You're in: Home » Out & About

 

French Protestant Reformed Church

Queensbury Mews, Brighton

It was 1860. The Prince Consort was alive and well. Crinolines were all the fashion. Brighton was attracting many continental visitors. Not only the rich. French governesses, hotel staff and servants helped fill the pews in Brighton churches. And frivolity was not all the rage in mid-Victorian Brighton. Spiritual matters were of utmost importance to the great and the good of the town. A certain Mrs E Hayes saw that the French speaking visitors and residents in the town needed a place to worship in their own language and in their own way. Generously Mrs Hayes at first opened her own house (18 Montpellier Villas) for such services. Soon the same lady was instrumental in ensuring that a French speaking Pasteur was sent from France to minister to the French flock. The Rev. A Gonin arrived in late 1860.

The original congregation is believed to have been formed in about 1550 by the Flemish martyr Deryk Carver.

As the congregation swelled, the Rev. Gonin held services successively in buildings such as the Presbyterian Church in Queens Road / Air Street (demolished c1978), St Margaret's Church Hall (demolished c1958), the Congregational Church in Union Street (now the Font and Firkin public house) and "Little Vic" in Cannon Place (demolished c1958). After so many moves, Mrs Hayes must already have had in mind the possibility of a building dedicated to the French Protestant community. The final straw came in 1885 when the rent on the "Little Vic" rose steeply from £50.00 to £75.00 - a staggering 50% increase. Something had to be done.

By 1887, for the sum of £735.00, a piece of ground just off Regency Square had been purchased with the financial help of the Protestant Churches of France. This piece of land lay behind a row of large houses (122 to 129 King's Road) which still stand today. Next to the piece of land destined for the church lay a skating rink and Nos 111 to 121 Kings Road. In an auction sale held in January 1888 this block of houses and the rink were sold "as a preliminary towards the site being cleared for the erection of a vast hotel" (Brighton Gazette Saturday, 7 January 1888). Did the purchasers of the land know that the new church was to be dwarfed by the massive Metropole Hotel?

Now that the land had been acquired, how was the church itself to be built? £800.00 was needed to erect the building. It was, of course, Mrs Hayes, encouraged and supported by her brother, Mr Joseph Lawrence, the Huguenot Churches of Holland and local supporters of the French Protestant Church, who raised the sum. By July 1887 the fabric of the Church had been constructed up the level where you can now see the three white engraved stones in the west wall. It was time for the ceremony to mark the foundation of the Church. "A temporary floor was put in, a harmonium installed and an awning was suspended overhead from the scaffolding to protect the guests from the hot rays of the sun. Beyond this there was a platform running along the western side of the building where the three foundation stones were hanging, ready for fixing." (Brighton Herald 23 July 1887).

The concept of the time capsule was as popular in the nineteenth century as is today. Concealed in the central foundation stone of the French Church are "a local paper, a bronze jubilee medal (Queen Victoria was celebrating the Golden Jubilee of her accession to the throne in 1837) and a number of Jubilee coins. To lay this stone, the Mayor of Brighton had been presented with a silver trowel with ivory handle.

Mrs Hayes must have been distressed that on 18 July 1887, the day of the ceremony, she was too ill or too frail, at the age of 86, be present.

Or there again, would Mrs Hayes been distressed by some elements of the ceremony itself? How would this indomitable fund raiser have reacted to the homily given by the Rev. J.G.Gregory? Most of the newspapers which report the ceremony merely state that the Rev. Gregory spoke about fund raising. Only the "Brighton Argus" gave the full story. Tactfully, or at least with a mastery of understatement, the "Brighton Argus" report starts "we are of the opinion the rev. gentleman's vigorous zeal outshone his discretion". What did the reporter mean by this? Quite simply that the "rev. gentleman" referred to fundraising as "stirring the Lord's fire with the devil's poker. He [said he] did not know what bazaars, balls and concerts meant in connection with the Lord's work." and went on to castigate fundraisers in general. Was the reporter of the "Brighton Argus" perhaps thinking of Mrs Hayes when he says that the Rev. Gregory's "remarks will give pain to many who delight in helping a good cause." Perhaps it was just as well that Mrs Hayes was not present on that auspicious day. And how must the Rev Gregory have reacted to the fact that the collection made during the service produced the sum of £27/2/6?

The laying of the foundation stone was the manifestation of the temporal side of the life of the Church. Let us hope that Mrs Hayes was able to attend the much more significant event on 27 February 1888 when the French Church was finally consecrated for use for services, marriages and christenings, the uses to which it is still put to this day.

The church is one of only two French speaking protestant churches in England, the other is in Soho Square, London

In recent years the congregation has dwindled and Sunday services, which are delivered in French and English, attract only a handful of people. In 2008 the church trustees reluctantly decided that they could no longer battle to maintain the building and it was decided that the building would be put up for sale and it has now been converted into residential accommodation. The last service was a wedding on July 26, 2008.