Church Of St Leonard

The Church of St Leonard is a parish church located in Hove. The current structure includes a nave built in 1878, which now serves as the south aisle, and a tower, both constructed on the site of a former medieval church. In 1936, the nave, chancel, and spire were added, with the 19th-century work designed by architect Richard Herbert Carpenter and the 20th-century work by H. Milburn Pett. The church features dressed knapped flint with squared and coursed stone dressings and quoins, a north wall made of brick, and a clay tile roof with coped verges. The broached spire is covered with wooden shingles.

The church's layout includes a six-bay nave with a south aisle, a south-west tower, a chancel, a north-east brick addition, a south-east vestry, and a south porch that is no longer in use, with the entrance now located at the west end of the nave. The tower has low, setback buttresses and two-stage construction, with two-light louvred bell-openings. There are three lancet windows on either side of the timber-framed south porch, which features ornate bargeboards. A date stone in the plinth of the chancel is inscribed with details about its laying by Major R. Lawrence Thornton CBE on June 6, 1936.

Inside, the church is rendered, with the chancel featuring an arch-braced scissor truss roof, while the nave and south aisle have boarded and ceiled barrel vault roofs. The arcade consists of chamfered piers and pointed arches, which are chamfered in two orders. The east window contains stained glass dated 1948. The chancel displays a fine collection of Minton floor tiles, along with sedilia and a piscina. A replica medieval font is also present. The original 13th-century parish church was described as ruinous in 1638, and by the mid-18th to early 19th century, the parish of Aldrington was largely deserted. Any remnants of the medieval church that may have existed in the 1870s did not survive the rebuilding, and the planned north aisle in 1936 was never constructed.