St Michael's Church, Brighton

The church serves the loosely defined Montpelier and Clifton Hill areas of Brighton, which lie west of the major Dyke Road and cover the steep slopes between the Seven Dials district and the seafront. St Stephen's Church had served parts of the district since 1851, when it had been moved to Montpelier Place from its previous location in Castle Square, close to the Royal Pavilion. However, it was not convenient for the area as a whole, with most of its parishioners being drawn instead from the streets to the south of the church. Development of the Montpelier and Clifton Hill areas started in the 1820s, and by the 1840s they had essentially taken the form they remain in today, with a range of…

Burges's enlargement substantially altered the character of the building, abandoning Bodley's polychrome brickwork interior for proper stone dressings, but he retained the polychrome style for the somewhat brutal exterior. The interior featured a series of clerestory windows facing south, a stone arch in the chancel and a row of stone columns with foliated decoration (carved with leaf ornamentations). The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of people active in various areas of the arts who were influenced by the Quattrocento period of Italian art, were closely involved with the decoration of the interior. Bodley was informally associated with this recently formed group, in particular with…

The area covered by St Michael's—a portion of the western end of St Nicholas' parish—was made a parish in its own right in the early 20th century. St Michael's had previously been a mere chapel of ease. Following the closure and deconsecration of St Stephens Church in Montpelier Place and another local church, All Saints Church in Compton Avenue, Seven Dials, their parishes were absorbed into that of St Michael's; it now covers an area bounded (approximately) by Brighton railway station, Montefiore Road, Upper North Street and the streets between the church and Dyke Road. Services have always been in the ritualist tradition, reflecting Anglo-Catholic and "High Church" views and doctrine.…