Church

St Michael & All Angels, Brighton

St Michael & All Angels, Brighton

St Michael and All Angels on Victoria Road, Brighton, is a Grade I church formed from two Victorian buildings: G. F. Bodley’s church of 1860–61, now the south aisle, and William Burges’s larger parallel church of 1893–95, finished after his death by J. S. Chapple.

Location
Brighton, Sussex
Country
England
County
Sussex
City / town
Brighton
Address
Victoria Road, Brighton, Sussex, BN1 3BD
Postcode
BN1 3BD
Built
1860–61 (Bodley); enlarged 1893–95 (Burges / J S Chapple)
Architect
G F Bodley; enlargement by William Burges, completed by J S Chapple
Denomination
Church of England
Dedication
Michael
Diocese
Chichester
Parish
Brighton, St Michael and All Angels
Grade
I
Style
Gothic Revival
Materials
Red brick with bands of white stone; steep slate roofs
Opening hours
Sorry, there are no regular opening times for this church.
Access
Accessible toilets nearby. Level access to the main areas

Overview

Historic England lists the church and attached walls. Bodley’s first church, commissioned by the Revd Charles Beanlands, is of Italian Gothic character in red brick with stone and blue-brick dressings and a steep slate roof; a flèche held a bell recovered from Sevastopol. The building proved too small. Burges designed a French thirteenth-century Gothic church in 1865 that absorbed Bodley’s fabric as the south aisle; construction waited until 1893. The new work has a two-bay chancel, four nave bays with arcade, triforium and clerestory, and an organ gallery. Exterior banding of white stone on dark red brick matches Bodley, but the later church is much taller.

The glass is among the finest Pre-Raphaelite ensembles in England, with windows by William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, Ford Madox Brown, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Philip Webb, Kempe and others. The parish is in the Diocese of Chichester. The church is often called the cathedral of the back streets.

Further Information