Hove in the Past: St Andrew's Old Church - Churchyard

Judy Middleton 2003 (revised 2022)

The first recorded burial in St Andrew’s churchyard was that of Emily Smith on 12 December 1539. For centuries it retained the ambience of a country churchyard. Revd F.W. Robertson of Brighton, a celebrated preacher, wrote a letter in 1850 that gives us an insight into how it used to be. He wrote that he needed some fresh air one evening and took a walk to the churchyard. He was pleased ‘to hear not a single human soul far or near. ‘The moon was rising, like glowing copper, through the smoke of Brighton, above there were a few dense clouds, edged with light, sailing across a marvellous blue … I heard nothing but the sea … falling with a most dissonant, heavy, endless clang upon the shore.’ Robertson’s sermons were so popular that theological students were urged to read one a day. Robertson certainly knew his Scriptures, having learnt the Gospels in English and Greek by heart while at university.

The old village of Hove clustered around Hove Street only had a small population and so the churchyard was adequate for their needs. This all changed with the rapid expansion of Hove in the 19^th century. First there was Brunswick Town in the east part of the parish, then the Cliftonville area with names derived from the Isle of Wight as well as George Street; finally there was the laying out of the Avenues built on land that once formed part of the Stanford Estate. The population figures provide a graphic example of rapid population growth. In 1801 Hove had a population of 101 persons, by 1851 it had risen to 4,104 and by 1901 it was an astonishing 29,695.

Expansion

In the 1850s St Andrew’s churchyard was the only place for burial in Hove. Although St Andrew’s Chapel in Waterloo Street had some burial vaults, it would soon become illegal to use them. On 3 May 1858 the Ecclesiastical Commissioners purchased for £1,400 three acres north of the churchyard from the Vallance Estate. It should be remembered that the extended churchyard thus stretched north to the old flint wall alongside the pub in Belfast Street and south of its present boundary in Church Road, which meant that Church Road was not a through road. When there was a funeral emanating from Brunswick Town, the cortège had to go along the coast road and turn up Hove Street in order to reach the churchyard.

In 1880 J.G. Bishop described the churchyard thus: (It) ‘is a model of order and neatness (and) there are many interesting and beautiful monuments.’

But it did not take long before the expanded churchyard filled up and by an Order in Council dated 22 May 1883 the churchyard was closed to further burials with the exception of family vaults already in existence.

Hove Cemetery was opened in 1882 with the original 25 acres being on the south side of Old Shoreham Road. Today Hove cemetery covers 45 acres and lies on both sides of the road.

Road Widening

But a truncated Church Road remained a problem. The southernmost part of the churchyard was safe as long as Revd Walter Kelly (vicar from 1834 to 1873) was in charge. But when he died in 1888 the main obstacle was removed because the new vicar of Hove, Prebenday Peacey, was cut from different cloth and was in favour of the Church Road widening scheme. The Revd Walter Kelly’s son, also in Holy Orders, said his father would never have sanctioned such an act.

On 7 February 1894 a Faculty was granted to Hove Council to appropriate part of the churchyard for road widening purposes. The Town Surveyor was given instructions to arrange for the removal and re-interring of human remains, and the removal and re-erection of monuments.

copyright © J.Middleton
The fine wall in the background was probably constructed in 1832 when the gasworks were built, which was before the church was re-built.

Re-burials – 1890s

In July 1895 hoardings were placed around the south end of the churchyard. To many ordinary folk, the destruction of the burial ground was equivalent to sacrilege. While Prebendary Peacey might hold progressive views, many of his parishioners were steeped in traditional beliefs. In the same month the hoardings were erected, someone painted the message It’s a Real Sin three or four times on the wood. When Prebendary Peacey caught sight of the graffiti he was said to have ‘executed a hornpipe in his rage’. But as the local newspaper commented sarcastically, ‘judging from that gentleman’s size, we are inclined to question that statement.’

Someone also spread the rumour that two of the workmen engaged in digging up the bodies had succumbed to typhoid but that was refuted in the Press.

In one portion of the graveyard the soil was of such a clayey nature that the skeletons had turned the colour of terracotta.

There was also the delicate matter of jewellery. Apparently, in the third section when a body was being removed, a gold ring was picked up.

By August 1895 a total of 317 or 318 bodies had been removed from St Andrew’s churchyard and re-buried in the north east part of Hove Cemetery. The operation cost £3,250.

Some of the memorials went too. Evidence of this can be seen north of the circle with four fir trees. There is a tombstone in memory of Phillis, wife of Samuel Webb died on 18 July 1828 aged 53 and Samuel Webb died 28 November 1843 aged 67. There are a few other old tombstones in the vicinity although the lettering is now indecipherable.

But it appears most of the tomb stones never made the journey and were re-used locally for other purposes. For example, it was claimed that the steps and paving at 39 Medina Villas were grave slabs. In 1963 builders were knocking down the lower staircase at that house, when they discovered a stockpile of old grave slabs and used one as a temporary repair job in the pavement.

A new wall defined the churchyard’s new southern boundary. At first glance it looks like an ordinary flint wall with red brick dressings. But if you look closer you can see the unusual flint pattern was copied from the re-building of St Andrew’s in the 1830s. This pattern consisted of one boulder and one knapped flint used alternatively and it was a construction insisted upon by Mr Davies, clerk of the works.

Demolition of most of the North Churchyard 1970s

Copyright © Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove
A 1933 aerial view of St Andrew's north churchyard before it was destroyed and obliterated by the building of a Tesco's car park, school playing fields and church hall

copyright © Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove (apologies for modifying their photograph)
A 2018 approximate footprint of the Tesco's car park, school playing fields and Church Hall superimposed over the former St Andrew's north churchyard. The 'new' St Andrew's School was built in the area where the terrace houses north of the playing fields once stood.

It was unfortunate that by the 1960s St Andrew’s churchyard should be located in such a densely populated area and moreover that the church school of St Andrew’s should be crying out for more space. In the mindset of the 1960s Victorian artefacts held little value and eminent historians were of the view that Victorian architecture was not worth preserving – with the honourable exception of John Betjeman of course. The classic case at Hove was Alfred Waterhouse’s fine Hove Town Hall. When it was badly damaged by fire in 1966 it could have been rebuilt if the will had been there. But councillors decided on demolition and it was replaced by what some claim is a fine example of the brutalist movement.

If the question of getting rid of so many fine monuments and the peaceful green oasis had arisen today, there would be uproar and perhaps a national campaign to save it. Since then many old churchyards have become virtual wildlife sanctuaries where native wild flowers are encouraged.

A tree being planted on 4 December 1937 to commemorate the Coronation of King George VI.

(All trees were cut down in the 1970s, the fine monuments in the background destroyed and the whole area covered by a Tesco's car park)

According to Henry Porter, writing in 1897, one of the most elaborate groups of figures in white marble in the churchyard was to be found on the tomb of Joshua Jepson Oddy who died aged 73 on 20 November 1869. But Porter thought the handsomest monument was the nearly life-size marble figures of Faith, Hope and Charity over the tomb of Edward Latham Brickwood.

The Revd C. McDonald holding a Service of Blessing beside the Capt. Henderson-Roe Memorial on the 16 April 1938.
Capt. Christopher Gordon Henderson-Roe, D.S.O. M.C. of the Royal West Kent Regiment Special Reserves, survived the Great War, the citation in the London Gazette for the 9 January 1918 read - “For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty during an attack upon an enemy trench. He continued to lead and direct his men until he was blown down and almost completely buried. He remained in this position for ten hours, eventually extricating himself. On his way back to our lines he bandaged some of our wounded, collected and placed them into shell holes. He then crawled back to the post held by his battalion, and remained there throughout the action, after which he led the stretcher bearers to the wounded whom he had collected, and personally carried a badly wounded corporal back to our lines. His gallantry throughout the operation was most marked”
(the whole of this area including the Capt. Henderson-Roe memorial and the monuments in the background are now covered by a Tesco's car park)

By the 1960s the churchyard was a wonderful place for some but a nightmare for the tidy-minded or for those charged with the upkeep. There was a group of large deciduous trees in the centre that encouraged vociferous bird life and included a resident owl. Long grass waved everywhere and some of the monuments were decidedly shaky. But there was a certain charm in the déshabillé of the place with strands of ivy creeping up the obelisks and the crumbling angels. It was still possible to imagine oneself as being in a country churchyard.

But 2 ½ acres were to be sacrificed in the interest of providing new buildings for St Andrew’s School. It was a complicated issue because the redevelopment of the area also included the site of the former Gasworks, the Gas House and the site once occupied by the demolished gasholders with different landowners involved. What happened eventually was that the Malvern Street car park was closed and the new school built on the site. When that was ready for occupation, the old school was demolished and churchyard land became playing fields. Meanwhile, Tesco’s, who had played a part in building the new school as part of planning gain, constructed their gigantic store on the gasworks site while their extensive car park covered more cemetery land.

copyright © J.Middleton
This photograph was taken on 30 January 2015, a bright but cold day. Note that most of the pigeons are huddled together facing into the wind.

Bring Up the Bodies … or Not

The takeover of churchyard land involved the delicate matter as to what to do with all the bodies. The modern Hove Council was never going to countenance the tremendous expense of removing some 2,000 human remains, as their predecessors did in the 1890s. Also there were not the religious sensibilities regarding the dead as there had been in Victorian times. Another factor was that Hove had a long tradition of transient residence and there was therefore unlikely to be an army of angry people whose forebears had lived in the place for generations.

But first of all there were legal matters to attend to. The Hove Corporation Act of 1966 stipulated that if any churchyard land was utilised for building purposes, then the graves thus affected must be removed. Therefore a Bill had to be presented to Parliament to amend it and allow the bodies to remain where they were.

Then a public notice had to be published concerning the graveyard and the possible removal of gravestones. This public notice appeared on 24 October 1972 and asked anybody with a claim to contact the authorities.

In the event only one family came forward. The Lurgan family vault contained five coffins. They belonged to:

Charles Brownlow, 2^nd Baron Brownlow (1831-1882)

Emily Anne Lurgan, widow of the above, who died in 1923

Roderick Cecil Brownlow, 5-week old baby who died in 1914

The Honourable Mary Emily Jane Brownlow (1854-1917)

Lieutenant Colonel the Honourable John Roderick Brownlow (1865-1932)

A remark in the church burial book dated 2 October 1932 stated ‘room for three more’.

On 1 May 1973 these coffins were removed from St Andrew’s churchyard and re-interred in Hove Cemetery. The operation was performed with the utmost discretion but even so one parishioner happened to notice what was going on and remarked to the verger about ‘the large funeral you have going on here’. The removal cost in the region of £1,500.

The rest of the interments were left undisturbed. When a building was erected on the former graveyard, it was built on a concrete raft.

A somewhat macabre event was when workmen were starting to build Tesco’s car park. They discovered that the coffins had not been buried as deep as they should have been; it was therefore necessary to raise the level of the car park to take account of this fact.

Before the memorials and headstones were destroyed, volunteers went about with pen and notepad recording every decipherable inscription for posterity. When completed, the results were typed up and three copies were made. One was lodged at Hove Library, the second was at the record office (now The Keep) and the third remained at St Andrew’s Old Church.

It is a matter of regret that at least one important grave was lost. Charles Augustin Busby, the architect of Brunswick Town, was buried here.

It is also a pity nobody seemed bothered about what happened to headstones, figures or monuments or where they went. Were they all broken up for hardcore? Perhaps somebody out there knows the answer.

More Churchyard Loss

copyright © J.Middleton
This wonderfully clear photograph dates from the 1950s and gives a nostalgic glimpse of the eastern portion of the churchyard, now sadly obliterated.
Note also the old flint-built and gabled St Andrew’s Church of England School in George Street, now also gone.

copyright © J.Middleton
A closer view of the lost south-east corner of the churchyard,
which was obliterated and built over with a Church Hall.

A further piece of churchyard destruction took place in the south-east corner when a new church hall was constructed in the 1980s.

The most interesting of the monuments obliterated was a fine table tomb belonging to Sir David Scott of Sillwood House, Sillwood Place, Brighton. He died on 18 June 1858. He had been a director of the Honourable East India Company from 1814 to 1819. Later he became chairman of Brighton Magistrates. His widow, Lady Caroline, lived at 22 Brunswick Terrace; she died in 1870.and was also buried at St Andrew’s.

The final bill for constructing the church hall came to £185,000. It was much more than was envisaged at first and this was because of the expensive concrete raft that had to be laid so the burials were not disturbed.

In May 1983 Tim Sainsbury, Hove’s MP, officially opened the new church hall.

Tombs of Interest

Fortunately, there are a few tombs of interest still intact.

Samuel Chifney (1786-1854) – He was a famous jockey before retiring to Hove in around 1851 with his wife Sarah Ann. He died on 29 August 1854 while his widow soldiered on until she died at the age of 83 on 2 July 1871 in Henley, Oxfordshire, her body was brought to Hove to be laid to rest next to her husband. Fortunately, their grave remained undisturbed during the 1895 Church Road extension works, being just inside the new boundary. The relevant gravestone is easy to distinguish from the others, being so close to the wall and with an unusual squared top, but the lettering is quite faint.

His name is sometimes spelled as ‘Chiffney’ and fittingly enough he was born at Newmarket, the second son of Samuel Chifney who was also a well-known jockey. Young Samuel’s training started early, and he was galloping about with his father twice a day at the tender age of six. There were other people in the family with an interest in horses, and his maternal uncle Frank Smallman trained horses on behalf of the Earl of Oxford. When young Samuel reached the age of thirteen, it was to his uncle he was apprenticed. The pair got on well, and soon enough young Samuel came to the attention of the Prince of Wales, earning the honour of being his retained jockey. The job came with the small wage of £8 a year, which when compared with what vast sums the toffs were prepared to wager on horses seems paltry indeed.

Samuel, senior, developed a method of riding in which he maintained a slack rein, and Samuel, junior, followed suit. The slack reign was not a popular style, but it certainly reaped dividends for the Chifneys, and the way they rode their horses became known as ‘the Chifney Rush’.

On 26 July 1806 young Chifney’s mount was the mare Pavilion, and he rode her to victory at Lewes Race Course in a 2,000 guineas match. His rival’s owner apparently lost £20,000 when his horse Sancho broke down with a sprained foot. This event was watched by the Prince of Wales and a fashionable crowd. Pavilion belonged to Henry, Earl of Darlington, the eldest son of the Duke of Cleveland.

Chifney won the Oaks no less that five times, as shown below:

Brieseis (1807)

Sorcery (1811)

Landscape (1816)

Shoveller (1819)

Wings (1825)

He also won the Derby Stakes twice, riding his namesake Sam in 1818 and on Sailor in 1820. When he was the venerable age of 57 he won the One Thousand Guineas riding Extempore.

Samuel’s success meant that he was able to run his own racing stables, while he and his brother William had their own stud. Unhappily, the brothers came to grief by gambling heavily on their horse Shillelagh in the 1834 Derby, and the 1835 Ascot. The horse lost and they found themselves in financial difficulties. In disgust William sold up and left the vicinity. But Samuel stayed on at Newmarket until 1851.

Chifney was famous enough to appear in the pages of a private diary written by Thomas Raikes on 8 June 1836 that runs as follows. ‘Last week died Lord George Germaine, brother to the Duke of Dorset: they were both in their youth great friends to the late King when Prince of Wales, and, with the late Delme Radcliffe, the three best gentlemen riders at the once famed Bibury (…) They were all three little men, light weights, and, when dressed in their jackets and caps, would rival Buckle or Chiffney (sic).’ [Quoted in Brighton Diaries by P. K. Lyons 2011.]

Copley Fielding – artist. His two daughters were buried here (see Lansdowne Place, number 2)

Charlotte Elliott –hymn writer (see Brunswick Square, number 31)

George Everest – After whom Mount Everest was named. His stone is the central one. (see also Hove and the Raj)

The Gore family tomb – (see Brunswick Square, number 26)

Admiral Sir John Hindmarsh – He lived at 12 Albany Villas.

Andrew Plimer (1763-1837) – He was born the younger son in Wellington, Shropshire, where his father Nathaniel Plimer earned his living as a watchmaker. It was therefore the family’s expectation that sons Nathaniel and Andrew would follow in their father’s footsteps. Apparently, the prospect of such a career held no charm for the youngsters, who decided to make their own way in life, and left home before completing their apprenticeships. Instead, the two boys toured around Wales and the West Country for a couple of years; by 1781 they were to be found in London where young Andrew had the great good fortune to be taken on as a manservant to Richard Cosway who was a famous miniaturist and painted for the royal family. Plimer helped his mentor in the workshop; not only did Cosway instruct Andrew in the art of the miniaturist, he also taught his sibling Nathaniel. Obviously, the boys had inherited their father’s gene for close and intricate work, if not his love of clocks.

Andrew Plimer must have felt he had absorbed all the teaching he needed because in 1785 he left Cosway’s premises and started to make his own living. His talent was quickly recognised and just a year later he was exhibiting in the Royal Academy, continuing to do so until 1830. By this time, he was a family man, having married Joanna Louisa Knight. The couple had one son and four daughters, although unhappily the son died in infancy.

In 1835 Plimer and his family moved to Brighton, setting up home in a house in the Steine, and where unfortunately there was a fire that destroyed some of his documents, so that we know less about the dates of his various journeys than might have been the case. Apparently, before coming to Brighton, he had made a successful foray into Scotland, and a friend commented that he would not find Brighton as cheap a place to live when compared to Scotland. The Plimers soon moved to Western Cottages, Brighton, a rather up-market address at the time, where distinguished people and indeed fellow artists were happy to live. These houses on the west side were later demolished and the road became Sillwood Place. It seems that Plimer was not planning a long sojourn in Brighton, and having had a successful career and accumulated enough funds, he told friends he was considering setting himself up on an estate. Unhappily, this was not to be.

Andrew Plimer died on 29 January 1837 aged 74, and was buried in St Andrew’s churchyard on 4 February; his tombstone can still be seen – it is flat, almost a ledger stone, close to where fellow painter Copley Fielding (1787-1855) was later buried with a somewhat grander tomb – Hove’s very own artists’ corner. Although Plimer died a wealthy man, his funeral was plain and simple, conducted by Revd Walter Kelly whose own tomb is to be found at no great distance from those of the talented artists. The Gentlemen’s Magazine described Plimer as ‘for many years an eminent miniature painter of Exeter’. Does that mean that Plimer was already excelling in the art before coming into Cosway’s orbit?

In 1946 the Hove Art Collections Fund purchased a Plimer miniature of Lady Halliday. Other works once belonging to Hove Museum were portraits of the following:

Miss Tollemache (3-in by 2½ in)

Lady E. Manners

Mrs Jones

Dr Andrew Combe

It is fascinating to note that the three latter works belonged initially to Revd Canon F. H. D. Smythe, a prominent churchman at Hove, who was vicar of St Barnabas Church from 1909 to 1929. In 1951 he had lent them to Hove Museum for an exhibition.

In the spring of 2008 a charming miniature painted on ivory by Plimer in around 1800 came up for auction. The lady in question was Mrs Colyear Dawkins, the daughter of General Gordon Forbes, and the portrait was mounted in a silver and silver-gilt frame embellished with circular-cut diamonds. The tiny treasure – only 2½ in height – was only expected to sell for a modest £6,000. But in the event, the auction was enlivened by a bidding war, and the portrait sold for £23,000. This painting was one of ten by Plimer sold at Sotheby’s, and the total of the ten came to an astonishing £87,675. It did not break the record price paid for an individual Plimer work, which was £30,000 on 7 June 2006. But then this miniature was a double portrait of Spencer Joshua Alwyne, later the 2^nd Marquess of Northampton, and Lady Frances Compton. Another Plimer miniature on ivory was on offer at Sotheby’s in July 2010. Unfortunately, nobody could identify the mystery man depicted.

John Olliver Vallance – Hove landowner (see Hove Museum)

Lieutenant General James Webber Smith – (see Waterloo Veterans)

Admiral Westphal – (see also St Andrew’s Old Church / Brunswick Square, number 2)

Mosaic

In 2002 a colourful mosaic was installed on a former blank wall on the north side of the church where ashes are interred. Karen Wydler was the designer with the assistance of children from St Andrew’s Church of England School.

The Bodley Graves

copyright © D.Sharp
The Bodley Graves in January 2018
(earlier photographs show a fourth Bodley gravestone on the left similar to the small one on the right, which is now missing)

Tucked away in the north west corner of the churchyard are two old tombstones and it is sad to relate that over the years weathering has obliterated all the lettering. But at least there is a recognised resting place, whereas notable Hove architect Charles Augustin Busby (1786-1834) who was also buried in St Andrew’s Churchyard, had his tombstone obliterated in the razing of most of the north churchyard in the 1960s. The Bodley graves belong to the father, mother and brother of George Frederick Bodley (1827-1907) a celebrated architect of the Victorian age.

G.F. Bodley’s father was William Hulme Bodley (1780-1855) a physician; his mother was Mary Anne who died at the grand old age of 92 in 1883. The couple had married in 1812 and went on to have a large family of nine children, three boys and six girls, all of them surviving until old age, and the youngest was G.F. Bodley. Young Bodley was educated at Dr Morris’ School, 33 Brunswick Square, and from around the mid-1840s his family lived in a large house in Furze Hill designed by Decimus Burton called Merton House, sadly since demolished. The brother buried at Hove was Thomas Bodley. The eldest brother William Bodley caused a rift in the family because although he was an ordained priest of the established church, in 1851 he decided to become a Roman Catholic and as a consequence was disinherited by his father.

(Source: The Flyer December 2017. Newsletter of Friends of St Michael and All Angels, Brighton, - Hall, Michael G.F. Bodley and his Famiily at Brighton.)

See also St Andrew's Old Church Hove's and Goldstone Bottom Army Camp (many soldiers are buried in St Andrew's north churchyard, now under a Tesco's car-park !)

Sources

Argus (25/3/08 / 21/4/08 / 1/7/10 / 12/12/2011)

Encyclopaedia of Hove and Portslade

Foskett, D. Miniatures: Dictionary and Guide

Mould, Philip, article on internet

St Andrew’s Parish Burial Register from 1837

Williamson, G. C. Andrew and Nathaniel Plimer, miniature painters; their lives and works (1903)

page layout by D.Sharp

Hove in the Past

12 January 2016

St Andrew's Old Church - Churchyard - Hove