Recorded in the Domesday Book

Please note that this text is an extract from a reference work written in 1990.  As a result, some of the content may not reflect recent research, changes and events.

a) DESCRIPTION: St Nicholas’s Church is the ancient parish church of Brighton and is dedicated to the patron saint of fishermen, St Nicholas of Myra (sometimes spelt ‘Nicolas’). Built on the hill overlooking the Old Town, the site was chosen possibly as a place of refuge from raiders, or as an older sacred or pagan site, or perhaps as a landmark for fishermen. Although a church was recorded at Brighton in the Domesday Book, no structural work at St Nicholas’s dates from before the fourteenth century except a few Norman stones incorporated into the tower; it was probably erected in that century to cater for the growing population of the town.
Built in the Decorated style and faced in flint, the oldest parts of the church are now the tower, the arcades of the nave, and the chancel, all of which date from the fourteenth century. The tower is forty feet tall with walls four feet thick, and has ten bells dating from 1777 but recast in 1922. The rood screen across the chancel arch also dates from the fourteenth century. St Nicholas’s Church is now a listed building. {1,57,64a}

Any numerical cross-references in the text above refer to resources in the Sources and Bibliography section of the Encyclopaedia of Brighton by Tim Carder.