Congregational Church Of St Leonard, Including Attached Walls And Piers

St Leonard's Congregational Church, London Road, St Leonards-on-Sea

A Congregational church, now disused (closed in 2008), built in 1863-4 by W Habershon of the London practice Habershon, Spalding and Brock. The church was erected under the patronage of Thomas Spalding of Ore Place, Hastings, who donated the coursed Ore sandstone used for its construction. Bath stone ashlar provides the dressings. The roof was originally covered in oak shingles but is now clad in 20th-century pantiles. A copper-clad spire that originally topped the west tower was removed following the great storm of 1987.

The church comprises a west tower of three stages, an undivided six-bay nave and chancel with a clerestory, north and south aisles, and an east vestry. The chancel faces north. Below the church, accessed from the London Road elevation at ground level due to the sloping site, is a hall formerly used as a school room.

The exterior presents a symmetrical ritual west front. The central square tower's bell stage has paired lancets to each side with granite colonnettes and cinquefoils above, while the second stage features paired lancets with trefoils above. Decorative stone bands run between the stages, with end pilasters between the first and second stages, crockets, and stone gargoyles below the bell stage. Curved steps within a retaining wall lead to arched stone doorways with colonnettes and gables serving both the tower and aisles. Aisle doorways are topped by sex-foil windows. The nave has a wooden trefoliated clerestory.

The aisles contain six gables with triple-traceried windows displaying three designs in the upper portions: quatrefoil, trefoil, or cross. Windows feature fine quality stained glass with floral patterns. Gabled pilaster buttresses between the bays have stone decorative bands beneath the gables. The lower hall is articulated by a stone band and trefoil-arched windows, some with their tracery removed, originally featuring stained glass with circular motifs above. The eastern end terminates in a traceried circular window. A lower two-storey vestry building, faced in double trefoil windows on each floor, occupies the ritual east end. The north side does not expose the lower hall. A sandstone wall with stone piers at regular intervals is attached to the church; its iron railings no longer survive.

Internally, the tower base is plainly treated and leads to a lobby. The south end of the nave is enclosed by a screen of pointed-arched panels and part-glazed doors with papier-mâché moulded panels; similar doors exist at the north end. The roof is timber arch-braced construction with slender carved spandrels, bolted cross braces, and diagonal boarding lining. Both the main church and lower hall rest on cast iron aisle columns. Walls display decorative painted or stencilled cusped arcades applied to the plaster, particularly on the north wall flanking the chancel arch, which also carries painted decoration. The chancel arch is filled with a slender timber screen forming a reredos, separating the vestry from the church. Its lower section contains a pointed-arched blind arcade enclosing pierced quatrefoils set in diagonal boarding, while above runs a blind cusped arcade inscribed with scriptural passages beneath a slender internal open foiled window. The vestry is accessed via a small door and narrow stairs to the rear. A timber balcony at the southern end is reached by stairs with a foiled balustrade and features a large central clock in a Gothic casing by Dobell of Hastings. An elaborate timber pulpit is enclosed by wrought iron railing panels with a timber rail. Fitted pine box pews are arranged in three ranges: a double range down the centre with single side ranges flanking each aisle. An organ, fitted in the early 1900s, stands in the north-west corner within a panelled wooden screen. Original cast iron floor heating grilles remain. The ante-room floor beneath the tower is laid with encaustic and geometric tiles in classic Gothic Revival form. On a transverse partition wall at the northern end of the lower hall are painted wall panels from a scheme reportedly commissioned by Herbert Asquith, Prime Minister from 1908-1916, though this connection is unproven. These panels depict Jerusalem, a landscape probably with Biblical theme, and a large bird.

St Leonard's is one of the most ambitious Nonconformist buildings in Sussex and an important example of a High Victorian Nonconformist church with a notably rich interior.