Church of St Thomas of Canterbury and English Martyrs, St Leonards-on-Sea

Church of St Thomas of Canterbury and English Martyrs
The church from the southeast
50°51′23″N 0°33′54″E / 50.8565°N 0.5649°E / 50.8565; 0.5649Coordinates: 50°51′23″N 0°33′54″E / 50.8565°N 0.5649°E / 50.8565; 0.5649
Location	Magdalen Road, St Leonards-on-Sea, Hastings, East Sussex TN37 6ET
Country	United Kingdom
Denomination	Roman Catholic
Website	www.rcchurchesinstleonardsonsea.org.uk
History
Founded	1848 (original convent chapel); 1866 (first church); 21 July 1888 (present church)
Dedication	Thomas of Canterbury
Consecrated	1907
Events	1848: first Roman Catholic place of worship opened 1866: new church opened on Magdalen Road 1887: church destroyed by fire 1889: present church opened on the same site
Architecture
Status	Church
Functional status	Active
Heritage designation	Grade II
Designated	13 December 2006
Architect(s)	Charles Alban Buckler
Style	Early English Gothic Revival
Completed	6 July 1889
Administration
Parish	St Leonards-on-Sea and Hollington
Deanery	St Leonards-on-Sea
Diocese	Arundel and Brighton
Clergy
Priest(s)	Rev. Ian Byrnes

The Church of St Thomas of Canterbury and English Martyrs is the Roman Catholic church serving St Leonards-on-Sea, a town and seaside resort which is part of the Borough of Hastings in East Sussex, England. The present church, which combines a plain, unadorned Gothic Revival exterior with a lavishly decorated interior featuring extensive early 20th-century paintings by Nathaniel Westlake, is the third building used for Roman Catholic worship in the seaside resort. James Burton's new town of 1827, immediately west of Hastings, was home to a convent from 1848; public worship then transferred to a new church nearby in 1866. When this burnt down, prolific and "distinguished" architect Charles Alban Buckler designed a replacement. The church remains in use as the main place of worship in a parish which extends into nearby Hollington, and has been listed at Grade II by English Heritage for its architectural and historical importance.

St Leonards-on-Sea was conceived and built as a new town by James Burton, a builder, property developer and speculator. In 1828, he bought a large area of wooded, sloping land (formerly part of the Manor of Gensing) which had a long shoreline facing the English Channel. He spent the next few years laying out a high-class planned community with houses, shops, hotels, markets, an Anglican church and facilities suitable for a fashionable seaside resort. Within a few years, it rivalled its ancient neighbour Hastings in size and popularity.

A Roman Catholic place of worship was soon provided in the growing town. Rev. John Jones, the Honorary Chaplain of the Bavarian Embassy in London, received from the will of Lady Barbara Stanley a bequest of £10,000, 16 acres (6.5 ha) of land and a house in St Leonards-on-Sea, all to be used for "religious purposes" for the benefit of Roman Catholics. He planned to build a convent for Jesuits, and extended the house for their use. They declared it unsuitable, and the proposed chapel and convent—large, intricately designed buildings in the Italianate style, conceived by Charles Parker—were not built. Work on less ambitious Gothic Revival-style buildings began in 1837, overseen by A.W.N. Pugin, and a newly founded order of nuns—The Society of the Holy Child Jesus—moved in. Pugin started work on a convent chapel in 1848, but it was not completed until 1869 (by his son Edward Welby) and the convent refectory initially served as a temporary chapel for the sisters and the general public. The permanent chapel was dedicated to St Michael and All Angels.