Brighton and Hove – Holy Resurrection

A D Wagner intended his new church of St Paul‘s as a mission church to the fisherfolk living behind West Street.  Instead, it became one of the most fashionable churches in Brighton and the poor were effectively excluded.  After his father died, A D Wagner, with more money to spend, in addition to completing the tower at St Paul’s, sought to realise his original objective and asked the architect R H Carpenter (BN 58 p115) to build in 1876-77 a new church in the western part of the parish, dedicated to the Holy Resurrection.

The grandiose schemes elsewhere in Brighton that were associated with Wagner led to concern that the church would dominate its surrounding area, like St Bartholomew‘s.  His solution was to sink it below ground level, with steps down to the floor of the church from the street.  The plain, brick exterior contrasted with the interior, which old photographs (see Shipley p27) show to have had two arches between an entrance area and the tall nave and a north arcade with shaft-rings.  The south wall had wall arches containing windows high up.

As it was partly underground, the church was damp and, whether or not for this reason never popular.  By 1912 it had became a cold-store and was pulled down in 1968 to build Churchill Square.