List of places of worship in Hastings
Download coordinates as: The borough of Hastings, one of six local government districts in the English county of East Sussex, has 50 extant places of worship serving a wide range of religious denominations.
Ancient churches existed in the Old Town of Hastings and in the villages, although some were lost in the medieval era; growth stimulated by transport improvements and the popularity of sea bathing encouraged a rush of church-building in the Victorian era; and more churches and congregations were established throughout the 20th century, despite periods of stagnation and decline.
The spread of housing inland in the 20th century, in suburbs such as Silverhill Park, Broomgrove and the vastly expanded Hollington (which was transformed from a haphazard collection of cottages among fields into a 1960s council estate), resulted in the founding of new churches, partly offsetting the loss through demolition of others in Hastings town centre.
Historic England or its predecessor English Heritage have awarded listed status to 25 current and former church buildings in Hastings.
The borough covers 2,972.4 hectares (7,345 acres; 11.477 sq mi) and had a population of 90,254 at the time of the 2011 United Kingdom census.
[5] Hastings is most famous for the battle fought nearby in 1066, in which William the Conqueror's Norman army defeated the English troops of King Harold II,[6] but its recorded history is much longer: fifth-century origins have been attributed, Roman settlement on the site has never been proved but is considered likely,[7] and a town had developed by 928, when it was important enough to have its own mint.
[8][9] By the 12th century, it was the main member of the Cinque Ports, and its castle dominated the cliff below which the ancient settlement developed.
[10][11] There were seven churches in 1291, when Pope Nicholas IV ordered a survey of all places of worship in England, but decline set in during the 14th century and two French raids wrecked the town.
[13] The fishermen even had their own church from 1854 until World War II: the rectors of All Saints and St Clement's got together to provide a chapel of ease on the beach to serve their spiritual needs.
[15] Improved transport opened the town up to day-trippers, especially from London; sea-bathing, promenading and other seaside leisure activities became increasingly fashionable; and James Burton capitalised on the demand for growth by founding an entirely new town, St Leonards-on-Sea, immediately west of Hastings—spurring its older rival into further growth.
Some were intended for high-class, fashionable visitors and residents; others were developed "with missionary zeal to bring some hope of redemption to working-class areas".
[18] In 1897, an Act of Parliament brought several surrounding villages into the borough of Hastings; nine years earlier the same had happened to St Leonards-on-Sea.
In 1963, a chapel of ease to St Mary, Star of the Sea was registered in Ore,[29] followed by an additional church in Bulverhythe the next year.
[35] The early Congregational chapel, situated in the old town, was supplemented by churches at Robertson Street (1856; rebuilt 1884–85), St Leonards-on-Sea (1863), Mount Pleasant Road at Blacklands (1878–79), Clive Vale (1887) and Bulverhythe (1895).
Rainbow Hall in Silverhill[48] (registered in 1930) was succeeded in 1962 by the present Alexandra Chapel for Christian (Open) Brethren.
[39] The Salvation Army have met nearby since the 1880s; their citadel was enlarged in 1937, two years after a second was opened in a converted cinema in Ore.[58][59] Places of worship for Spiritualists and Seventh-day Adventists were registered in 1944[60] and 1968 respectively.
The other religions had much lower proportions of followers than in England overall: the corresponding national percentages were 5.02% for Islam, 1.52% for Hinduism, 0.79% for Sikhism and 0.49% for Judaism.
