St John the Evangelist's Church, Chichester

St John the Evangelist’s Church stands in the cathedral city of Chichester, a place shaped by Roman walls and medieval streets. Built in 1812 of white brick, the octagonal building was designed by James Elmes as a proprietary chapel for the city’s growing Low church congregation. Its Classical lines and Greek Revival touches mark it as a late Georgian preaching house, unusual for its time. The Diocese of Chichester closed it for worship in 1973, yet the building remains consecrated and occasionally hosts services. Today it serves as a Grade I Listed venue for concerts and musical events, its theatre-like form still drawing audiences. The church’s interior reveals why it is prized by historians and musicians alike. A vast three-decker pulpit dominates the nave, its circular upper deck reserved for sermons in the Low church tradition. Egyptian-style iron columns support first-floor galleries reached by separate staircases, once used to keep men and women apart. The galleries themselves, made of American birch, form a rectangle around the pulpit, a layout David Beevers called a “unique survival” of early 19th-century design. Even the small bell in the miniature Choragic Monument on the roof, cast in 1813 by Thomas Mears II, adds to the building’s character. Visitors find an elegant, uncluttered space where light falls through arched windows onto the pale brick walls. The single-storey wings beside the entrance house staircases to the galleries, their separate doors a reminder of earlier customs. The pulpit’s fluted stem and spiral motif rise above the small chancel, its three levels now side by side rather than tiered. Outside, the stuccoed walls and stone dressings frame a quiet corner of New Town, once an 18th-century friary quarter. The church’s survival offers a glimpse of Georgian Low church ideals, preserved long after they faded elsewhere.