1960 enlargement by John Leopold Denman. Pebble and knapped flint, brick dressings, brick coping to full-height curved C20 buttresses, clay tiled roofs, hipped bonnets to west end, coped verges, wooden shingles to bell-cote. Plan: chancel, 6-bay nave with organ gallery and west door flanked by bow windows, south-west stair turret, earlier nave and chancel forming 5-bay south aisle, south porch and south-east vestry. All windows C19 or C20 apart from 2 small Norman windows in west wall of south aisle. Gabled porch with bargeboards, buttressed south wall, lancet window, 3-light east window, curved east end of chancel, unlit with foundation stone dated 1960, attractive use of 2 tiers of brick laid end on to form chamfered plinth, north wall 3 full-height buttresses, 6-square-headed metal casement windows set between brick piers with bonnet hip tiles laid edge on as decorative capitals, west end doorway flanked by 2 bows with curved metal windows set below eaves, south front organ loft stair turret with curved facade and many paned window. Interior: rendered. Roof to nave rendered and carried on double chamfered curved trusses rising from below the heads of the window openings. Wooden gallery with baluster panels to organ loft. There is a clerestory of unleaded 3-light splayed interlocking sections to the south aisle lit by light wells in the roof space. The nave roof and the clerestory are the main features of interest; the fittings are as yet sparse. The C20 extension shows an imaginative and sympathetic use of local materials. The only feature surviving from the earlier church, a C16 brass commemorating the Scrase family who were tenants of West Blatchington manor for some 400 years, was removed to St Nicolas's Church, Portslade (qv) where it can be seen on the east wall of the south aisle. The church at West Blatchington had fallen into disuse by the late C16 and was ruinous by 1700. In 1744 the parish was united with that of Brighthelmston (Brighton), and did not again achieve parish status until 1940. (Dale A: Brighton Churches: 1989-).

Listing NGR: TQ2786506872