A red brick turn-of-the-century church hall, acquired by the Augustinians in 1940. The building is utilitarian, with an attractive west end with a shaped Dutch gable.

Littlestone-on-Sea was the brainchild  of  Henry Tubbs, who began to lay out the resort on the coast near new Romney in 1886. The development was never really successful and the tall seafront terraces were never extended into the grid of streets stretching back from the sea, which were only slowly filled with houses in the early twentieth century.

The church was formerly a parish hall which was purchased by the Augustinians in 1940 for the sum of £1,000. It had been requisitioned by the army for a time and was apparently in poor condition at the time of purchase. It is a chapel-of-ease served from Hythe.

Description

The building comprises a hall with a projecting entrance porch, and a second projection at the rear originally containing a small stage flanked by lower cross-wings containing lavatories and other small rooms. The church is built in red brick laid in Flemish bond, with roof coverings of concrete tiles. The only ornament is on the west front where both the main gable of the hall and the gable of the projecting porch are shaped in the Dutch manner with stone copings. The porch has a round-headed central doorway, flanked by two small round-headed windows and with a small roundel over. The main gable also has a small roundel in the head. The side walls of the hall each have five broad round-headed window openings with timber windows. At the (liturgical) east end, the projecting stage and the flanking cross-wings are domestic in scale with chimneys and sash windows.

The interior of the hall has a boarded floor, plain plastered walls with the windows set in reveals and an overall open timber roof, which has been boarded above the tie-beams. The windows are all clear glazed. At the (liturgical) east end is the former stage, now the sanctuary, under a plain segmental arched opening, flanked by doors to the rear parts of the building. Since the hall is used for a playgroup during the week, all the fittings are of the simplest to allow them to be easily cleared away.

Heritage Details