Church Of St John The Evangelist

Church of St John the Evangelist

Parish church built 1950–54, designed by H.S. Goodhart-Rendel, retaining the 1881 tower and baptistry and the west façade by Arthur Blomfield. The building stands on a prominent site at Upper Maze Hill, St Leonards-on-Sea.

The church is constructed of red brick with yellow brick patterning, with stone dressings to the tower and stone-dressed rendered lining to the interior walls. The roofs are steeply pitched plain tiles to the eaves.

The exterior is dominated by a four-stage Victorian Gothic octagonal tower, which culminates in richly moulded pointed louvres in the top stage, a battlemented parapet, and a pointed roof. The body of the church is powerfully massed in an eclectic free Gothic manner, with powerful brick buttresses rising from the aisles to support the tall clerestory, which is lit by pointed lancets set within pointed relieving arches. A bell turret sits above the chancel arch. The transepts are expressed as paired hipped dormers, and a polygonal stair tower to the choir gallery is expressed below. The chancel roof is slightly lower than the nave roof, sweeping low on the same plane as the transept roof. A small two-storey red brick addition sits to the south.

The interior comprises an aisled nave with dwarf transepts. The entrance is beneath the south-west tower. The altar is positioned against the east wall of the chancel, with a new altar placed on a step in front of the chancel arch. The broad, tall nave has low passage aisles and a tall lancet clerestory within pointed relieving arches, which open out into the transepts as one and a half bays of arcade, with an octagonal pier to the north and one to the south. A double chancel arch with choir gallery separates the nave from the chancel, with three arches at lower chancel level, the choir gallery in the centre, and an upper chancel arch above. All arches are pointed and moulded except for the lower chancel arch, which is round-headed. The 3-light east window has cusped heads. Roofs are panelled and painted pale green with pointed and moulded transverse arches.

The baptistry is positioned in a polygonal apse at the west end.

Stained glass is mainly by Ledger, Goodhart-Rendel's preferred designer, featuring much white glass including figural representations in the nave windows. The baptistry windows are by Miss Thompson. A Victorian square font with four marble subsidiary columns around a circular column base is retained. Victorian furniture includes an eagle lectern, some choir stalls with small statues of the Apostles, the Bishop's chair, and the stalls of the Lady Chapel—all except the lectern painted in Goodhart-Rendel's pastel colour scheme. An octagonal wine glass pulpit is also decorated in pastel green, blue, and salmon. Six-pointed metal chandeliers are positioned throughout.

This is an impressive and beautifully detailed church by a major church architect. Goodhart-Rendel was a leading authority on Victorian Gothic architecture, and this represented his only opportunity to add to a church of that period. The result is a purer Gothic treatment than in his other designs where he had an unconstrained hand, in which he more commonly adopted a round-arched interpretation and incorporated modern materials. The church presents a particularly eclectic mix of these influences.