St Peter's Church, Brighton

St Peter's Church was founded as a chapel of ease associated with Brighton's oldest church and its existing parish church, St Nicholas. The contract to design the new church was won in open competition by Charles Barry, then only in his mid-twenties. It was built in an approximation of the 14th- and 15th-century Perpendicular or Late Gothic style, typical of the so-called Commissioners' churches, of which St Peter's was one. It was not a revival of its style in the manner of Barry's pupil Augustus Pugin, but, as Nikolaus Pevsner described it, remedies this fault by remarkable inventiveness and boldness. The foundation stone was laid by the Vicar of Brighton, the Revd R. J. Carr, on 8 May…