The neo-gothic building is located on Ann Street, on a sloping site between Brighton railway station and the A23 London Road, adjacent to the New England Quarter development.

In 1868, Arthur Wagner had built a temporary church on Providence Place, a back street parallel with the main London Road, along with a school accommodating 400 pupils.

This was amended shortly afterwards to reduce the number of bays in the interior from 13 to 11½; the additional space formed a "courtyard" area between the church and the existing school building, which was to be retained.

On the south side, an unusually large rose window dominates the area below the apex of the roof, upon which stands a 9-foot gilt cross which brings the total height of the structure to 144 feet (44 m).

The use of Portland stone on the latter added to the expense; the use of bricks for St Bartholomew's helped to reduce it, as did the abandonment of the revised plan's intention to build 11½ bays.

[6] Openness and a relative lack of division into smaller sections characterises the interior, giving an impression of vast space which is enhanced by the uninterrupted height: the church is effectively one large hall.

[8] Architect and designer Henry Wilson, who was the first editor of the Architectural Review magazine when it was founded in 1896 and who was also involved in the Arts and Crafts movement, was responsible for the work undertaken at this time, having been appointed in 1895 upon the death of Edmund Scott.

[10] Wilson's association with St Bartholomew's ended in 1911, when Arthur Cocks left (having converted to Roman Catholicism) and his successor, the Revd Henry Ross, brought his own ideas in.

The stark and unusual design and the relatively opulent interior caused considerable controversy at first, especially among more reactionary Anglicans mistrustful of the Anglo-Catholic nature of Wagner and, by extension, his church.

Musgrave (1981) notes that a letter written to the Brighton Herald in 1874, by a writer "who signed himself 'a true Protestant and no sham', expressed the deepest disquiet over such features as a certain 'dark spiral staircases... off which little and almost dark rooms, or cells... are built.'"

[4][6] A remarkable debate at the Town Council in 1893, at which it was reported that the overall height of the building was two feet higher than that approved in the plans of 1873, led to a further barrage of criticism.

As the statutory fine for the planning violation was only 40 shillings (£2), it was considered irrelevant to impose it on the rich Wagner; but records of the debate indicate that a variety of derogatory descriptions of the building were made, including (as per Musgrave) "a cheese warehouse", "a Noah's Ark in brick", "a monster excrescence", "a brick parallelogram", "a huge barn", "uselessly large, painfully ugly and sadly out of place", and "Wagner's folly".

[14] Its size gives it distinctive acoustics and the ability to accommodate large numbers of people, making it an ideal venue for classical and other music concerts.