Chapel Of The Royal County Sussex Hospital

Chapel of the Royal County Sussex Hospital

This hospital chapel, located on the north side of Eastern Road in Brighton, was designed by William Hallett and dated 1854, as shown on a plaque fixed to the inside of the north wall. It was probably funded by Lawrence Peel and dedicated by Frederick William Marquis of Bristol. The building is constructed in Italianate style using ashlar stone, with a hipped slate roof incorporating a wooden light register.

The chapel has a rectangular plan with a shallow square-ended chancel in the east wall and a three-window range along the north elevation. The building is positioned centrally on the axis of the main hospital block, projecting from its rear.

The exterior presents its principal elevation to the north. The rusticated ashlar base is topped by a storey band, with corner quoins and a notably high parapet. Each round-arched window sits within a slightly projecting aedicule, featuring plain jambs and a spandrel topped by a keystone. The entrance is located in the south wall, accessed directly from the hospital. Twentieth-century additions have now obscured most of the original exterior design.

The interior reflects two distinct building campaigns. The original 1854 decoration includes a moulded step leading into the chancel, which is entered through an elliptical diaphragm arch. The chancel entrance features an architrave ornamented with guilloche work on its outer face, with keyed jambs and arch. The arch soffit is panelled. The east wall of the chancel contains a tripartite flat-arched aedicule with a mid-19th-century painted and stained-glass window at its centre. The north and west walls contain round-arched openings set back from the wall plane, each with stone eared-and-shouldered architraves that are keyed like the chancel arch. The keystones of the chancel arch and windows are linked by string moulding. The coved ceiling rises from an entablature at the top of each wall and is divided into panels by ribs. The light register in the centre of the ceiling is ornamented in its lower section with ribbons and swags, above which are flat-arched windows set into a Tuscan pilastrade, with a flat panelled ceiling above.

The black and white stone and marble pavement dates to the late 19th or early 20th century, when oak panelling was added along the lower two-thirds of each wall. This panelling is topped with a diminutive entablature featuring a dentil cornice. The segmental-arched entrance is framed by a pair of pilaster strips with panelled fronts ornamented with tongued hearts, surmounted by a broad panelled entablature with a garland frieze. Opposite the chancel and between the two west-wall windows is an elaborate aedicule with pilasters set on acanthus corbels, terminating in Composite capitals supporting fluted impost blocks, and a broken segmental pediment above. The entablature running through this aedicule and between the windows has a boldly projecting cornice and a frieze of garland swags in very high relief.

A notable memorial panel in the north wall features a pair of console brackets supporting panelled pilasters and entablature with garland swags. Nineteenth-century furnishings of note include west choir stalls and their returns, together with the associated carved rail; a reading desk of similar design now on the north wall; a baptismal font in the north-east corner placed on the extension of the chancel step; and an organ case in the south-east corner. The organ works are of late 20th-century date, though the case itself is 19th-century.

An inscription runs along the east wall, returning west on both sides, reading: "Praise with Love and Worship Many Honourable Women Those That Gave Their Lives for Us When We Were Like to Die". A small brass plaque below the sill of the centre window on the north side reads: "The Most Honourable Frederick William Marquis of Bristol Erected This Chapel A.D. 1854".

The decorative panelling in the interior was very likely added in the early 20th century as a memorial to the War Dead.