Church Of St Luke

Church of St Luke, Brighton

An Anglican church designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield and constructed between 1881 and 1885. The building is located on Queen's Park Terrace and represents a revival of Early English Gothic architecture.

The exterior is constructed from an irregular mix of split and whole flints with stone dressings, mouldings and windows. The roof is tiled. The church comprises a 3-bay chancel to the east with a 2-bay Lady Chapel to the south and vestry to the north, a 4-bay nave with north and south aisles, and an organ chamber to the east of the nave off the south side of the chancel. A 3-stage octagonal tower with alternating short and long sides stands at the south-west corner of the nave, broaching into a regular octagon in the top stage and capped by an 8-sided pyramidal roof. A west porch with lean-to roof abuts the tower.

The chancel has a high plinth of 2 setbacks at its foot. The east window comprises 5 stepped lancets gathered together and is flanked by buttresses of 2 setbacks. Below this window is a panel decorated with red and white chequers, with a sill band continuing across the east wall to the Lady Chapel. The steep facing gable of the chancel contains a stone lacing course with a small double lancet light in the middle, coping and gable cross above. The plinth reduces to a single setback and continues around the church.

The principal elevation faces Queen's Park Road to the south. The Lady Chapel's east window comprises 3 stepped lancets, articulated from the chancel by corner buttresses to the north and south, with gable kneelers and coping. The south elevation of the Lady Chapel has a 3-window range of single lancets, each bay demarcated by buttresses of 2 setbacks. A sill band continues down this flank over each buttress, with a springing band to the window heads interrupted by the buttresses, and a coved cornice to the eaves.

The most distinctive features of the design are two gabled bays on each aisle projecting slightly forward from the front wall. These alternate with pairs of double-light plate tracery windows and give the elevation a highly picturesque outline. Their placement on the south side is exactly reversed from their placement on the north. Each gable has a pointed arched window with traceried head, gable coping and cross. The intermediate bays are considerably lower with double-light plate tracery windows. A continuous sill band ties these elements together and steps down to form the division between the first and second stage of the tower. Single lancets appear on the west and south faces of the first stage. In the second stage the tower broaches, with single lights above each broach. A spire was originally planned but never completed due to lack of funds.

The west gable has three 2-light plate traceried lancets with quatrefoiled heads, the centre light taller than the sides and intersecting a stone lacing course. The west window to the north aisle has a 2-light plate-traceried lancet with a sill band continuing down the north aisle. The external west porch has a pointed and subordered arch entrance with spandrels filled with blind tracery. To either side are groups of 3 lancets, with pointed arches on the interior returns that appear to be blocked doorways. The north aisle is identical to the south.

In the interior, the chancel floor is raised 3 steps above the nave and the sacrarium a further 2. An organ chamber in the north wall of the chancel opens into the north aisle. The reredos is a 5-bay blind arcade with cinquefoiled heads, the centre bay set in a Gothic aedicule with elaborate floral carving in the 14th-century style, the entire reredos set within a blind superarch uniting the 5-lancet window with hood moulding terminating in angel stops. A door in the north wall leads to the vestry. The pointed-barrel vault ceiling of the chancel is timber with arched principals supported by corbels in the upper wall reaches. The Lady Chapel has a similar but smaller roof. The chancel is paved with black and red tiles and separated from the nave by a pointed chancel arch.

The nave arcade is pointed and supported in the chancel wall by paired corbelled shafts with filleted keels and bell capitals. The arcade is supported by columns with nail-head capitals. The timber roof of the nave is divided into 4 major bays corresponding to the arcade posts; each bay is articulated into 2 minor bays. The major trusses comprise a braced and strutted tie beam with an arched collar beam above, with cusped arches. The tie beam is omitted in front of the west window to form a hammer beam. The intermediate bays are defined by scissor-braced collar beams strutted into a wall plate spur. All principal rafters have wind braces, and the side purlins are through jointed.

The real interest of the design lies in the aisles, which are covered with alternating transverse pointed wood barrel vaults in the gabled bays and lean-to roofs in the intermediate bays. Each aisle cell is separated by a braced joist. The pattern of the south and north aisles is exactly reversed so that aisle bays opposite one another are differently roofed. The westernmost bay of the nave was filled in around 1965 with a single-storey structure designed to enclose parish rooms.

Furnishings include an octagonal font of 2 stages in the south-west corner of the nave; a polygonal pulpit at the north-east corner with fleur-de-lys frieze and cusped arcaded balustrade; iron and wood altar rails; open benches in 2 rows in the nave only; and choir stalls in collegiate arrangement in the chancel. The east window of the Lady Chapel contains stained glass by Kempe. Early 20th-century glass appears in the north and south aisles.

The church began as a mission of St Mary's, St James Street, in 1875 when housed in a red brick building opposite the present site. That building was demolished following a fire in 1972. St Luke's was constituted as a separate parish in 1880. In 1974 it was merged with the parish of the Resurrection.