Christ Church

Christ Church is an Anglican church in the town and seaside resort of St Leonards-on-Sea, part of the Borough of Hastings in East Sussex, England. Opened as the town's third Anglican church in 1860 to serve a rapidly developing residential area and to accommodate poor worshippers who could not afford pew rents at the fashionable St Leonard's and St Mary Magdalene's Churches, the original building was superseded by a much larger church built next to it between 1873 and 1875. Prolific ecclesiastical architect Sir Arthur Blomfield's simple Gothic Revival design forms a landmark on one of St Leonards-on-Sea's main roads, continues to serve a large area of the town and maintains a strong Anglo-Catholic tradition. It has been described as Blomfield's "finest achievement in Sussex" and "one of the main centres of Anglo-Catholic worship in Southern England". The interior fittings are the best of any church in the borough, and the design has been called one of Blomfield's most successful. St John the Evangelist's Church, founded as a daughter church nearby in 1865, also continues to thrive as a separate parish church. English Heritage has listed Christ Church at Grade II* for its architectural and historical importance.

The seaside town of Hastings, founded in the 8th century, developed as an important trading hub, ecclesiastical centre and the chief Cinque Port by the Middle Ages. There were seven churches by the end of the 13th century. All but two vanished by the 18th century, but after a period of decline the town grew in importance again from that time and was a fashionable resort by the 1820s. In that decade, builder and speculator James Burton bought land immediately to the west from the Eversfield baronets and founded a high-class new town, designed to his specifications. St Leonards-on-Sea, which took its name from one of the ancient churches of Hastings, grew rapidly in size and popularity, rivalling its older neighbour by the mid-19th century.

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