Church Heritage Record 610143

West tower, aisled nave with transepts; chancel with north organ chamber, now cleared, and south vestries.

Nave estimated to be c 26m (85ft) x 7m (22ft), chancel 9m long (30 ft).

The church was built in 1840-43 to the designs of John Elliott of Chichester.  It cost about £4,500, the original design was amended following criticism from the Camden Society.  Although it was sited in what was a fashionable part of Worthing, this church was erected specifically for the accommodation of the poorer classes and within an evangelical tradition, by contrast to nearby St Paul’s which was more fashionable and patronised by Princess Alexandra. It is the first Gothic Revival church built in the town. After the typical expansion as a seaside resort, Worthing is now residential in nature, with a considerable population of pensioners.

Galleries were added to the transepts in 1865.  The church was redecorated in the late 1870s under the direction of Charles Hide, with some new stained glass windows. The west gallery was removed and the chancel remodelled and refurbished in 1894, when vestries and organ chamber were added. The tower was underpinned in 1907-8 under the supervision of Mr R Singer Hyde. The organ was relocated into the north gallery (previously known as the Fisherman’s gallery) in 1971, and the church whitewashed, covering the Victorian decorative scheme. The church now has several useful rooms at the east end, as well as apparently a small crypt.

The church is designed in the lancet style with Decorated tracery, typical of a Commissioners’ church but with attention to detail. The equally typical slender 4-stage west tower has a freestone parapet above a corbelled cornice and angle buttresses which become diagonal on the upper two stages. Lancet windows except for a Decorated style traceried west window. Steps up to the west doorway which has a double chamfered pointed arch.

The lean-to aisles are tall and narrow with angle buttresses and double chamfered lancet windows with hoodmoulds. Small paired lancet clerestory windows in square-headed frames. The transepts have large lancets in their west walls and stepped triple lancets in the north and south walls above pointed doorways.

The chancel has a 3-light Decorated style traceried east window. The 1894 vestries and organ chamber are built in a style to match the original but have yellow brick dressings to the openings. On the south side there is a polygonal vestry porch with a steep pyramidal roof, the earlier 19th-century vestry still exists behind these later additions.

Entering thought the west doorway, there is a draught lobby with oak panelling introduced in 1929. Looking up and west, there is a 3-light internal west window with reticulated style tracery, inserted when the west gallery was removed. Looking east, the nave has unusually tall, slender, octagonal Caen stone arcade piers with vertical recessed roll mouldings at the corners of each octagon; moulded capitals and double chamfered arches. All is whitewashed, with patches flaking off here and there; the Victorian decorative scheme might survive underneath.

Pitch pine tie-beam, king-post and strut roof to the nave with arched braces carried on short posts on moulded corbels; cusped detail. The transept roofs are similar. The aisle roofs are essentially one half of the same design.  Nairn reports Goodhart-Rendel’s withering comment “the roofs sadly by Bryant & May”, and the members are indeed rather spindly, but match the delicate arcades.

The nave and transepts have a full set of box pews with doors and poppyhead finials, a rare survival.  The transepts have galleries, the north gallery with raked seats, the south gallery used as the organ chamber (the pipes, the console is on the north side of the chancel). The floors are of quarry tile.

The moulded pointed chancel arch rests on short shafts with moulded capitals. The chancel roof has hammerbeam trusses with cusped decoration.  The chancel is painted cream with a polychromatic decorative scheme (a fraction of what was once there), and has a mosaic reredos with a frieze of mosaic foliage and texts and mosaic sanctuary floor; encaustic tiles to the chancel floor.  Choir stalls with open traceried fronts, altogether a fine High Victorian scheme. The vestries have attractive oak panelling.