Church of the Good Shepherd, Brighton

The Church of the Good Shepherd stands on Dyke Road, exactly on the border between Brighton and Hove — just inside Brighton, though most of its parish lies in Hove. Designed in the 1920s by Edward Prioleau Warren in a simple Gothic style, it is a Grade II listed building and a memorial church, built by a widow in memory of a cricketing vicar.

The parish's roots lie in the old village of Preston, a mile and a half north of central Brighton, which had its own ecclesiastical parish until 1531, when it was united with the similar-sized village of Hove to form the joint benefice of Hove-cum-Preston. The parishes were separated again in 1879, by which time residential development along Dyke Road — historically one of the principal routes into Brighton from the north, turnpiked since 1777 — was nearly complete; the Brighton–Hove boundary had been aligned along the road's west side in 1873.

In 1905 Prebendary Gerald Henry Moor became vicar of the newly separate Preston parish. Noted in his earlier life for his skill at cricket, he served for eleven years until his death on 31 May 1916. His widow Alice resolved to fund a church in his memory in a part of the parish that had no nearby Anglican place of worship. A temporary iron church went up on the east side of Dyke Road soon afterwards; in December 1919 a committee was formed to consider the plans of the architect Edward Warren, Alice Moor laid the foundation stone in 1920, and building began on 2 July 1921, executed by the local firm of Packham, Sons and Palmer. The Bishop of Chichester, Winfrid Oldfield Burrows, consecrated the church on 31 May 1922 — six years to the day after Prebendary Moor's death.

The church was parished on 13 October 1922, its territory taken from the part of Preston parish west of the Brighton Main Line (previously under St John the Evangelist's) and part of St Luke's parish on Old Shoreham Road, serving a population of about 4,000. Remarkably, the parish boundaries today remain exactly as defined in 1922: the railway between Preston Park station and Dyke Road Drive, Highcroft Villas, Dyke Road, Old Shoreham Road, Hove Park, Goldstone Crescent, Woodland Drive, Tredcroft Road and Tivoli Crescent North. In 1927 the east end was extended by the same builders, who added a chancel, vestry, Lady chapel and an extra nave bay, along with a square tower at the west front; the enlarged church was dedicated on 23 June 1927. A new church hall followed in 1936, replacing the old iron church which had served that role.

Warren's design is simple Gothic, built in mixed, mostly brown brick with some concrete and stone facings, lit by a mixture of lancet and wide dormer windows. The interior — a five-bay nave and chancel under a tiled roof — is wide and low beneath a wagon ceiling. The Lady chapel with its stained glass occupies the south-east corner, answered on the north-east by a chapel containing a memorial to the casualties of the First World War; there are a vestry, porch and the bell tower, finished with a battlemented parapet and a flèche. At the west end, beside the tower, five lancets are gathered within a recessed pointed arch, and above them stands a statue of the Good Shepherd himself, watching over Dyke Road.

Listed at Grade II by English Heritage on 26 August 1999, the Church of the Good Shepherd remains a busy parish church: three services every Sunday including Evensong, two or three prayer or Eucharistic services on other days of the week, and Taizé-style services several times a year — the living legacy of Alice Moor's memorial to her husband, a century on.