page_title: Thomas Simpson (architect)
section_title: Religious buildings
hierarchical_section_title: Thomas Simpson (architect) / Works / Religious buildings
caption_attribution_description: Former mission hall formerly used as the "Clarendon Church" for Church of Christ the King evangelical church, Clarendon Villas, Hove, England.
context_page_description: Thomas Simpson was a British architect associated with the seaside town of Brighton. As architect to the Brighton and Preston School Board and the equivalent institution in neighbouring Hove, he designed "a distinguished group of board schools" during the late 19th century, when the provision of mass education was greatly extended. Many of these schools survive and some have listed status. He also worked on five Nonconformist chapels for various Christian denominations, using a wide variety of materials and architectural styles. He was the father of Sir John William Simpson and Gilbert Murray Simpson, who both became architects.
context_section_description: Simpson's earliest recorded commission was his work to redesign and extend the Ann Street chapel of the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion in 1857.  Later known as London Road Congregational Church, this building survived until 1974 but was demolished during urban renewal in that inner part of Brighton.  In 1861, he redesigned Salem Strict Baptist Chapel in Bond Street in the North Laine area of Brighton.  This chapel for the Strict Baptist community dated from 1787.  He rebuilt it in a style which combined Neoclassical and Italianate architecture and made use of stucco and flintwork.  The building was also demolished in 1974, this time for commercial development.  Four years later, he designed the Belgrave Street Chapel for Congregationalists.  This was an Early English Gothic Revival-style building with a stuccoed façade, placed on a corner site in the Hanover district of Brighton.  After its closure in 1942 it became part of Brighton Technical College.
  His principal work for the Congregational church, and his largest ecclesiastical work, was the former Dials Congregational Church (demolished in 1972, but only redeveloped with sheltered housing in 1985).  Its 150-foot (46 m) tower had a Rhenish helm and was an important landmark on its elevated site west of Brighton station.  Inside, the church was laid out as an auditorium, with a vast u-shaped space.  Simpson used the Romanesque Revival style for his design.
  Simpson was also commissioned to design a mission hall in Hove in 1885.  The Clarendon Mission on Clarendon Villas was founded by William Taylor, who became its first pastor, and his friend William Willett.  The work cost £4,700, but the building burnt down shortly after it opened and had to be rebuilt at an additional cost of £2,500.  The adjacent Sunday school was added by a different architect.  In the late 20th century, the founder of the Newfrontiers church Terry Virgo was minister at the church, which by then was called Clarendon Church.  The building is Renaissance Revival in style and has yellow and red brickwork with terracotta decoration.
caption: Clarendon Mission (1885)
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