Description

BRIGHTON

TQ3104SW UNION STREET
577-1/64/918 (North side)
20/08/71 Elim Tabernacle and attached
railings
(Formerly Listed as:
UNION STREET
Elim Tabernacle Church of the Four
Square Gospel)

II

Nonconformist meeting house. March to August, 1825. Designed
by Charles Augustin Busby and Amon Henry Wilds as a
Presbyterian meeting house to replace Brighton's first
Nonconformist chapel, erected 1688. Stucco scored to imitate
ashlaring; regularly coursed cobbles and red brick on return
to Meeting House Lane, where the window dressings are also of
brick. Roof obscured by parapet; its centre section has a
facing gable on a north-south axis.
EXTERIOR: single storey to centre section; 2 storeys to each
end bay, the return and the rear. 7-window range to front and
4- to return. Rectangular plan, the galleried meeting hall
semicircular in plan, a flat, long wall to the north, that is,
ritual east end. Service rooms fitted into quadrant spaces
left over between hall and outer wall. Greek Revival Style.
The main elevation angles back from the corner with Meeting
House Lane to the party wall in Union Street. This novel
arrangement permits a longer view of the Temple front than
would otherwise be possible in a very narrow twitten. The
front is treated as 3 bays, a tall centre of a 3-window range,
which is articulated as a portico formed by a tetrastyle
pilastrade topped by a pediment. The width of each pilaster
narrows quite noticeably from top to bottom; the capitals are
radically simplified and stylized version of the Doric order.
Entablature with a triglyph and metope frieze over portico
with ornamented soffit; the entablature, without the frieze
and ornamented soffit, extends across the side bays. The walls
in the bay to either side of the portico are set back slightly
and framed by a pair of Tuscan pilasters. All window openings
are flat arched. The windows and doors from the second- to the
6th-window range batter from top to bottom in Egyptian
fashion, and have eared architraves; the windows under the
portico have plain panelled spandrels. There is in addition a
continuous plinth across the elevation. The left-hand bay is
far narrower than the right. The front wall of the section
just described is slightly battered, one of several
refinements which tailor the building to this restricted site.
There are formal entrances in the second- and 6th-window
ranges; panelled overdoors with a 6-pane overlight of original
design below. Above each entry is a plain panel. The glazing
bars to the windows under the portico are of an original
design, but with late C19 or early C20 glass inserted. There
is a subordinate entrance in the first- and 7th-window range;
the 4-panel door of the latter is of original design, its
upper panels replaced by glazing sometime in the late C19. The
corner range is not battered and projects beyond the rest of
the elevation; its somewhat segmental plan smooths the turning
of the corner. On the return 3 round-arched windows with 8/8
sashes and semicircular transom of original design. The
first-floor windows are camber arched with 12/12 sashes of
original design. Round-arched windows to rear of building.
Cast-iron railings to main elevation enclosing a narrow area
at the foot of the wall. Several memorials are fixed along
this front wall. The earliest can be found in the corner
range: a stone dated "1688" surviving from the original
meeting house. Above, a rectangular panel which reads: "Glynn
Vivian Miners' Mission. Opened May 1905 to the Memory of God".
Embedded in the Tuscan pilaster to the left is a tablet which
reads: "Built A.D. 1688. Repaired and enlarged 1810". There is
a stone memorial tablet to the left of the portico which is a
memorial to Henry Varley, 1835-1912, who was an Evangelical
Missionary in London and abroad and spent from 1909 to his
death in Brighton where he preached in this church; the
memorial was erected by the officers and congregation of the
Miners Mission.
INTERIOR: the ritual east wall divided into 3 bays by a blind
round-arched arcade, the centre bay broader than the sides.
Above, in the upper reaches of the hall 3 round-arched
windows. The rest of the hall filled with a semicircular
gallery supported by 8, evenly spaced palm-and-acanthus leaf
columns which may date to the late C19; rising from the
parapeted gallery front are another 8 columns, these of the
Composite order. The latter carry an entablature from which
springs a barrel vaulted ceiling terminating in an hemisphere
at the ritual west end. There are stairs to the gallery in the
ritual north-east corner; curving gallery stair in each
quadrant space. The only furnishings which remain are a late
C19 or early C20 reading desk with turned balusters and, in
front of this, a C20 Baptismal tub set into the floor. The
hall is entered by 3 flat-arched entrances.
HISTORICAL NOTE: the design has been misattributed to Amon
Wilds. The plans were in fact signed by his son, Amon Henry
Wilds, and the younger Wilds' partner, Busby. Although Busby
drew up the plans (now in the Royal Institute of British
Architects' Drawings Collection), the design was associated
with Wilds after the firm dissolved in June of 1825. The
original chapel became an Independent Chapel in the C18. In
1878 it was taken over by the Union Congregation which merged
twenty years later with the Queen Congregational Church to
form the Union Free Church. In 1905 the building was sold to
the Miners' Mission. From 1927 until 1988 it served as the
Elim Tabernacle of the Church of the 4 Square Gospel. It has
been disused since then and is for sale at the time of this
survey (March 1992).
(Carder T: The Encyclopaedia of Brighton: Lewes: 1990-: 115V;
Bingham N: CA Busby. The Regency Architect of Brighton and
Hove: London: 1991-: 74 AND 75).

Listing NGR: TQ3104204169

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Union Chapel at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q7885480

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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