Church Heritage Record 610118

Nave of 5 ½ bays with aisles and clearstorey; chancel with apse, and ambulatory, south chapel and north vestries attached to the hall.

Nave 82ft. by 28ft.; aisles each 13ft wide; chancel 41ft by 23ift; south chapel 39ft by 16ft.

By G.E.S. Streatfield, 1896 and 1913. Granville Edward Stewart Streatfield, DSO, OBE, FRIBA, was born in 1869 and was articled to W.O. Milne. He later practised in Lincoln's Inn, London.  His only other church seems to have been St. Michael's Eastbourne, 1910, flint-faced and in a straightforward Perpendicular style. His other works seem to have been mostly country houses in Hampshire, Surrey and Sussex. His brother was briefly Bishop of Lewes in 1929.

A priest in charge was appointed to the district in 1894 and in that year a site was given by Mr. and Mrs. Benett-Stanford. Upon it was erected an iron church costing E500 to hold 400 people, dedicated on 14 February. The present church was begun in 1896 and in 1902 the iron church went to Mayfield for E100 for use as a parish room. T.G. Jackson acted as consultant for the new church and the foundation stone was laid on 24 October 1895 by Lady Louise Loder in place of the Right Reverend Richard Durnford, Bishop of Chichester. The builders were Longley and Sons. The nave was completed first and consecrated on 24 October 1896 by the Right Reverend E.R. Wilberforce, Bishop of Chichester. It had cost £9,000. A parish was formed by order in council on 18 July 1898.

The foundation stone of the chancel was laid by the Right Reverend Leonard Burrows, Bishop of Lewes, on 24 October 1913, Streatfield still being the architect. The builders were Martin and Son of Eastbourne and the completed chancel was consecrated on 22 July 1914 by the Right Reverend Dr. Charles Ridgeway, Bishop of Chichester. It cost nearly £6,000. A large west tower has not been built and the west end still has a "temporary" wall.

St Augustine's comes late in the story of the great Victorian churches of Brighton, and was built for a suburb rather than the more central areas which the even larger churches initiated by the Wagner family were intended to serve. Its architect had not the genius of Carpenter, Bodley, Burges or the local Edmund Scott, but Streatfield produced a handsome building in a sort of Edwardian Perpendicular style which, in spite of the lack of the intended large west tower somewhat derived from the Bell Harry Tower at Canterbury, is a worthy addition to the stock of Brighton churches. The warm red brick of the exterior and the lightness of the interior help to enliven the appearance of the building.

The nave is of five uniform bays with a half bay at the east end. The aisle walls have three-light windows with cinquefoiled lights in each bay and the bays are marked by buttresses, round which a moulded plinth continues, terminating in gablets at the level of the straight-topped parapet. The clearstorey has two two-light Perpendicular windows in each bay with ogee- headed main lights and panel tracery within a pointed head. Between each pair is a rectangular recess with a cusped arch at the head, and between each bay and the next is a shallow buttress. The eastern narrow bay has a single window at clearstorey level in a wall which is canted within a recess spanned by a segmental relieving arch, and on the angles above are set a chimney on the south, shaped like an octagonal turret, and wooden bell-cote on the north. Against the north aisle at this point is a porch with the sacristy to the east, beyond which runs a passage to the hall, and on the south there is a doorway under a gabled porch with a moulded outer arch and a sundial in the gable above with the legend "THE NIGHT COMETH WHEN NO MAN CAN WORK".

The west wall in still temporary, pierced by one large and four small pointed windows and with a narthex below under a pent roof with a pointed doorway with a brick arch and three-light timber-framed windows at each side.

For the chancel the rhythm of bays changes, for they become narrower and there is only one window in each. The south chapel is of four bays with a five-sided apse. The bays are marked by buttresses with two weatherings which die just below the straight parapet. It looks as though there should be a pinnacle rising from the parapet above each, but none are shown on the architect's perspective (though admittedly the buttresses have a slightly different design there, with gablets at parapet level like those on the aisles). There is a continuous stone plinth, and in each bay is a two-light window with cinquefoil- headed main lights and flowing tracery.

The chancel has an ambulatory round the lower parts of the walls which also divides it from the south chapel. Each bay of the ambulatory has a seven-bay window under a straight head, only three of the "lights" being pierced and the intervening four being blind. The foundation stone is visible internally and externally under the window in the east wall. At each angle is a buttress rising into an octagonal pinnacle of stone with a carved finial, and from these pinnacles are flying buttresses spanning the ambulatory roof. Over the east window of the ambulatory is a small gable enclosing a circular traceried window within an arch. The chancel clearstorey has a two-light window in each bay, these being larger versions of the windows of the Lady Chapel. The parapet ramps up at each bay, again as though pinnacles were intended (though again they do not appear on the architect's perspective drawing).  The quality of the lead rainwater heads at several points is very high, and shows the influence of the Arts and Crafts movement.

The interior is approached through the "temporary" west narthex, and the nave and its aisles are paved throughout with a wood block floor at one level.  The arcades are carried on stone pillars with attached shafts at the angles and wave mouldings between. The shafts have moulded octagonal capitals and the mouldings continue without a break round the arches to the apex. Above there are octagonal attached shafts set on slender trumpet corbels and rising to the level of the springing of the arches of the clearstorey windows. The timber roof has tie-beams at each bay supporting crownposts, and along the wall head is coving following the shape of the clearstorey window arches. The narrower east bay cants inwards to meet the chancel arch and a similar canted arch towards the aisle forms enough space for the beginning of the ambulatory to the east, approached through a low arch.

The eastern part of the church shows a more subtle handling of spaces than the nave, and in particular the double row of' pillars on the south side between the chancel and the chapel is almost reminiscent of the work of Pearson (though in a style which he would not have employed). The relative importance of the two parts of the church is emphasised by the use of differing pillars, octagonal towards the chapel and clustered towards the chancel, answering to the differing heights of each space. The arches of the arcades round the chancel are smaller than those of the nave arcades not only because the bays are narrower and the floor is higher but because the clearstorey windows are also set lower in the walls.

The chancel floor is raised two steps at the chancel arch, and beyond two further steps at the rails it is all paved with veined white marble. There is one further step in the sanctuary and the altar stands on a double footpace. The ambulatory gives a feeling of depth to the design of the apse and the chancel is, in spite of it, well lit by the large clearstorey windows. The roof is carried on tall shafts between these windows and is almost like a hammerbeam with arch-braces carried on big brackets. On the north side a tall arch frames the organ (a later instrument, without the case intended by the architect) and on the south the chapel is simply furnished in keeping with the style of the building. It has a wood block floor with veined white marble in the sanctuary, and a flat timber roof.