Hove was a village and parish that developed rapidly as a residential area in the 19th century in response to the growth of neighbouring Brighton. The
Union Chapel, founded in the 17th century in Brighton, extended its mission to Hove in 1823, when some members established a
Sunday school and temporary place of worship in a building belonging to local resident John Vallance. The congregation grew, and land was bought in 1861 for a permanent church in the rapidly developing Cliftonville area of Hove. Cliftonville Congregational Church was designed by
Horatio Nelson Goulty and opened in 1870 as the first
Nonconformist church in the town. The church's local influence grew, and in 1899 it expanded its reach by opening a mission church, Rutland Hall, in the
Aldrington area of Hove. A major benefactor of this new place of worship was William Allin Hounsom (1848–1934), a longstanding member of Cliftonville Congregational Church: he raised funds, gave land for the church and donated a house. Hounsom had also contributed money to the founding of a Congregational chapel at
Horsted Keynes in
West Sussex. In 1909, he was living at 41 New Church Road in Hove and was recorded as owning much land in the
West Sussex parish of
Yapton, near
Arundel. He also held land in
Ashdown Forest in East Sussex. Later in the 20th century he moved to 29 New Church Road, where he died on 28 January 1934. In the meantime, Rutland Hall's fortunes were declining: it was requisitioned for
wartime use and most of the male members of the congregation were called up for military service. From the beginning, it was expected to be a large suburb; Hangleton was considered ideal, and in 1936 the Sussex Pioneers advised Cliftonville Congregational Church that a new place of worship should be founded there. Both parties started raising funds towards this, as did the Sussex Congregational Union; the Cliftonville Church made the largest contribution by selling Rutland Hall for £2,000. (It continued in religious use—first by
Plymouth Brethren until 1947 or later, The congregation also raised a further £1,000, and £50 was promised annually for three years to pay the minister's
stipend. and two local residents started a
Sunday school in their house. They and the minister built up support for the church by visiting people in their houses and publicising it. Attendance at the Sunday school increased, and many people expressed an interest in attending services when the church opened. was commissioned to design the church; in a presentation at the founding ceremony, he discussed his proposed plan. "There [are] aisles and
clerestory windows without those
divisional units which usually separate aisles from the central part of the church. As to the tower ... cost meant that it could not be too imposing." The church would be heated by
panels and flat radiators which were designed as part of the ceiling. and on 8 November 1939 it was registered for marriages. After being constituted, the original administrative committee was replaced by a conventional
diaconate of six members, and the church quickly became independent from the Cliftonville Congregational Church which enabled the Sunday school to grow significantly: by 1939 there were 98 members, and the roll increased further when Hangleton received wartime evacuees from London and elsewhere. and the church was debt-free by July 1947. The congregation then began to raise money to build a church hall; the £500 cost was met in May 1948, and construction work started on a site to the east of the church. Work was completed in 1951; John Leopold Denman was again responsible for the design. Having its own hall enabled the church's many groups and organisations to thrive: in 1938 a Women's Fellowship was formed, followed by the
Girls' Brigade (1939; still extant), disbanded in the 1990s), Young People's Fellowship (1943), and a Men's Fireside Group (1944). After observing "Junior Churches" set up for children at the Clermont Congregational Church in
Preston Village and another church in
Beckenham, members of the congregation set one up in 1944. The hall also served as Hangleton's original community centre and library: the suburb did not get a purpose-built library until 1962. The church bought a
Kawai grand piano with money left as a bequest. In April 1990,
Tony Bennett was due to perform a concert at the
Brighton Dome. During his warm-up, he broke the venue's piano, putting the show in jeopardy. An employee who looked after the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra's pianos when they played at the Dome mentioned the Hounsom Memorial Church's instrument—and it was brought to the Dome in time for Bennett's performance. It is one of six belonging to that denomination in the city of Brighton and Hove. As well as the former Cliftonville Congregational Church (now styled the Central United Reformed Church),
Portslade and
Saltdean (St Martin's Church). Proposals to change the name of the church to St Christopher's Church, referring to the
bas-relief depiction of
that saint on the front of the building, were put forward in the 1950s but were not acted upon. ==Architecture==