Church Of St Peter

The Church of St Peter is a parish church dating back to the 12th century, with a 13th-century chancel that was restored from a ruinous state between 1890 and 1901. Further additions were made in 1940, including sedilia and an aumbry, and a larger northern nave and chancel in 1960. A porch restoration took place in 1987. The 19th-century work is attributed to Somers Clarke and the 1960 enlargement to John Leopold Denman.

The church is constructed of pebble and knapped flint, with brick dressings, brick coping to full-height curved 20th-century buttresses, clay tiled roofs, and wooden shingles to the bellcote. The plan incorporates a chancel, a 6-bay nave with an organ gallery and west door flanked by bow windows, a south-west stair turret, an earlier nave and chancel forming a 5-bay south aisle, a south porch and a south-east vestry. All windows are 19th or 20th century, except for two small Norman windows in the west wall of the south aisle.

The gabled porch has bargeboards, and the south wall is buttressed, featuring a lancet window and a 3-light east window. The chancel has a curved east end, unlit and marked with a foundation stone dated 1960. The north wall has three full-height buttresses, and six square-headed metal casement windows set between brick piers with bonnet hip tiles laid edge on as decorative capitals. The west end doorway is flanked by two bows with curved metal windows below the eaves. The south front features an organ loft stair turret with a curved facade and a multi-paned window.

Internally, the church is rendered. The nave roof is rendered and supported by double chamfered curved trusses rising from below the window heads. A wooden gallery with baluster panels forms the organ loft. A clerestory of unleaded 3-light splayed interlocking sections to the south aisle is lit by light wells within the roof space. The nave roof and the clerestory are considered the primary features of interest.

A brass commemorating the Scrase family, who were tenants of West Blatchington manor for around 400 years, was removed to St Nicolas's Church, Portslade. The church at West Blatchington had fallen into disuse by the late 16th century and was ruinous by 1700. Parish status was not regained until 1940, following a union with the parish of Brighthelmston (Brighton) in 1744. The 20th-century extension demonstrates an imaginative and sympathetic use of local materials.