St Bartholomew's Church, Brighton

St Bartholomew's Church, Brighton
The church from the south-southwest
Denomination	Church of England
Churchmanship	Traditional Anglo- Catholic / Anglo-Papalist
History
Dedication	St Bartholomew
Administration
Parish	Brighton, St Bartholomew
Deanery	Brighton
Archdeaconry	Chichester
Diocese	Chichester
Province	Canterbury
Clergy
Vicar(s)	Fr David Clues
Laity
Churchwarden(s)	C. Tullett

St Bartholomew's Church, dedicated to the apostle Bartholomew, is an Anglican church in Brighton, England. The neo-gothic building is located on Ann Street, on a sloping site between Brighton railway station and the A23 London Road, adjacent to the New England Quarter development. It is notable for its height – dominating the streets around it and being visible from many parts of the city – and its distinctive red-brick construction.

The Revd Henry Michell Wagner, who had occupied the position of Vicar of Brighton since 1824, died in 1870, giving his son, the Revd Arthur Douglas Wagner (the curate of St Paul's Church in West Street), the opportunity to continue and improve his father's proposals for new parish churches in Brighton. He undertook three such schemes in the 1870s, two in conjunction with his two half-brothers, but Saint Bartholomew's is the only church which was his sole responsibility throughout.

In 1868, Arthur Wagner had built a temporary church on Providence Place, a back street parallel with the main London Road, along with a school accommodating 400 pupils. After his father's death, he resolved to build a more impressive new church in the same area. The original plan, which was submitted to the Town Council in 1871 and approved on 7 June of that year, consisted of a combined church and school building, 322 feet in length, 46 feet wide, and 41¾ feet high. This was amended shortly afterwards to reduce the number of bays in the interior from 13 to 11½; the additional space formed a "courtyard" area between the church and the existing school building, which was to be retained.

Building work began on 8 February 1872; but Wagner's plans changed again, in favour of a significantly taller structure. When they were submitted on 16 September 1873, the revised plans reduced the length to 170 feet, but widened the building to 59 feet and, most significantly, proposed a height of 135 feet to the ridge of the roof. The cross on the roof at the south end (the liturgical west end) adds a further 9 feet to this.