A modern design incorporating Buckfast glass. 

A timber church was provided in 1934 at a cost of £1,000. This still stands to the north of the present church. The permanent church was built in 1965 at a cost of £43,000, to serve the growing northern suburbs of Eastbourne. It was designed by A. J. M. McDonough and Gordon Robins from the Eastbourne firm of B. Stevens & Partners. McDonough was the partner in the firm and Robins the chief assistant. It was Robins who was responsible for the design for St Gregory’s. The builders were C. Bainbridge & Sons Ltd.  The opening of the church took place on 8 December 1966.

Description

The church is modern in design, largely built of gault brick, with flint panels for the baptistery. The side walls have vertical strip windows and full-height buttresses creating a castellated effect, with roof hidden behind a parapet. The parapets were subsequently reduced in height as they were bowing. The church is canted at either end and there is an open spire over the sanctuary. On the south side there is a baptistery, facetted on plan and with alternate bands of glazing and flint panels, again producing a castellated effect at roof level.

Inside the church is plain and plastered, with the heavy concrete ribs of the roof structure exposed. There is an internal porch with gallery over. The sanctuary is lit by a south wall of coloured glass and a thin full-height strip of coloured glass in the centre of the east wall, where the two planes meet.  The glass was designed and made by monks at Buckfast Abbey.

Heritage Details