Percy Bacon & Brothers Stained Glass

Stained Glass of Percy Bacon & Brothers

Eastbourne, St Peter. Lost Work

East Sussex

St Peter's Church, Eastbourne, circa 1915. Viewed from the south west.
From a postcard in the author's collection.

St Peter's, circa 1915. Viewed from the south west.

Posted 01 November 2024.

St Peter’s began in 1878 as a temporary chapel of ease to St Saviour's, in a building which stood behind the town hall on Grove Road. In 1893/4 Henry and Percival Currey, architects, were engaged to design a new church to be located at the corner of Meads Road, and Granville Road on land donated by the Duke of Devonshire, who, with his wife, also donated £5,000 towards the building fund. The Builder's Journal and Architectural Engineer also reported that an anonymous donor had matched the Devonshire’s.¹ This donor may have been Ada Ellen Bayly (AKA Edna Lyall), the novelist (d. 1903), Pearson’s Weekly in 29 October 1908 stating; “Ada Ellen Bayly built St Peter’s Church, Eastbourne, with part of the money she received for “Donovan” and “We Two”.² She was known to have worshipped at St Peter’s and a memorial window to her was inserted in the church in 1906 by Kempe. Even with such a substantial fund allowing both the nave and chancel to be completed together, the proposed tower was never built, and a deficit of £3,500 in the building fund had to be made up with a loan provided by five friends of the church.³ Additions were made in 1900 (side chapel), and in 1908 it was proposed to add a choir vestry and practice room, though it is unclear if these were actually built.

St Peter's Church, Eastbourne, circa 1915. Viewed from the north west.
From a postcard in the author's collection.

St Peters, circa 1915, viewed from the north west.

The foundation stone was laid on the 26th December 1894 by the Duchess of Devonshire.⁴

The style of the design was rather unusual, both the north and south sides of the nave having an arcade of 21 tall lancets high up on the walls, described by Canon Clarke as, “Teutonic”, and “old fashioned” for its time. The open windows were in five groups of three, with the first at the west end, last at the east end, and intervening lancets between the groups being bricked up. This symmetry extended to two groups of three lancets in the south east chapel wall, and similar groups at the west ends of both aisles. At the west end of the church there was a narthex, and porch which seems to have housed the baptistery. The east wall was pierced by a five light window of lancets of varying height which was echoes at the west end. Internally, the church was unremarkable, and judging from the available photographs, somewhat austere. The marble and alabaster reredos were not installed until 1909 (Clarke -Central Institutions of the Church, Vol 12, p53).

With falling congregations, and despite being a listed building, the decision was made to close the church and demolish it in 1971. The final service at St Peter’s, led by the Bishop of Lewes, the Rt. Rev. J. H. L. Morrells, took place on Sunday 28^th August 1971.⁵ The site is now occupied by a block of apartments.

St Peter's Church, Eastbourne, interior, early 20th century. The east window was by Kempe in 1896,
and illustrated "Christ as the True Vine".⁵
From a postcard in the author's collection.

St Peter's Church. Interior view, early 20th century..

With upwards of seventy apertures available at St Peter’s there would have been plenty of opportunity for stained glass firms. We know that Kempe filled at least twenty lights, including the five in the east window.⁶ Canon Clarke suggests that the windows were equally divided between Kempe and Percy Bacon.⁷ Unfortunately, unlike the Kempe windows, some of which ended up in St Peter’s, Hydneye,⁸ it has not (so far) been possible to confirm the subject matter or dates of the Percy Bacon windows, nor their fate when the church was demolished in 1971. It is not inconceivable that some of Bacon’s windows were recovered and reinserted elsewhere, or ended up in private collections. Brown suggests that the west window of five lights was by Percy Bacon.⁹

Eastbourne was the target of around 96 air raids between 1940 and 1944, with an estimated 671 high explosive bombs and 3,625 inceniaries dropped on the town.¹⁰ Nearby St John's, Meads was completely destroyed in 1942, so it is not inconceivable that St Peter's was damaged during these assaults, and some of the original glass lost. If more information comes to light this entry will be updated.

References: Use your browser's Back button to return to text.

The Builder's Journal and Architectural Engineer, 26 March 1895, p112.
Eastbourne Chronicle, 27 June 1896, p5.
Pearson's Weekly, (UK), 29 October 1908, p344.
Papers of Canon B F L Clarke, Vol 12, p53. Available from Lambeth Palace Library.
Article entitled "St Peter's Dies with Dignity", Eastbourne Gazette - Wednesday 01 September 1971, p4.
Collins, P. N. H. (Ed), The Corpus of Kempe Statined Glass in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The Kempe Trust, 2000. p302.
Papers of Canon B F L Clarke, Vol 12, p53. Available from Lambeth Palace Library.
http://heavensart.com/Charles-Eamer-Kempe/StPeters.htm.
A Brown: Manuscript Notebooks on the Churches of Eastbourne, Sussex Archaeological Society library (2 vols).
Eastbourne Gazette - Wednesday 22 October 1969, p6.

Location Map:

St Peter's Church, Eastbourne. Map of 1925

Location of St Peter's Church on the junction of Meads Road and Granville Road.

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