Christ Church

The seaside town of Hastings, founded in the 8th century, developed as an important trading hub, ecclesiastical centre and the chief Cinque Port by the Middle Ages. There were seven churches by the end of the 13th century. All but two vanished by the 18th century, but after a period of decline the town grew in importance again from that time and was a fashionable resort by the 1820s. In that decade, builder and speculator James Burton bought land immediately to the west from the Eversfield baronets and founded a high-class new town, designed to his specifications. St Leonards-on-Sea, which took its name from one of the ancient churches of Hastings, The new community had two Anglican…

The original church of 1860 was a sandstone-built Early English Gothic Revival building, and Arthur Blomfield's new church was a much larger and more ambitious, although still simple, version of the same style. It is a very long and tall church, especially inside. The "impressive" buttressed east end faces the main London Road and has a five-light lancet window and paired lancets below the gable. To the northeast, the partly ashlar-faced tower rises in four stages with an octagonal upper stage containing bells. There are also lancets, lucarnes and stone gargoyle carvings. The tower is of Bath Stone with a Portland stone roof and rises to 119+3/4 ft; the spire adds a further 64+1/2 ft, and…

(background), closed in 2008.]] Christ Church was listed at Grade II* by Historic England on 14 September 1976. As of February 2001, it was one of 13 Grade II* listed buildings, and 535 listed buildings of all grades, in the borough of Hastings. Its former daughter church, St John the Evangelist's, is also listed at Grade II*, as is the nearby St Peter's Church; other churches with listed status in St Leonards-on-Sea are St Leonard's Anglican church, St Leonard's Baptist Church, St Mary Magdalene's Church (now Greek Orthodox), the Roman Catholic Church of St Thomas of Canterbury and English Martyrs and the former St Leonards-on-Sea Congregational Church further up London Road. Each of these…