St. Augustine's Church, St Augustines Close

St. Augustine's Church, St Augustines Close
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Designed by William Henry Randoll Blacking (a pupil of Sir J Ninian Comper) and built by Edward Godwin and Sons, the first part, consisting of the chancel and the two east bays of the nave, completed in 1933 and consecrated the year later. Blacking planned a further three bays of the nave and a north west tower, but when construction was resumed in 1960 it was to a revised design by Hugh Hubbard Ford which was completed in 1963. He added only two more bays, resembling the earlier ones, with a west gallery. In place of the tower is a large two-storeyed porch with a cross-gable.

The material is brick with stone dressings and the windows have a simplified form of early 17th Century-style Perpendicular gothic tracery. The tympanum bears an inscription under a large niche, containing a figure by John Skelton of St Augustine standing in the prow of a boat.

The light and airy interior has round-arched nave arcades, panelled piers and pairs of keyed blind oeil de boeuf windows. The vaulted and panelled roof has pendants above the arcades. It has good chancel furnishing and an octagonal font in the free gothic style. The fine stained glass windows of c1920, probably by Comper, were relocated here from St Thomas’s, Hove in 1993. The striking east window depicting The Creation is by the well-known artist Marguerite Douglas-Thompson (1910-94) installed in 1979. Blacking’s other works include St John’s Church, West Bay, Dorset (1930) and Rockhampton War Memorial, Gloucestershire (both Grade II listed).

Aerial view
Frontage
Altar
Stained glass