Eastbourne – St Luke, Stone Cross

The area south of Pevensey has merged with the landward expansion of Eastbourne.  A J Hodgeman designed a church for the area in 1924-25 (ESRO Par 541) as a chapelry of Westham, but it struggled to find a congregation and closed around 1974 (vidi).  After more building in the area, it reopened in 1988, with a conventual district formed from Westham and St Richard, Langney that became a separate parish in 1995.

The church shows no hint of its architect’s colourful earlier life.  It is long and low, combining half-timbered gables and tile-hanging with domestic-style windows that are almost continuous along the sides.  The central lantern-tower with a tiled base and pyramid-spire provides the only vertical emphasis and the bell is hung on the west gable beneath an extension of the roof.  The interior is a single space, spanned by a boarded roof supported on small hammerbeams and the plain fittings of the chancel date from 1988 or later.  Above the five-light east window with a square head is a cross, cut through the wall and glazed; this could date from the renovations.  The east end and much of the north side are now enveloped in a sizeable complex comprising a hall and other parish rooms, which was completed in 2002 (church website).

Fittings

Fonts:
1. (South chapel) Small and octagonal.
2. (Behind altar) Larger and more elaborate, also with an octagonal bowl.
Glass: (In the glazed cross above the east window)  Simply coloured glass, arranged irregularly.

My thanks to Nick Wiseman for the photographs