Chapel Royal, Brighton
| Chapel Royal, Brighton | |
|
Sussex | |
|---|---|
_(February_2020)_(1).jpg)
| |
| Church of England | |
| Diocese of Chichester | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | TQ31150421 |
| Location: | 50°49’21"N, 0°8’22"W |
| History | |
| Information | |
| Website: | chapelroyalbrighton.org.uk |
The Chapel Royal is an 18th-century church in the centre of Brighton, Sussex. Built as a chapel of ease, it became one of Brighton's most important churches, gaining its own parish and becoming closely associated with the Prince Regent, later King George IV, and through him it became part of fashionable Regency-era society. It remains an active church.
The chapel is a Grade II* listed building.[1]
History
The rise of Brighton from a small fishing town of some 2,000 souls[2] into a fashionable resort was a sudden change in the late in the eighteenth century, begun by the fashion for the use of seawater as a cure for illness, and cemented when the Prince Regent, son of King George III, came here. The Prince made his first visit in 1783,[3] and by 1786 he had a home in the town. He later commissioned the architect John Nash to build a palace, the Royal Pavilion. At the time, Brighton's only Anglican church, St Nicholas, was a long way from the Prince's residence up a steep hill, and had become overcrowded by the ever-increasing number of residents and visitors. In 1789 therefore the new Vicar of Brighton, Thomas Hudson, resolve to build a new chapel near the Prince's home: this became the Chapel Royal. As well as resolving the overcrowding, Hudson hoped to encourage the Prince to attend worship more often than he had in the past.[3][1]
The Prince agreed to rent a pew and lay the foundation stone. A ceremony took place on 25 November 1793[3][1] at the corner of North Street and the newly built and named Prince's Place. Construction work, overseen by a builder named Bodle and to the design of London-based architect Thomas Saunders, lasted a year.[3] The Prince and his wife of four months, Caroline of Brunswick, attended the inaugural service on 3 August 1795.[3][1]
Thomas Hudson owned and ran the chapel himself at first, opening it only during the peak seasons when Brighton was at its busiest. In 1803 it became the official chapel of ease to St Nicholas Church when he obtained a local Act of Parliament formalising this.[4] Among other things, this Act allowed Hudson, in his position as Vicar of Brighton, and his successors in that role, to appoint a perpetual curate for the chapel, and to fund a stipend by the rental of pews.
The Chapel Royal was consecrated in 1803, though by that time the Prince Regent was no longer worshipping there. His attendance became infrequent soon after the chapel was built, and he eventually stopped worshipping there when a sermon, said to have been on the topic of immorality, offended him.[1][5] (Sources differ on who preached the sermon,[5] thought to have been entitled "Thou art the man".) Other members of the Royal Family occasionally visited the chapel later, however; the last recorded attendance was by Princess Augusta Sophia, the Prince Regent's sister, in 1840.
Later in the 19th century, two future British prime ministers were regular worshippers at the chapel. William Ewart Gladstone attended whenever he visited Brighton, and Winston Churchill attended between 1883 and 1885 when he was a pupil at a local school.[1]
The ownership of the chapel passed to various curates until Revd Thomas Trocke, formerly of St Nicholas Church, became perpetual curate in 1834. He stayed until his retirement in 1875, seeing the chapel taking charge of its own district for the first time in 1873 when the parish structure in Brighton was reorganised. The building was closed for eight months in 1876 and 1877 for internal structural repairs and reordering. Architect Arthur Blomfield was responsible for the changes, which cost £2,700.[6] Soon afterwards, in 1880, demolition of houses facing North Street revealed the southern face of the chapel for the first time: until then, only the east elevation (facing Prince's Place) could be seen. Blomfield produced a design for a completely new exterior, including a tower in the southeast corner at the junction of the two streets. The work was completed in two parts—the new south face first, then the remodelled east elevation in 1896—and cost £1,200.[6]
The chapel gained its own full parish for the first time in 1896. By the mid-20th century though the parish had become almost entirely commercial: the local population was so low that the parish was instead merged with that of St Peter's Church, Brighton|St Peter's Church at the top of Old Steine. The Chapel Royal again became a separate parish in July 2009 after St Peters Church was declared redundant.[7]
Alterations and a reconfiguration of the church interior in the bicentennial year, 1995, completed the transition from a parish church, focusing on the population of a specific locality, to a "city church" open to the whole community and meeting the spiritual needs of the permanent and transient population of Brighton.[8]
Architecture
The original chapel was a stuccoed building in a broadly Classical style, with rounded sash windows and a pediment with the Prince's coat of arms. A row of Doric columns flanked the entrance.[3] Inside there were galleries on each wall, supported by decorated columns. The gallery above the communion table contained the organ, and there was a tall, highly decorated pulpit.[9] The alterations of 1876–1877 removed the gallery above the altar and added a chancel, separated from the nave by an iron rood screen, new pulpit and lectern.[6]
The rebuilding of the exterior in 1882–1883 (south elevation) and 1896 (east elevation),[1] prompted by the demolition of buildings adjacent to the south side of the chapel to allow North Street to be widened, involved replacing the stucco with red brick, enlarging the pediment and giving the new south elevation a similar appearance.[6] It is neither as tall nor as long as the east side (facing Prince's Place), and has no pediment, but was otherwise very similar until the alterations of 1995 changed the entrance area and added more glass to make more of the interior visible from the street. The most significant feature of Arthur Blomfield's work on the exterior was the tall, red-brick clock tower.[6] This has some flintwork and a hipped slate roof. The tower has four clock faces, each in a terracotta insert.[1]
Pictures
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Tower with clock, after building project, 2012 -
Tower with clock, after building project, 2012 -
Detail of gargoyle sculpture at high level of tower, after restoration -
Detail of replaced tower brickwork and terracotta -
Replacement of tiles at high level -
Window with replaced brickwork
Outside links
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 National Heritage List 1380625: The Chapel Royal, North Street (north side), Brighton
- ↑ Carder 1990, §17(e).
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Dale 1989, p. 23.
- ↑ Dale 1989, p. 25.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Chapel Royal, North Street, Brighton, Sussex". Roughwood. Mark Collins. 27 April 2005. http://www.roughwood.net/ChurchAlbum/EastSussex/Brighton/BrightonChapelRoyal2005.htm.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 Dale 1989, p. 27.
- ↑ Dale 1989, p. 29.
- ↑ "Chapel Royal: History—War and Renewal". The Chapel Royal website. 2008. http://www.chapelroyalbrighton.org.uk/history/.
- ↑ Dale 1989, p. 24.
- Carder, Timothy (1990). The Encyclopaedia of Brighton. Lewes: East Sussex County Libraries. ISBN 0-86147-315-9.
- Dale, Antony (1989). Brighton Churches. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-00863-8.