Church Of St Matthew

Church of St Matthew, Hastings

This is a Grade II* listed church built on a sloping site west of the church hall, which occupies the location of an earlier 1860s church. The building rises high above the surrounding structures to the east.

The church was built in 1884 by the distinguished Gothic Revival architect J L Pearson in Early English style, at a cost of £11,000, with builder Mr Shillitoe. A south tower was begun in 1896 to Pearson's design, with builder C W Pelling Hurrell. A stone spire was originally intended but was never built. A clergy vestry was added in 1935, and a small meeting room around 1985.

The church is constructed of red brick in English bond with freestone dressings and tiled roofs. Internally, the walls are faced with yellow Sittingbourne brick with red brick polychromatic patterned bands. The church guide notes the presence of concrete foundations and concrete infill to the walling.

The plan comprises a nave with north and south aisles under the same roof, transepts, an apsidal chancel with a southeast chapel and northeast organ chamber with rooms below the apse, a fleche between the nave and chancel, a southwest porch or tower, a northwest porch with adjoining meeting room, and a northeast clergy vestry.

The exterior features buttressing with moulded stringcourses and coped gables. The aisles have three-light windows of stepped lancets. The west end has a large window of four lancets with a quatrefoil in a roundel in the head. The south transept displays a variation on plate tracery with two two-light openings divided by a buttress-like mullion under a sexafoil. The north transept is plainer, with three lancets below two quatrefoils. The southeast chapel is separately roofed with a plain stone parapet. The apse features a corbelled cornice and lancet windows divided by stone shafts. The southwest tower rises in two stages with massive angle buttresses, capped with a low hipped roof. It has a richly-moulded doorway with triple shafts, flanked by gables with statue niches, and a two-leaf plank door with curly strap hinges. The pretty shingled fleche has two-light openings with shafts under gables on each face and a slender spire.

The interior is architecturally inventive. The nave and chancel division is marked by a low stone wall and doubled roof truss. The pitch pine roof is of crown post and tie beam design, with crown posts featuring four-way braces and tie beams on moulded stone corbels on shafts which descend without interruption through the arcade piers. The arcade piers have three shafts with moulded capitals. Brick arches spring from the aisle side of the arcades to form ribs in the aisles, which are divided into painted groin-vaulted bays. Above the arcades is a clerestory of blind quatrefoils. There is a wrought iron sanctuary rail. The chancel windows are splayed and divided by shafts, with polychromatic lozenges below the sills.

The stone reredos features three panels of sculpted figures under traceried vaulting, designed by Sir Aston Webb and made by J Daymond and Son. This was dedicated in 1901, along with the oak panelled dado featuring finely-carved blind tracery and cresting. Paired arches from the transepts lead into the organ chamber and southeast chapel. The chapel is divided from the chancel by a three-bay double arcade and from the south transept by a pair of arches, and incorporates stained glass from the 1860s church.

Notable furnishings include a polygonal stone pulpit of 1888, designed by Pearson, with blind trefoil-headed arches divided by shafts on a base with shafts. An octagonal stone font of 1888, with bowl carved with symbols on an octagonal stem. Choir stalls with carved backs and ends, probably early twentieth century. Nave benches with shaped ends. A Father Willis organ of 1890, installed in 1890, with a case designed by Pearson and carved by A Robinson.