St John the Evangelist's Church

St John the Evangelist's Church is the Anglican parish church of the Upper St Leonards area of St Leonards-on-Sea, a town and seaside resort which is part of the Borough of Hastings in East Sussex, England. The present building—a "very impressive and beautifully detailed" church in the Gothic Revival style, with a landmark tower—combines parts of Arthur Blomfield's 1881 church, wrecked during World War II, and Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel's 1950s rebuild. Two earlier churches on the site, the second possibly designed by Samuel Sanders Teulon, were themselves destroyed earlier in the 19th century. The rich internal fittings include a complete scheme of stained glass by Goodhart-Rendel's favoured designer Joseph Ledger and a 16th-century painting by Ortolano Ferrarese. English Heritage has listed the church at Grade II* for its architectural and historical importance.

St Leonards-on-Sea was founded as a new town by builder and speculator James Burton in 1827. It was built on a sloping, well-wooded seafront location just to the west of the ancient port of Hastings, and immediately became a fashionable resort and residential area—rivalling its larger neighbour by the mid-19th century. Burton founded a parish church on the seafront in 1831 , and another opened in 1858. Both catered mainly for fashionable visitors and richer residents: pew rents were charged, for example. The growing town's many artisans, manual labourers, shopkeepers and other working-class people, and the large number of workers brought in to build Burton's new town, had nowhere to worship unless they travelled to the Church in the Wood in Hollington, several miles away.

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