Bristol Road Methodist Church

Brighton's first Methodist church opened in 1808 in Dorset Gardens off St James's Street, a recently developed road east of the Old Steine and the Royal Pavilion. By the 1870s, housing had spread much further east, and the area between Thomas Read Kemp's high-class Kemp Town estate and the earlier development around St James's Street had been filled in with high-density housing. The area became known as Kemptown . In 1872, Reverend J. Martin, a Methodist minister, proposed the construction of a new church to serve this area. Architect Thomas Lainson, who also designed several buildings (including a Congregational church) in Hove and the Middle Street Synagogue in Brighton, was commissioned…

Thomas Lainson adopted the Italian Romanesque Revival style for his design. The building is of brown and red brick, laid in the English bond pattern, with dressings of stone and pale brick. There is a tower at the southeast corner, rising in three stages and capped by a short spire and a lead roof. Most of the main roof area is laid with slate, but there is one timber-framed section as well. The south face has a stair turret at the southwest corner and the tower at the opposite corner; and between these is the entrance porch, a portico with three arches separated by columns of granite topped with abaci of stone. Three round-arched windows, with stone surrounds and an architrave, are above…