page_title: St Bartholomew's Church, Brighton
section_title: Interior
hierarchical_section_title: St Bartholomew's Church, Brighton / Architecture and design / Interior
caption_attribution_description: English: Silver altar by Henry Wilson
context_page_description: St Bartholomew's Church, dedicated to the apostle Bartholomew, is an Anglican church in Brighton, England. The neo-gothic building is located on Ann Street, on a sloping site between Brighton railway station and the A23 London Road, adjacent to the New England Quarter development. It is notable for its height – dominating the streets around it and being visible from many parts of the city – and its distinctive red-brick construction.
context_section_description: Openness and a relative lack of division into smaller sections characterises the interior, giving an impression of vast space which is enhanced by the uninterrupted height: the church is effectively one large hall. Each side wall has several tall arches underneath which side-chapels are located, but these are well integrated with the nave. Above this is a shallow triforium, and above this, immediately below the roof line, is the clerestory with its tall pointed windows.
  The interior walls are mostly made up of unadorned brickwork identical to that of the exterior.  However, built into the northern end wall, above the altar, is a substantial cross, 30 feet high and built from Sussex chalk; and a set of carved wood and stone Stations of the Cross brought from Bruges in 1881 are located on the walls of the side-chapels.  Also, the walls above the altar support a range of mosaics by F. Hamilton Jackson, a follower of the Arts and Crafts movement.
  The High altar and sanctuary themselves are highly decorative, and are among a range of new features introduced under the stewardship of the Revd Arthur W. C. Cocks, who became vicar of St Bartholomomew's in 1895. Architect and designer Henry Wilson, who was the first editor of the Architectural Review magazine when it was founded in 1896 and who was also involved in the Arts and Crafts movement, was responsible for the work undertaken at this time, having been appointed in 1895 upon the death of Edmund Scott. The sanctuary is dominated by a 45-foot baldacchino in red and green marble, with a new altar below housing a silver tabernacle and a white marble shelf with a large crucifix and six candlesticks. In 1908 this was flanked by a pair of white marble columns bearing two further candles.
  One of the side chapels contains a Lady altar designed in intricate repoussé silver on copper by Wilson in 1902. The High altar's original crucifix was moved to this altar in 1912, with a new crucifix of a different design replacing it.
  Wilson designed and built a new pulpit, again in a variety of marbles, in 1906. Six red marble columns stand on a base of black marble and support a large block of green Irish marble, similar in colour to that of the baldacchino's marble canopy.  At the same time, a large organ gallery was built at the south end of the church to house the organ and up to 150 choristers and orchestra members; and in 1908, a large octagonal font, again in green marble, is located in a recess on the south-eastern side of the church.
  Wilson's association with St Bartholomew's ended in 1911, when Arthur Cocks left (having converted to Roman Catholicism) and his successor, the Revd Henry Ross, brought his own ideas in. Few of these were carried out, partly because of the disruption caused by World War I, although the mosaics above the altar were completed in 1912. The aborted plans included a second attempt at completing the north end, which was still unfinished; a subsequent third attempt failed to proceed because of a lack of funding, with the re-tiling of the roof being the priority at that time (1930).
caption: Side chapel altar front by Henry Wilson dating from 1902
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