Church Heritage Record 610050

Cruciform in plan with the tower at the west end acting as a porch.

Nave estimated to be c 17m (55ft) x 6m (19,6ft).

There was a Bronze Age settlement at nearby Coldean and an Iron Age settlement at Hollingbury Castle Camp.  Stanmer is mentioned in Domesday. After the Conquest tenants were put in most of the manors, except at Stanmer, which belonged to The Archbishop of Canterbury. There has been a church on the site of the present church at Stanmer since at least the 13th century.  The medieval village is thought to have been located either to the west of the present village or on the land between the church and Stanmer House, though if the latter is true any surface traces of it must have been landscaped away.  The house was built between 1722 and 1727 when two brothers, Henry and Thomas Pelham, acquired the estate.  In 1801 Thomas Pelham’s son was created Earl of Chichester, and the 3rd Earl of Chichester, Henry Thomas Pelham decided to rebuild the church in 1838 to increase its capacity.  The architect was a local man, Ralph Joanes of Lewes. 

The church remains very much as built, though some fittings and furnishings have been introduced over the years.  The lectern, altar and west doors of the church, are known to have been made by Francis Jude Jones (died 1937) in the first decade of the 20th century.  Others, such as the Commandment Boards to either side of the reredos, the pulpit and maybe the bench ends seem to be somewhat earlier, but later than the structure of the church.  Perhaps Jude Jones (1844-1919), the estate carpenter and father of Francis Jude Jones had a hand in some of this work (was he perhaps in turn related to the architect?). 

In 1941 the Stanmer estate was requisitioned by the War Department, and the Pelham family and all those living in the estate cottages were forced to leave.  The park became a training ground for battalions of Canadian soldiers later involved in the Normandy landings.  During this use the church was protected with sandbags but still retains some scars from that time.  After the war the Pelhams sold the estate to Brighton Council. 

The site is clearly of considerable archaeological potential and reference should be made to the SMR before any development is contemplated.

The church is designed in the Early English style, and despite the giveaway slender, “weak” tower typical of the early phase of the Gothic Revival is remarkably correct in its detail, and represents an important point in the development of true Victorian Gothic.  The proportions are also excellent, it is a truly graceful, if quite modest, building.

Externally the architecture is symmetrical and simple. The west tower is of three stages, the lower stage with a pointed doorway of two chamfered orders with a hoodmould to headstops.  The stage above, which is not demarcated in any way, has a slender lancet in the west face and a clock in the south.  Buttresses of two weatherings climb to a string course demarcating the belfry stage, which has large lancets with hoodmoulds as the doorway. The crenellated parapet is corbelled out, the corbel table simply moulded, behind this the slender octagonal spire rises like a long needle, almost as tall as the rest of the tower, topped by a weathervane with “Pelham buckle”.

The nave, transept and slightly lower chancel bays are demarcated by single cusped lancets, there are stepped triple lancet windows in the outer faces of the transepts and in the east wall.  The chancel east corners have short gabletted angle buttresses.  Corbel table throughout as with the tower parapet, coped and shouldered gables.  There is a pointed doorway in the east wall of the south transept, and 18th-century wall tablets set onto the walls.

Inside the church is as little changed as it is outside.  Looking up and west, stairs on the south side lead to the west gallery, which has two slender columns supporting a wooden front with blind cusped lancets, and houses an attractively quaint organ with Gothick case, otherwise crammed with benches. 

The chancel arch and transept arches have continuous mouldings and simple capitals, the windows are shafted with capitals, of one order.  The nave roof is an arch braced structure with struts with cusped open tracery infill supporting a gabled boarded ceiling, the braces taken down to moulded corbels. Looking east, the nave is fully pewed, very nice benches with poppyhead ends, with similar choir stalls to the east of the openings to the transepts.  The quality of the carpentry is high.

There are several memorials to members of the Pelham family in the south transept, which is basically a memorial chapel to this family, these include a dedicated wooden hearse. The north transept is used as a sacristy and vestry, behind a panelled screen.  The chancel is very attractive, well-lit including the attractive stained glass in the east window, with encaustic tiles and a stone reredos, again gilded, flanked by oak commandment boards with gilded lettering. There is also an 18th-century ledger slab in the floor in front of the altar.