After its pastor died in 1799, the cause declined and was taken on by the Surrey Congregational Mission and later by Independent Nonconformist students of Homerton College.

[2] The exterior was designed on a "grand scale", as was its interior: below a domed ceiling ran a deep balcony supported on ornate iron columns.

[12] The architect has been the subject of much disagreement: Amon Wilds is usually credited, but Charles Busby produced and signed an architectural design in 1825 and the men probably worked together on it.

[16] The 1851 religious census confirmed that the chapel was "also used as a Day School" and had a capacity of 250 seats and standing room for an additional 50 worshippers.

Goulty, who signed the census return, recorded 280 attendees at afternoon and evening services, and wrote that "the place is generally full ... [there are] many stragglers at the Door on the Beach".

[8] In the same census, Goulty recorded the capacity of Union Chapel as 900 seats and standing room for 100 more, and the morning and evening attendance as 574 and 300 respectively.

[18] Goulty was also instrumental in establishing the Henfield Congregational Church in 1832[19] with the financial assistance of Union Chapel, Brighton.

[3] In 1850, in response to a Government health inspector's critical report about sanitary conditions and public health in Brighton—which recommended that burials in churchyards and chapel burial grounds should cease—the doctor and political John Cordy Burrows, architect Amon Henry Wilds, Goulty and his son Horatio Nelson Goulty established the Brighton Extra Mural Company, acquired 13 acres (5.3 ha) of land near Race Hill, and laid out a private cemetery for Anglican, Roman Catholic and Nonconformist burials.

[23] His son Horatio Nelson Goulty, who predeceased him, was also active in public life in Brighton, principally as an architect but also as a supporter of hospitals and schools.