The Countess of Huntingdon’s Church: a changing face in North Street

Countess of Huntingdon's Church, North Street, after 1871

141 years ago today,  the newly rebuilt Countess of Huntingdon’s Church opened in North Street. This photograph, taken shortly after it reopened in 1871,  shows how it dominated the view south from New Road.

The church was originally founded as a small chapel in 1761 by Selina Shirley, the Countess of Huntingdon. Funded by the sale of her jewellery, the chapel attracted numerous followers and was enlarged several times over the next 50 years. By the 1840s, the building featured a neoclassical facade with Ionian columns. Architecturally, it was similar to the nearby Unitarian Church in New Road.

In 1870 the church was completely rebuilt by John Wimble in flint and grey stone. The church reopened in March 1871 and was initially popular. Its congregation declined during the 20th century, however, and it closed in 1966. The spire was dismantled in 1969 and the remainder of the building was demolished in March 1972. Prior to demolition, the Borough Surveyor’s department took several photographs of the interior of the building. These are now held in the Royal Pavilion and Museums’ collections, and can be viewed on our Image Store.

Interior of Countess of Huntingdon's Church, 1969

Kevin Bacon
Digital Development Officer

At Work With…

…Kevin Bentman, Visitor Services Officer

I have been working for the council for over 10 years now at three local buildings, Preston Manor, the Booth Museum of Natural History and Hove Museum & Art Galleries.

The Visitor Services Officers are a dedicated and very hard working team; we have great local history knowledge of all three buildings.

There is such a diversity of local museums including Preston Manor in Preston drove. It’s a beautiful Victorian home once lived in by Sir Charles and Lady Ellen Thomas-Stanford, shared with their family and dogs. Here we have an upstairs downstairs feel to the family home all left as it once originally was.

Preston Manor

We hold role-play for children all dressed up in Victorian costumes in which they rein act tasks and chores from cleaning, making fire lighters and beating rugs to cooking preparation. All taught by our very own role-play team, acting as Maurice Elphick the Butler and Miss Rose the head housemaid, both equally as friendly and scary at times! The Children learn so much and get a real feel for what it was like back in the day, they have so much fun they don’t ever want to leave us.

We then also hold ghost tours and late night vigils with mediums, behind the scenes tours throughout the year and croquet on the lawns in the summer. All of this is surrounded by stunning gardens swept with scented flowers and colourful plants.

Next to us is our neighbouring church which is opened daily by volunteers. The Church dates back to the 13th century and was modified in 1870.

Preston Manor was lived in by many families over the years – The Elringtons, Shirleys and the last tenants being the Stanford family until 1932. The house was handed to the people of Brighton through the Brighton Corporation and reopened as a museum in 1933. Much later in the 1980s the basement with kitchen and boot hall was launched. This was due to it being fashionable to see how people worked below stairs.

I also work in the Booth Museum of Natural History along Dyke Road, filled to the rafters with birds, insects, bones and fossils.

Owned by Edward Thomas Booth in 1874 to house his rare collection, it was believed he wanted to collect one of every British bird which he very nearly succeeded. On display are plenty of rare and now extinct varieties.

The Booth Museum of Natural History

Glass cases surround this historical museum, including some newly modernised discovery and insect galleries, a hands on area alongside a room for people to work away at, we always welcome groups, students and school groups. Photography is allowed and artists can sketch away.

Curators are often on hand to answer questions and items can be left and later identified, we also hold children and family ticketed events through the year, the most popular is the reptiles were you can touch both spiders and sssssnakes!

And lastly the 3rd building I work in is Hove Museum and Art Gallery set along New Church Road. It is a grand building steeped in character, hosting an array of local arts and crafts, toys and film.

In the Wizards attic upstairs children and adults can gaze at the toys from the 1920s to the present day, a cinema screen projecting three films from local film makers including a lantern show and looking at Brighton from 1920s to 1980s, Brighton was a very different place back then!

Hove Museum & Art Gallery

An exhibition gallery downstairs hosts changes every so often always attracting visitors from all over. At present we have Robot Invasion, choc full of retro sci-fi robots and its collectable memorabilia. And for those of you that need a refreshment we have the Tea Room which I can say is Truly Scrumptious.

The hard working team of staff here are like one big family working to give visitors that Brighton & Hove Museums Experience.

Our daily work as a Visitors Service Officer is like that of a security role. We also man the gift shops, are at hand for any information, carry out day to day cleaning, promote tickets and events among many other things.

I love my job as it’s always different and you deal with a wide variety of peoples needs…oh and of course we have fun doing it. We hope you come and visit us soon!

Image of the Month — Hotel Metropole by Robert Goff, c1895

Hotel Metropole, c1895, by Robert Charles Goff (FA209267)

This atmospheric image is an etching from the early 1890s showing Brighton’s Metropole Hotel at dusk. Gas lights line the promenade and the bridge to the West Pier, creating silhouettes of people enjoying an evening walk. Look closely and you can see horse-drawn carriages on the right, perhaps waiting for business from the large hotels on the seafront. The West Pier is just visible on the left. It is one of many etchings of Brighton, Hove and Sussex by Robert Charles Goff, an artist based in Hove for many years.

Goff enjoyed travelling and led a deliberately peripatetic life, finding subjects for his art in Britain, Italy, Egypt, Japan, Holland and Switzerland. His etchings and paintings earned him an international reputation during his lifetime. He had two distinct careers: born to Irish parents in 1837 he became a professional soldier before he was 18. By the early 1870s he had risen to the rank of honorary Colonel. He retired from the army in 1878, married the same year, and settled in London for a while, before spending long periods in Hove, Italy and Switzerland. From around 1892 he lived in 15 Adelaide Crescent, and later took up a studio in Holland Road. Goff left Hove in 1903 to live in Florence but kept his studio here until the end of his life.

At some point in the twentieth century, Brighton Museum acquired the contents of his studio. This gives a remarkable insight into the work and working methods of an etcher in the late 19th and early 20th century. A selection of his work, including many local views, will be on display in a new exhibition in the Prints and Drawings Gallery of Brighton Museum & Art Gallery from 29 November 2011 until 29 April 2012.

Alexandra Loske, Researcher and Guide at the Royal Pavilion