Findon Valley – All Saints

Findon Valley is today a suburb of Worthing, though when development began in the 1920s it was in the parish of Findon, as its name suggests.  Services started in 1934 in unconsecrated premises (church website) and in 1935-36 the first church was built by M Gill (CDG 18 p341) at a cost of £1372.  This is an almost entirely utilitarian brick structure, the only feature of note being an entrance porch with a half-hipped roof, though it features in the ICBS publication Fifty Modern Churches (1947), presumably because of the reputation of the architect since the society had not made a grant (Hedley p188).  In 1956 following the building of the permanent church, it became the parish hall.

The foundation stone of the new church is dated 1955, when it was designed by L K Hett (church website).  Like Gill’s hall it is built of brick and has narrow flat-roofed aisles which are continued across the west end with an arch over the west doorway.  The windows are domestic in nature, with leaded panes except in the chancel, where there is a cross-shaped east window and tall round-headed side-windows.  There is a single bell hung from the west gable.  .

The interior has a canted roof, one of Hett’s favourite devices though less pronounced than in some of his other churches.  Between the main cross-supports are brown coloured panels.  There is no division between nave and chancel and the plain square-headed openings from the nave to the aisles hardly qualify as arcades.  By the 1950s Hett was old and some of his later buildings seem constructed to a formula, but this is well planned and light.

A separate parish was established in 1989.

Fitting

Font: Gently tapered octagon with incised decoration including a fish suitably inscribed in Greek.  It is very much in the idiom of J Cribb and could be by him.

My thanks to Nick Wiseman for the photograph of the font.