Follow the brown signs

‘A little bit of Italy in Waterloo Street’

In the early 1820s, the Prince Regent made the old fishing towns of Brighton and Hove the most fashionable place to be.

Here, St Andrew’s was built to serve wealthy society, near a gleaming new estate of terraced mansions by the sea.

Set back from the sea front, the Italian Renaissance style and symmetry and grandeur of this 1827 church by the famous architect Sir Charles Barry, perfectly matches the neighbouring squares and terraces.

Inside, light streams through skylights and dances through the stained glass. In 1925 Randoll Blacking added superb baldacchinos over the altar and font to fulfil the parish priest’s desire that St Andrew’s should become ‘a little bit of Italy in Waterloo Street’.

The beautiful painted ceiling features the sun surrounded by a crescent moon, a comet, Saturn and stars.

A series of fine 19th-century monuments offer an excellent introduction to the good and great who worshipped here in the church’s heyday.

How to find us