Over the past two years, we have been working closely with the Parish at St George’s in Kemptown, Brighton to prepare the church for this year’s bicentennial celebrations, ‘200 years and beyond – a living heritage’.

The physical building works have focused on the conservation repair of the internal fabric that had been damaged by long-term water and moisture ingress.  Primarily this included repair of damaged historic plasterwork, after which the walls and galleries within the worship space and the entrance lobbies were redecorated.  Following the redecoration, the parquet floor in the nave, aisles and narthex, which had also suffered from water ingress and wear and tear generally, was refinished by DBR (London) Ltd and Davies Floor Ltd.

The Parish elected to keep the church open during the works, maintaining it as a place of worship on all but one Sunday when they needed to relocate to community centre room.

As well as assisting with the building project, Julian Vallis from the practice has aided the Parish with their bid for National Lottery Heritage funding to a provide vital contribution to the project.  This included Julian presenting three heritage workshops held at the church. The first focused on “Historic building conservation and techniques”, discussing how issues such as damage to lime plaster and Roman cement are being tackled and the necessary repairs carried out at the church.  The second considered “Heritage buildings and sustainability” looking specifically at St George’s and how they are working to lower operational carbon, such as with the introduction of solar PV panels.  Lastly the third workshop, entitled “Glass, lead and light”, presented a short history of stained glass before describing how the leaded light windows at St George’s had been rebuilt during an earlier project, also supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Following completion of the building conservation works, activities to mark 200 years of community use of the church have taken place, acknowledging the building’s heritage.  This included a series of period-themed concerts, a heritage cinema club season, an open day, and a service of thanksgiving. 

During the open day, Julian also gave a presentation describing the work completed at the church with the help of the National Lottery Heritage Fund, and the work left to do.

The newly renovated church was visited on 27 March 2025 by His Royal Highness The Duke of Gloucester, during which he spoke to people involved in community life associated with the church and who had played a role in the bicentennial celebrations.

It has been a pleasure working with the church and playing our part in their festivities this year.

The full report of the bicentennial celebrations included in the spring/summer 2025 edition of ‘Faith in Sussex’ can be viewed here.

If you would like to discuss a conservation repair project, please contact us.

More of our conservation projects can be found here.