page_title: Montpelier, Brighton
section_title: Churches
hierarchical_section_title: Montpelier, Brighton / Buildings / Churches
caption_attribution_description: St Michael and All Angel's Church, Victoria Road, Montpelier, City of Brighton and Hove, England. Listed at Grade I by English Heritage (IoE Code 481428)
context_page_description: Montpelier is an inner suburban area of Brighton, part of the English city and seaside resort of Brighton and Hove. Developed together with the adjacent Clifton Hill area in the mid-19th century, it forms a high-class, architecturally cohesive residential district with "an exceptionally complete character". Stucco-clad terraced housing and villas predominate, but two of the city's most significant Victorian churches and a landmark hospital building are also in the area, which lies immediately northwest of Brighton city centre and spreads as far as the ancient parish boundary with Hove.
  Development was initially stimulated when one of the main roads out of Brighton was turnpiked in the late 18th century, but the hilly land—condemned as "hideous masses of unfledged earth" by John Constable, who painted it nevertheless—was mostly devoted to agriculture until the 1820s. The ascent of Brighton from provincial fishing town to fashionable resort prompted a building boom in the next quarter-century, and Montpelier and Clifton Hill were transformed into districts of architecturally homogeneous streets with carefully designed, intricately detailed housing.
context_section_description: The Montpelier and Clifton Hill areas have four extant churches and one former church building which is now in secular use.  Three of these buildings have listed status.  Another five churches were demolished in the postwar period.
  The Anglican St Michael and All Angels Church has been a centre of Anglo-Catholicism and High church worship since it opened in 1861.  It was one of several daughter churches planted out of St Paul's Church in the early Victorian era. George Frederick Bodley designed the original building on behalf of his friend Rev. Charles Beanlands, a curate at St Paul's, and work started in 1858.  William Burges then supplied plans for an extension in 1865, but these were not executed until 1893–95 by J.S. Chapple, an architect from the recently deceased Burges' office.  The two parts are connected by a four-bay arcade inside, and Bodley's original nave has become an aisle.  The building is a tall red-brick and stone Gothic Revival structure with traceried lancet windows.  The internal fittings combine "grandeur and artistry in a most satisfying way", and the 19th-century stained glass has been called the best in Sussex.  The church is Grade I-listed.
  St Mary Magdalen's Church, another brick and stone Gothic Revival building, was designed for the area's Roman Catholics in 1861–64 by Gilbert Blount.  Frederick Walters added a complementary school and presbytery in 1871 and 1891 respectively, and the complex takes up a large site on Upper North Street.  A tall tower with a landmark broach spire stands almost separated from the Decorated Gothic nave and chancel.  The interior has contrasting stone (intricately carved to Blount's designs) and marble, and Joseph Cribb carved the effigies of Saint Joseph and Saint George which flank the entrance. St Mary Magdalen's has Grade II-listed status.
  The First Church of Christ, Scientist, serving the city's Christian Scientists, is a "notable" former house on Montpelier Road. It was built in the early 1850s and was converted into a church by local architects Clayton & Black in 1921.  The exterior is rusticated and has an elaborate pediment and large pilasters flanking the tiered windows.  A panelled gallery survives inside.
  Brighton & Hove Central Spiritualist Church is based in a building on Boundary Passage.  It was registered for marriages in April 1984.  The church previously occupied part of a house on Norfolk Terrace, for which a worship registration granted in April 1966 was revoked in February 1980.
  The Grade II*-listed former St Stephen's Church on Montpelier Place closed in 1939 and is now used as a day centre for homeless people. George Cheesman designed the plain stuccoed Classical façade, with Doric pilasters and an octagonal lantern, in 1851.  Behind it lies the opulent former ballroom of the Castle Inn, built by John Crunden in 1776 and later transported to Montpelier Place. Arthur Blomfield made additions to the church in 1889.  It was refurbished after a fire in 1988.
  Christ Church stood on Montpelier Road south of Western Road between 1837 and 1982.   George Cheesman designed it and Edmund Scott undertook restoration in 1886; both architects worked on other local churches as well. The Gothic Revival building had a galleried interior and a spire matching that at Chichester Cathedral.  It was gutted in an arson attack in 1978; the exterior survived, but it was demolished in 1982 in favour of the International/Modern-style Christ Church House flats. The congregation of the church moved to nearby St Patrick's Church.
  The Dials Congregational Church stood at the junction of Clifton Road and Dyke Road (the site of the present Homelees House) between 1870 and 1972, although it closed in 1969. Its 150-foot (46 m) "Rhenish helm"-topped clock tower was prominent on the skyline, and behind was a large horseshoe-shaped auditorium.  The Romanesque Revival building, described as "uncouth" by Nikolaus Pevsner, was designed by local architect Thomas Simpson. Work on Homelees House, a sheltered housing scheme, began in 1985.
  Norfolk Road Methodist Church, designed by C
caption: St Michael and All Angels Church was built in two stages between 1858 and 1895.
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