Church of St Saviour

This Grade II* listed church stands as a landmark on South Street, Eastbourne. It was designed by the eminent Victorian architect George Edmund Street and built between 1865 and 1866, with the steeple completed in 1870-2. A baptistry was added in 1892, a south chapel in 1903, and a church room in 1954.

Architecture and Materials

The church is constructed of red brick with Bath stone dressings and has clay tile roofs with polychrome patterning. Built on a grand scale, it draws upon late 13th-century architectural motifs. The plan comprises a nave, chancel with semi-circular apse, north and south aisles, west baptistry, north-west steeple with ground-floor porch, chancel, south-east chapel, north-east chapel, south-east vestries, and south-west parish room.

Exterior

The majestic north-west steeple serves a dual purpose as both tower and porch. Rising in three stages, the lowest accounts for roughly half its height and features angle buttresses with offsets. The entrance on the north side has a tall gable with a moulded brick arch beneath, and there is a two-light west window. The middle stage displays arcading on the north, east and west faces, with the three central arches containing slit windows. The belfry stage has two-light, louvred openings with narrow pointed arches on either side. A corbel course sits below the stone broach spire, which has pinnacles rising from the broaches and two tiers of lucarnes. At the south-east corner of the tower, a circular stair turret rises to the base of the belfry stage and is capped by a stone cone.

The tall nave consists of six bays. At the west end, a superarch embraces three graded tall two-light windows. At ground level, the baptistry has a central gable over two two-light windows. The nave clerestory features three-light intersecting tracery. A stringcourse runs at the level of the springing of the arches, and above it, between each window, is a roundel with blind tracery. The aisles have their bays demarcated by buttresses, and within each bay are two two-light pointed windows. A stringcourse runs at the level of the springing of their arches.

A distinctive feature is the canting in of the east bay of the nave. This arrangement provides the cue for the positioning of the north chapel and south vestries, which are set at 90 degrees to the canting and thus point north-east and south-east respectively. The chancel is lower than the nave, and at their junction, as architectural historian Paul Joyce notes, "the collision of the differently scaled elements is adroitly resolved, building up to the steep polygonal end of the nave roof." The chancel has a tall, sheer apse with buttresses demarcating the bays. The windows, like those in the clerestory, are of three lights with intersecting tracery. The south side chapel sits under its own gabled roof behind a plain brick parapet.

A highly distinctive feature is the polychrome treatment of the roofs with green slate diapering set against a grey slate ground. A plain parish room from 1954 is attached to the church at the south-west corner.

Interior

The walls are of bare brick, although in the chancel they have been whitened. Entry to the church is through the base of the tower, which has a coloured tiled floor and a rich portal into the north aisle. This portal features three orders of fleurons, moulding and dogtooth ornament, with three corresponding marble shafts with limestone foliage capitals. Above the porch is a quadripartite vault with stone ribs and brick panels.

The interior has an impressively wide nave with relatively narrow aisles. The arcades have chamfered brick arches with stone soffits, and quatrefoil piers with moulded capitals. The nave has a horizontally-boarded roof. A low arcade runs from the south aisle to the south chapel, with arches having moulded heads and pairs of dark marble columns in the jambs. The chapel is vaulted and contains a sacrament house of 1920 in the south-east corner behind a wrought-iron doorway.

The chancel arch has a moulded outer order and an inner chamfered one, rising from trefoiled responds. The chancel is also vaulted, with ribs springing from Devon marble shafts unconventionally arranged so that one rib falls central to the altar with two high windows either side of it. Around the sanctuary is an arcade of niches under gabled heads containing mosaic figures of saints. On the south side, the arcading turns seamlessly into triple sedilia. The sanctuary floor is laid with coloured tiles, while the nave also has coloured tiles but with a more limited colour range. The chancel area has been projected forward by means of a large dais on which stands a forward altar.

Decoration and Fittings

As a Tractarian church, St Saviour's was provided with many fittings and embellishments of beauty. The most immediately striking feature is the painting at the east end of the nave. Over the chancel arch is a depiction of a seated Christ in Glory attended by adoring angels and the Evangelists. The flanking, converging sections of the roof have three tiers of figures of angels, Apostles and martyrs. These paintings were executed by the renowned firm of Clayton and Bell. At window level are depictions of the four Doctors of the Church, executed in 1890.

Mosaics also play a key role in the church and are the work of Clayton and Bell. They occupy panels on the walls of the aisles, the baptistry and the niches in the chancel, depicting biblical scenes, saints and other figures.

The circular pulpit was carved by Thomas Earp to Street's design. It has pierced trefoil openings and stands on a shafted base. The font, again to Street's design, is of Mexican onyx and has a counterweighted, tall Gothic cover with gables round the sides and a spirelet capping. On the north side of the south chapel is a recess with a brass to the first vicar, the Reverend H R Whelpton (1833-1902), in whose memory the chapel was built in 1903.

There is a very fine wrought-iron screen at the entrance to the north chapel, moved there from the west end of the south chapel. A muscular Gothic screen stands between the canted south part of the nave and the space beyond, presumably to Street's design. The body of the church is seated with benches (removed from the north aisle, west part of the south aisle and the east end of the nave) with simple, angular ends with elbows which provide a foil to the decorative riches of the church.

The fine reredos is of 1937, replacing a lost one by Street, and was designed by W H Randolph Blacking. It has a series of small-scale niches showing Christ in Glory surrounded by other figures of saints.

The chancel windows by C Webb were installed in 1953 to replace ones damaged in wartime bombing. The window opposite the entrance to the south chapel has early 20th-century glass by Shrigley and Hunt, and there is some Clayton and Bell glass in its west windows, though not in its original position.

Historical Context

Eastbourne was expanding rapidly in the mid-19th century, its development having been stimulated by the arrival of the railway in 1849, which encouraged people to live or spend time there in the summer. The seventh Duke of Devonshire, who owned much land in the area, had started to lay out a new town to the south and west of the old town. This new development was at a considerable distance from the parish church of St Mary the Virgin, and the establishment of a new Anglican place of worship was encouraged by the vicar of Eastbourne, aided by a local benefactress, Harriott Manby, and her wealthy friend, George Whelpton, whose son was to become the first vicar. The family fortune was made from Whelpton's pills, a patent medicine produced by George Whelpton and Son in Louth, Lincolnshire. The site was given by the Duke of Devonshire.

The foundation stone was laid on 17 October 1865 and the church was consecrated by the Bishop of Chichester on 31 January 1867. The churchmanship was in the Tractarian tradition, hence the attention paid to having fine architecture, fittings and embellishments.

The Architect

The church is a major work by George Edmund Street (1824-1881), one of the greatest figures in Victorian architecture, who was often called upon by High Church clients. Although born and educated in London, he was articled to the Winchester architect Owen Carter from 1841. He then spent time in the office of George Gilbert Scott from 1844 before commencing practice in Wantage in 1848. Growing success led to a move to London in 1856 and a career which saw him become one of the leaders of the Gothic Revival. Much of his work is characterised by a strong, muscular quality which was much admired from the 1850s. He was also an early pioneer of the use of polychromy. He was diocesan architect for Oxford, York, Winchester and Ripon. He was awarded the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 1874. His fame and status is reflected in the fact that, like his former master Scott, he is buried in Westminster Abbey.

In the 1860s Street was at the height of his powers with a string of important commissions which culminated in 1868 with his winning the competition for his most ambitious project, the Royal Courts of Justice in London. In the previous decade he had built the Church of St Philip and St James in Oxford where he introduced the idea of a canted east end to the nave. This he developed at St Saviour's and it helps give the church a very distinctive appearance.

Later History

The church received further embellishment down to the early 20th century, including the building of the south chapel in 1903. Street's reredos and cancelli were removed in 1928 and war damage meant, sadly, the loss of much Clayton and Bell glass. There was change in the late 20th century which has somewhat compromised the building, notably the effect of the addition of the 1950s hall, and the clearing of the chancel fittings in a 1980-1990s reordering with a new nave altar, completed in 1993.

The church is designated at Grade II* as a notable red-brick church built in the late 13th-century style on a generous scale. It is a splendid design with fine proportions and inventive detail, notably the steeple and the canted treatment of the east end of the nave. This is a major work by G E Street, one of the most important architects of the Victorian era. It has an outstanding scheme of decoration, added over a period of time, with noteworthy painted decoration over the entrance to the chancel and a series of mosaics, all by the well-known firm of Clayton and Bell. Although there has been change in the 20th century which has somewhat compromised the building, this is not sufficient to detract from the outstanding quality of this building which forms an important landmark in Eastbourne.