St Andrews Church

St Andrews Church, Church Road, Portslade, BN41 1LB

St Andrews Church, Church Road, Portslade by Sea, is situated south of the Southern Cross traffic lights on the Old Shoreham Road (A270) via Trafalgar Road to Church Road.

St Andrews Church is a "Chapel of Ease" and only used occasionally for religious services

The number 1 and 1a bus stops outside St Andrews Church. These routes connect Portslade and Mile Oak with all parts of the City, across to Whitehawk at the eastern end of the route.

Please click on the link for timetables:

HISTORY

In the early 1860's there were many houses in the southern part of Portslade, sometimes called Copperas Gap, and that the people who lived there were some distance from their Parish Church of St Nicolas. At the instigation of the Vicar of Portslade, the Revd. F. G. Holbrooke, the Church of St Andrew was built in 1864. The new church would serve the District of Copperas Gap in the Parish of Portslade, the district included both South Portslade and Fishersgate.

One of the conditions for the funding of the new Church was that all seats would be "free". Pew rents were still payable in many Churches in the 1860's. At St. Nicolas Portslade where pew rents were in operation, there are still some pews to this present day, marked "free", dating from Victorian times. A local Brighton architect Edmund Scott designed both St. Andrew's Church and St Nicolas Church School in Locks Hill, Portslade. Scott went on to design probably, the most impressive and nationally known church in Brighton, St Bartholomew's in Ann Street.

The Sanctuary's stained glass widows depict, left-right:-
St John, The Resurrection of Our Lord and The Blessed Virgin Mary.

The Surrey Standard reported on the 25th October 1864,

" A church at Copperas Gap, which has been recently erected to meet the spiritual wants of almost 100 souls in that neighbourhood, was on Tuesday last Consecrated by the Bishop of the Diocese. The situation of the new church is just above the Britannia Steam Flour Mill, near the Railway. The total cost of the undertaking is stated at £1,541, of which sum about £350 remains to be provided. There is accommodation for about 350 persons: and the seats are all free and un-appropriated. The edifice is of un-ambitious aspect, and in the Early English style. It will at least be put to more practical purpose than its neighbour, Aldrington Church, which is a ruin and a desolation, but nevertheless supplies a "living" of about £400 a year to somebody."

The full text from the Brighton Herald reporting the Consecrated of St Andrew Church on the 18th October 1864, the Feast of St Luke, by the Bishop of Chichester:-

"On Tuesday 18^th October 1864 the Church was consecrated. The Bishop was received at the door of the Church by the Chancellor of the Diocese, the Registrar, and the Clergy. He at once proceeded to the Communion table, on which the vessels for the Holy Communion had been previously place.

The Bishop and Clergy, consisting, the Revd. Archdeacon Otter, the Rev. W. Kelly of Hove, the Revd. Vicar of Portslade, the Revd. Mr Field of Lancing College, &c., walked in procession down the Nave, and then returned, repeating alternately the verses of the 24^th Psalm, “The Earth is the Lord’s, &c.,” The Bishop being seated at the Communion table, the Chancellor presented the deed of conveyance of the site of the new edifice, and His Lordship proceeded with the very beautiful service by which the act of consecration is performed.

The usual Morning Service then commenced; the Vicar, who was assisted by the Archdeacon and others, taking the lead. The Psalms, special for the occasion, were the 84^th, the 122^nd, and the 132^nd; the lessons, also special, 1 Kings viii., 22-61, and Hebrews x., 19-25.; the Epistle and Gospel, likewise special, 2 Cor. vi., 14-18, and John ii., 13-17. The service was intoned; the Psalms chanted to Gregorian music. A harmonium was used as an assistant; but it is hoped that the instrument will be replaced ere long by an organ.

The Revd. Mr Field, of Lancing College, preached from Luke xix. 10: “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost,” Having described his original work of seeking and saving, the preacher stated that the same work was still being carried on by the ministers of Christ. “As My Father has sent Me, even so I send you.” “As the Father hath sent the Son to have power on earth,” to forgive sin, “even so” with a like object, with like powers, His ministers go forth, with their message of peace and good will, with their commission to bind and loose, to teach, to baptise. It was Christ Himself who worked in His ministers. He was present among those who represented Him among men. Baptism, the Holy Communion, Confession, Absolution, were only so many channels through which it pleased Him to convey His grace to man, the outward and visible signs of that grace which He alone invisibly bestows upon us. Through His ministers, He is still seeking to save that which was lost.

A new church was one of the means He employs to that end, and especially was this the case when the church was in a place containing the class to which our Lord devoted His life, the poor of His flock. “To the poor the Gospel was preached,” There was no doubt that this small church was likely, at no distant time, to be the centre of an enlarged population. The 1,100 inhabitants at present around it, and who might be expected to avail themselves of its services had, for the most part, been gathered together during the last five or six years. The population was most rapidly increasing. Surely, then it was of great importance that the Church should occupy such a field of labour. "

Fr Enraght entering Warwick Prison in 1880

In 1871 Fr Richard Enraght was appointed Curate in Charge of St Andrew Church.
He was heavily influenced by the Oxford Movement and is amongst the number of priests commonly called “Second Generation” Anglo-Catholics. Fr Enraght was very active in his defence of Ritualism in published pamphlets and letters to the Brighton Gazette where he promoted the Church of England's Catholic Tradition. While living in Portslade, he published the booklets nationally, “The Real Presence and Holy Scripture” and “Catholic Worship”

In 1874 Fr Enraght left Portslade to become Vicar of Holy Trinity, Birmingham, where he was imprisoned in 1880 under the Disraeli Government's Public Worship Regulation Act, for his use of ritualism in worship. He become nationally and internationally known as a "prisoner for conscience sake".

See the Fr Richard Enraght page to learn more about his life, ministry and publications.
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The "Baddeley Windows" The three windows of the Sanctuary depict:- St John, The Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary. The windows were, sadly, given in memory of Lt. Alfred Baddeley who served in the Royal Sussex Regiment and was killed in action near the Somme three weeks before the end of the 1st World War aged 19 years. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission gives as his next of kin, his brother, Walter Baddeley, who eventually became a Bishop in the Melanesian Islands. A sea shell Cross was presented to him by Islanders, used to stand in front of the Baddeley windows on the north wall in the original layout of St Andrew Church. It would seem highly probable that the theme of The Resurrection for the window was the choice of the Walter Baddeley, as a memoriam to his brother, Alfred. At the time of the windows installation in St Andrews, Walter Baddeley would have been entering Theological College.

Who was Walter Baddeley? Walter was born in North Street, Portslade in 1894 and educated at Varndean School, Brighton, Keble College, Oxford and Cuddesdon College. He enlisted in the army in 1914 and took part in some of the fiercest engagements on the Western Front with the Royal Sussex Regiment. He was awarded the DSO and the MC and bar and was four times mentioned in dispatches. In 1921 he took Holy Orders and served as a Curate and finally a Vicar in Yorkshire until 1932, when he was chosen to be a Bishop in Melanesia. On his arrival in Melanesia, Bishop Baddeley found that the Anglican Melanesian Mission’s medical work was given low priority. He immediately changed this priority and promoted medical work as integral to the Mission’s work. This was a consequence of his belief in ‘the redemption of the whole man’. He had been a Bishop there for about seven years when the 1939-45 War broke out.

The "Baddeley windows" in their original position in the north
wall of St Andrews, in 2004 they were moved to the Sanctuary.
The sea shell Cross in the foreground was presented to
Bishop Walter Baddeley by the people of Melanesia

In the war years Dr Baddeley was never driven out of his diocese during the time of the Japanese occupation. He hid in the jungle living off the land, where he carried on his ministry, caring for the sick and wounded Islanders who were fighting for the Allied cause. Bishop Baddeley was awarded the United States Medal of Freedom with palm for his services in aiding American Servicemen. In 1944 he visited Australia to seek funds for the restoration of his mission station, the school in Maravovo and infant welfare centre in Siota, which were all destroyed in the War.

When Dr Baddeley left Melanesia to become the Suffragan Bishop of Whitby in 1947, he had the satisfaction of seeing the work of his former diocese re-established on firm foundations. In 1954 he was appointed Bishop of Blackburn and served as a Member of the House of Lords. The Right Revd. W. H. Baddeley, DSO., MC., DD., Std. Bishop of Blackburn and former parishioner and Sunday School Teacher of St Andrew’s, Portslade died in 1960.

Bishop Walter Hubert Baddeley’s life as the 7th Missionary Bishop of Melanesia is
commemorated each year on February 6^th in the Melanesia Church’s Calendar of Saints Days and Holy Days

St George and St Wilfrid

The two stained glass windows on the south side of the Sanctuary were designed by E. Burne Jones and manufactured by the Morris Company :-
'St George and the Dragon' , titled 'Valour' given in memory of 2nd Lt. Ronald Christian Sundius Smith, who was killed in action at Neuve Chapelle on 12th March 1915.
'St Wilfrid' which was given in memory of the Revd. C. A. Marona. Vicar of St Andrew's 1889-1903, Chaplain to the Garrison at Newhaven, died 28th Feb 1915.

Formerly sited in the original layout of St Andrew's Church but now in the section of the Church building that was converted into a Community Centre for South Portslade, there is a First World War Memorial to commemorate those from the Parish of St Andrew’s Portslade and Fishersgate, who fell in the Great War 1914-1918 (All the listed names on this Memorial are also commemorated on the Portslade War Memorial in Easthill Park, Portslade)

"Erected by Parishioners and Friends to the Glory of God
and in memory of those who died for England, Home and Duty.
Remember before God these who fell in the Great War 1914-1919"

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Vicars of St Andrew's Church, Portslade by Sea

1864 St Andrew Church is built under the direction of the Revd Holbrooke, Vicar of St Nicolas Church, becomes Priest in Charge of this District Church.

1866 J. Joseph, Curate of St Andrew with Hangleton

1867 J. J. Ellis, Curate of St Andrew with Hangleton

1869 O. Cookson, Curate of St Andrew with Hangleton

1871 Richard W. Enraght, Curate in Charge of Portslade by Sea with Hangleton

1874 E. Winterbottom, Curate in Charge of Portslade by Sea

1876 The separate Parish of St Andrew Portslade by Sea is formed and no longer united with St Nicolas Portslade.

1876 E. Winterbottom. appointed first Vicar of the new Parish of St Andrew Portslade by Sea

1889 C.A. Marona.

1903 C. E. Cooper.

1911 R. M. Rosseter.
L. Norman Phillips, M. C., C de G., Curate of St Andrew Church 1913-1914

1915 H. W. Leycester-Ward.

1929 A. J. Longhurst.

1931 Bransby A.H. Jones.

1935 F. Warren-Wilson.

1951 C. F. G. Chisholm.

1959 F. R. Long.

1967 T. L. G. Packer.

1976 R. L. Clarke. & Priest in Charge of St Peter & St Mary Fishersgate, Southwick

1980 J. R. Lambeth. & Priest in Charge of St Peter & St Mary Fishersgate, Southwick

1984 R. H. Rushforth. Priest in Charge of St Andrew & Vicar of St Nicolas, Portslade

1987 St Andrew united with St Nicolas to form, The Parish of St Nicolas & St Andrew, Portslade

1987 R. H. Rushforth. Vicar of St Nicolas & St Andrew's Portslade.

2013 St Nicolas Church and St Andrew Church united with The Good Shepherd Mile Oak to form the new Parish of Portslade St Nicolas and St Andrew and Mile Oak The Good Shepherd.

2013 Andrew J. Perry, Vicar of the Parish of Portslade, St Nicolas and St Andrew and Mile Oak The Good Shepherd.

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In May 2003 a major internal building programme was undertaken to convert a section of St Andrew's Church into a much needed South Portslade Community Centre with an integral smaller St Andrew's Church in the east section of the original church building. For more information on the work of the South Portslade Community Centre see their web site.

March 2003

May 2003

July 2004

The newly re-ordered St Andrew's Church was officially reopened by the Bishop of Chichester in July 2004.

In September 2013, St Andrew Church's status was changed to a "Chapel of Ease" and will only be used occasionally for religious services.