St Peter's Church, Preston Village, Brighton

St Peter's Church stands beside Preston Manor in the Preston Village area of Brighton — a thirteenth-century flint church on the site of two older churches, once famous for its medieval wall paintings of the murder of Thomas Becket, restored in the Victorian era, ravaged by fire in 1906, and now preserved by the Churches Conservation Trust. Grade II* listed, it served as the parish church of Preston for more than six centuries before passing that role to a Edwardian successor built precisely because parishioners refused to let the old church be enlarged.

The village of Preston was established on its downland site, a mile and a half north-north-west of Brighton, before the time of the Domesday Book. The survey records it as Prestetone — an Anglo-Saxon name — with a church, a mill and a population of about fifty, the manor held by the Bishop of Chichester, at that time Stigand of Selsey. The Domesday church was replaced in the mid-thirteenth century by the present structure, the third on the site, which now stands within the grounds of Preston Manor. It consisted of a chancel, an aisleless nave, and a west tower with a shallow pyramidal cap of the type known as a Sussex Cap, a corbel table and narrow lancet windows.

Its greatest treasure was painted on its walls: a series of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century wall paintings around the chancel arch and nave depicting the Nativity, St Michael weighing the souls of the dead at the Last Judgment, the murder and martyrdom of Thomas Becket, Doubting Thomas, other saints, and the "Noli me tangere" scene at the Resurrection. Covered with plaster at the Reformation, they were rediscovered in 1830 by the vicar, the Reverend Charles Townsend — one of the most important medieval painting cycles in Sussex brought back to light after three centuries.

The Victorians restored and adapted. In 1872 the architect James Woodman added a north porch and south vestry and worked on the nave — work that has been described as "over-restored" — and in 1878 Ewan Christian modernised the chancel with its medieval piscina and sedilia, adding a set of intricately carved choir stalls, one of whose carvings represents a Native American. But the church was small: only fifty feet long and twenty-six wide, seating 250, while Preston's population boomed — swelled by the mainline railway station, the sale of the Stanford family's estate for residential development in the 1860s, and the village's incorporation into the Borough of Brighton in 1873. When the Reverend Edward Riley, vicar from 1896, proposed extending the church, parishioners and church officials objected that enlargement would damage its medieval character and disturb the memorials. The solution was a new church entirely: Sir Arthur Blomfield was commissioned in 1901, and St John the Evangelist's Church opened in the vicarage garden in 1902 with a capacity of 800 — though St Peter's kept its ancient status as parish church of Preston.

Then came the fire. On 23 June 1906 the church was severely damaged; the wall paintings suffered worst of all, leaving only fragments of the Nativity, St Michael and Becket scenes — the rest were destroyed. The nave, which bore the most structural damage, was restored in 1906–07 by Philip Mainwaring Johnston, and a reredos was added after the restoration; but in 1908 St Peter's finally ceded its parish church status to St John the Evangelist's. Services continued at the old church until 1988, when the Diocese of Chichester closed it. On 1 June 1990 it was officially declared redundant and passed to the Redundant Churches Fund, now the Churches Conservation Trust.

The building is of flint dressed with stone, under a tiled roof, standing prominently on higher ground than the rest of Preston. In the Early English style, it has broad lancet windows — three on each side of the nave and more in the chancel — most restored from their original state. The narrow, relatively short west tower has slender lancets and holds three bells, one possibly fifteenth-century. The church consists of a chancel with barrel roof and chamfered arch, the aisleless nave, a vestry with an elaborate chimney, and a timber-framed, hipped-roofed porch. Memorial tablets and stained glass commemorate members of the Stanford family, the lords of Preston whose estate became Victorian Brighton, and among the burials is Theodosia Meade, Countess of Clanwilliam. Most strikingly, the altar itself is formed from a table-tomb — the burial place of Edward Eldrington (or Elrington), lord of Preston Manor, who died in 1515.

St Peter's was listed Grade II* on 13 October 1952 — one of seventy buildings at that grade in Brighton and Hove as of 2001. Today the Churches Conservation Trust opens the church to the public daily from ten until three, and it can be hired for concerts and exhibitions: the old church of Prestetone, its Becket fragments still clinging to the walls, resting at last in the lee of the manor it served for seven hundred years.