Church Of St Michael And All Angels And Attached Walls

This Anglican church represents an extraordinary fusion of two buildings by prominent Victorian architects. The first church was designed by George Frederick Bodley in 1858 and built in 1861–2. The second was designed by William Burges in 1868 but not constructed until 1892–c1900, after Burges's death; John Starling Chapple served as the architect responsible for its completion. Bodley's original building became the south aisle of Burges's larger church. Both were commissioned by the Reverend Charles Beanlands, one of Father Wagner's curates.

Construction and Materials

The church is built of red brick set in English bond. The first building features dressings and bands of stone and blue brick, whilst the second uses stone dressings throughout. The roofs are slated.

Plan

The church comprises a nave and chancel under a single roof, with north-east vestries, a north aisle, and a south aisle formed from the first church. This south aisle has its own south aisle, creating an outer aisle. Porches occupy the north-west and south-west corners, and an arcaded fleche rises over the south aisle.

Exterior

Character and Treatment

The first building's character derives from its banded walls and distinctive window treatment: grouped lancets topped by circular windows with plate tracery, the whole set under arches or archivolts. The second church's exterior follows this same approach.

East End

The east end presents three stepped and chamfered lancets set back under a pointed arch, with a single lancet in the gable and a cross at the apex. Vestries of two and three storeys feature a canted bay to the east, upper windows comprising paired cusped lancets with sexfoils above, a parapet, and a low tower with conical stone roof in the north-west corner. The south aisle east window displays five lancets beneath a quasi-rose window—a quatrefoil surrounded by twelve circles—set back under a pointed arch with voussoirs of brick and stone and a stone hoodmould. A cross adorns the gable apex. The outer south aisle has a window of two lancets with a small circle in the spandrel under a round arch with voussoirs of brick and stone.

South Side

The south side presents the wall of the original south aisle, largely unwindowed except for a pair of low cusped lancets. The aisle runs through a gabled buttress attached to the body of the first building between nave and chancel. A clerestory of six bays features windows with two lancets under circular openings, set under round arches to the former chancel and pointed arches to the former nave. The former chancel and east chapel have bands of nailhead carving at the eaves.

North Side

The north side has a broad aisle of four bays, with windows consisting of two lancets under a cinquefoil. The window openings are dressed only in stone, set back under pointed arches of brick with stone springing bands. The clerestory of six bays includes a buttress and gabled chimney between the second and third bays. The first two bays have single lancets set back under broad, linked pointed arches with stone heads. The nave windows comprise two lancets under a circle, set back under a pointed arch of brick with stone springing bands.

West End

The west end features an offset below the west window, except at the sides where the wall continues upward as gabled buttresses. The west window has four lancets and a wheel window under a pointed stone arch. The west end of the north aisle displays two lancets under a blank rose window with billets to the parapet. The north porch has a flat-arched entrance to the right, with three linked windows to the south: two lancets with engaged columns and a circle under a pointed arch of brick and stone. Low walls in this area have chamfered stone coping.

The west end of the first building has a similar arrangement of offset and buttresses, with two windows of two lancets under a sexfoil, the whole under a pointed arch of chamfered stonework. A rose window in the gable takes the form of a sevenfoil surrounded by seven circles. The outer south aisle has a window of two lancets with a small circle in the spandrel under a pointed arch of chamfered stone with hoodmould.

The porch features a flat-arched entrance with a stone lintel supported on engaged columns, with a circular window above. Two windows facing west match those of the north porch. A ramped wall to steps has chamfered stone coping; outer iron railings are now missing. A low brick wall with gabled coping extends eastwards from the east end of the south aisle and northwards in Powis Road to the vestry gate.

Interior

The Second Building (Burges)

The second building's interior is executed in French 13th-century Gothic style. It comprises a chancel of two short bays, four nave bays, and a short west bay occupied by an organ gallery. Except at the west end, the bays consist of arcade, triforium, and clerestory. The chancel is stepped up on three levels above the nave, with only the sanctuary proper east of the chancel arch, so the choir occupies the first bay of the nave.

Sanctuary and Choir

Sanctuary walls are lined with banded and gilded alabaster. The altar, of red and grey marble with fluted columns, was designed by Temple Moore in 1914. An elaborate late-Gothic reredos by W.H. Romaine Walker (c1900) frames a painting of Christ in glory. The choir stalls were designed by Burges for the first church. A rood beam spans the chancel arch. Low alabaster walls to the sanctuary and choir are decorated with marble and mosaic; the choir walls have brass gates. Wrought-iron screens in a Renaissance manner separate the choir from both aisles.

Arcades and Galleries

The arcade to the west bay of the sanctuary and to the nave consists of coupled columns with shaft rings, vault shafts, foliage capitals, and pointed arches with an inner order. Blank circles in the spandrels are bisected by the vault shafts. The triforium presents an arcade of four flat-arched openings in each bay, grouped in twos and flanked by engaged columns with foliage capitals carrying a stilted-arched archivolt. Triforium and clerestory are linked by a secondary, detached, inner arcade echoing the main tracery.

An arcade of two arches carries the organ gallery, with short columns having foliage capitals and pierced quatrefoils to the gallery. The central spandrel contains a statue of St Michael by Thomas Nicholls; the outer spandrels feature trumpeting angels with the date 1912. North and south entrances have a shouldered arch under a segmental arch. A wooden, cross-vaulted ceiling covers the space.

North Aisle

The north aisle has a similar ceiling carried on vault shafts. The entrance to vestries is shoulder-arched under a stilted arch. Twin entrances to the porch are flat-arched under a segmental arch.

The First Building (Bodley)

The south aisle, or first building, consists of chancel, nave, south-east chapel, and its own south aisle. It is faced in brick with dressings of stone and blue brick, in early Italian Gothic character.

Chancel

The chancel east wall is lined with plain red encaustic tiles up to the level of a painted frieze of angels in an arcade, now partly obscured by the reredos. Above the frieze, a cornice of foliage ornament continues on the sanctuary side walls. The reredos is of late Gothic character. The sanctuary floor is paved with grey and white marble and coloured encaustic tiles.

The south wall of the chancel has sedilia under a single cusped and pointed arch. West of that, two pointed arches to the south chapel are set under a single pointed archivolt, with voussoirs partly of brick and partly of inlaid marble; the spandrel is decorated with a circle filled with a cinquefoil in coloured marbles. A wooden waggon ceiling was painted by William Morris and Philip Webb. A low wall to the chancel, of grey, brown, and chestnut marble decorated with segmental inlays in green and white marble, is pierced by two pairs of low cusped arches. Wrought-iron gates close the chancel. The chancel arch has an inner order carried on short corbelled columns.

Former Nave

The former nave has a four-bay arcade, now only on the south side. Stout columns with foliage capitals support square abaci, except for the easternmost, which substitutes a pair of granite columns. The arches are completely unmoulded and banded with blue brick. Blank stone circles fill the spandrels. Walls to the clerestory are banded in brick and stone as on the exterior. A pair of west doors, flat-arched under a pointed arch, feature decorative wrought-iron hinges and strapping; the tympanum is painted with St Michael and angels. A waggon roof with cross-beam and king post covers the space.

South-East Chapel

The south-east chapel is entered through an internal buttress. Panelling to the east end dates to c1920; a 16th-century Flemish reredos is installed. The floor is black-and-white marble. The ceiling is painted in the style of Temple Moore. A light wrought-iron screen separates the former chancel from the aisle.

Furnishings

The pulpit was designed by Burges: a simple cube faced in green marble with plain grey and white marble coping, carried on a complex arrangement of stumpy engaged columns and marble banded with tiles.

The font, in the south aisle and presumably designed by Bodley for the first church, is octagonal in grey marble. The drum is decorated with blank arcading and carried on an arcade of short columns.

A triangular painted panel over the door between vestry and chancel shows the Annunciation in Pre-Raphaelite style, presumably ex situ.

Stained Glass

The church contains an exceptional collection of stained glass:

By Morris and Company (1862): in the east window of the south-east chapel (designed by William Morris and Philip Webb); in the south windows of that chapel (designed by Burne-Jones); in the west window of the south aisle of the first building (designed by Burne-Jones); and in the principal west window of the first building (designed by William Morris, Ford Madox Brown, Peter Paul Marshall, and Burne-Jones).

By Clayton and Bell: in the principal east window of the first building, c1862.

By Lonsdale and Saunders: in the principal east and west windows of the second building, the west window of 1895.

By C.E. Kempe: in the three westernmost windows of the north aisle, 1914.

By Jones and Willis: in the easternmost window of the north aisle.

The south chancel windows of the first building are similar in style to the east window. The glass in the clerestory of the first building (c1890) and in the eastern clerestory windows of the nave of the second building is of comparable interest.

Significance

The place of St Michael and All Angels in the church history of Brighton, the architectural quality of both buildings and of their fittings, and the range and quality of the stained glass, make this a building of outstanding importance.