Nick, Lawrence and I went down into the depths of the crypt today, nowadays there is a trap door. There used to be stairs that opened up into the church and a rather grand door way in the crypt onto what is now the school playground which was bricked up years ago. I presume that the playground was originally bought to be a cemetery, but never consecrated. Older parishioners remember it as a field where the parish priest kept his horse.
We found the pillar that used to be used for the statue of our Glorious Patron and this piece of stone beautifully gilded, I don't know what it was for, I presume it was the base for the pulpit though it is not quite in keeping with carving elsewhere in the Church.
2 comments:
What prompted your trip down there? Clearing the rats out? :-D
Seriously, your stone pillar quite intrigues. A base for a holy water fount? Unlikely -- but what?
Do you have a lot of older pictures from inside the church that might shed some light? What about a base for a holy water fount? Or perhaps something simple like a base of a statue that was tipped over and broken? Saved in hope of putting St. Humpty Dumpty together again?
mybrightonandhove.org.uk merely has a photo of the exterior of the church. Try going to the local history archives in what used to be the of reference library in the art gallery/museum. They may well be able to provide, or point you in the direction of, any photos or documentation about the church that have previously been deposited for safe keeping. I think it is fair to say that overall local archives are pretty good. Perhaps the parish has some records or photos hidden away somewhere; perhaps there are some lodged with the diocese (or even the Soutwark diocese under whose care the church would originally have come.
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