St Nicholas, Brighton

The ancient churchyard

Reproduced with permission from the Encyclopaedia of Brighton by Tim Carder, 1990

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.

f) CHURCHYARD: St Nicholas's churchyard is said to mark the site of a Black Death plague-pit of 1348 {18}, but by the early nineteenth century it was severely overcrowded with graves and an extension to the east was consecrated in 1818. A separate extension on the northern side of Church Street opened in 1824 and a third extension was opened across Dyke Road in 1841, but burials at the church were prohibited from 1 October 1853, necessitating the opening of the Parochial Cemetery off Lewes Road. Those buried in the churchyard include the famous actress Anna Maria Crouch, Captain Nicholas Tettersell (see "Charles II"), Martha Gunn (see "Bathing (Dippers and Bathers)"), Amon Wilds (q.v.), Sake Dene Mahomed (see "Bathing (Mahomed's Baths)"), and Phoebe Hessel (see below).
By the footpath to Dyke Road is the stump of a medieval cross on an octagonal base. It was probably destroyed at the time of the Commonwealth in the seventeenth century, but a new shaft erected in 1934 has often been vandalised. During the war a German plane fell in the north-western corner of the churchyard, which is now maintained by the corporation as a public open space.
In medieval times, it is said, the fair Lady Edona waited in the churchyard for her lover, Manfred de Warrenne, to return from the Holy Wars, but she fainted when she saw his ship sink just offshore at Brighton. Now a ghostly ship, St. Nicholas's Galley, may be seen gliding into Brighton at midnight on 17 May each year. The father of Manfred, John de Warrenne, was buried in the churchyard together with his horse, and it is said that a spectre on horseback may be seen on dark nights. {6,89,123}
The 1824 extension is approached through a red-brick archway on the northern side of Church Street. Once the site of the parish stocks, it was taken over by the corporation following the 1884 Brighton Improvement Act, and in 1949 the gravestones were removed to the side walls and a children's playground built. The western extension is entered through a listed archway of 1840 on the western side of Dyke Road and was laid out by A.H.Wilds in that year. It also came under the control of the corporation following the 1884 Improvement Act and is now known as the Dyke Road Rest Garden. The gravestones line the walls, and a tree-lined pathway runs around some large Victorian tombs. Along the northern side are fourteen large burial vaults with arched entrances. The adjacent K6-style telephone box has also been listed.
{1,18,45,57}

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.