has served Catholics in Hastings since 1883. Hastings is a seaside town on the southeast coast of England, facing the
English Channel. The borough covers and had a population of 90,254 at the time of the
2011 United Kingdom census. 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, 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, and a town had developed by 928, when it was important enough to have its own
mint. 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. 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. By 1801, just two of the old churches—All Saints and St Clement's—survived. and a beach-based fishing fleet still exists in the 21st century. 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. The former St Nicholas' Church is now
Hastings Fishermen's Museum. The town's focus moved away from this industry and towards tourism and leisure from the early 19th century, though, as development spread west from the old town. 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. In response to this, 27 churches were built in Hastings and St Leonards-on-Sea in the second half of the century. 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". 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. and a second,
Christ Church (distinguished by the "very naughty turret" on its roof), was provided to serve the village's Victorian suburbs; was later supplemented by a second Anglican church after the scattered village was redeveloped into Hastings' largest
council estate. while the much more austere
Church of St Thomas of Canterbury and English Martyrs, St Leonards-on-Sea (1888–89, by Charles Alban Buckler) replaced an earlier building by the same architect which had been destroyed by fire in 1887. Hollington's 20th-century growth prompted the construction of the Church of the Holy Redeemer in 1934 and its major extension 50 years later. In the suburbs, a convent chapel built in 1924 was used for public worship in Clive Vale for a time and two permanent churches were built. In 1963, a chapel of ease to St Mary, Star of the Sea was registered in Ore, followed by an additional church in Bulverhythe the next year. Both have now closed: the Church of the Holy Ghost at Bulverhythe, latterly served from St Leonards-on-Sea, was closed in 1988 and deregistered the following year, while the Church of the Holy Apostles at Ore went out of use in 1994.
(left) and
Quaker (right) meeting houses stand close together on South Terrace. The borough has an array of
Nonconformist places of worship.
Protestant Dissenters were not universally welcomed at first: the town's first Congregational chapel, planned in 1807, had to be built in London and taken to the town by sea because no local firm wanted to build it. The
weatherboarded chapel's successor survived until 1972. Other early chapels were built for Baptists:
Ebenezer Chapel was established in 1817 (it is now a house, and
another opened on Wellington Square for
General Baptists in 1838. 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). and Bulverhythe is in secular use as a hall. The St Leonards and Bexhill Circuit was responsible for former Wesleyan chapels at Norman Road and Park Road (with space for 550 and 450 worshippers respectively) and a chapel on Newgate Road (150) which was originally
Primitive Methodist. Of these, only the Calvert Memorial and Park Road churches remain open.
William Willmer Pocock's Central Methodist Church of 1875, on a "distinctive corner site",
was demolished in 1980. (having been in commercial use after its closure), the church on Norman Road went out of religious use in 2008, (registered in 1930) was succeeded in 1962 by Alexandra Chapel for
Christian (Open) Brethren. The building was re-registered as "The Lighthouse" in 2023. The former Gospel hall at the junction of Castle Hill Road and Stonefield Road (registered for worship in 1921 and for marriages in 1947) closed in 1990 and is now a house. Brethren in St Leonards-on-Sea met in hired rooms in Cross Street before moving to a Gospel hall on Norman Road by 1935 and then to a new building, the Ponswood Road Room, in 1953 (this building is now Ebenezer Baptist Church). A meeting room (no longer extant) was also registered on Stockleigh Road in 1966. The
Plymouth Brethren Christian Church sect use a meeting room (1972) off the Battle Road. Many other religious groups are represented in the borough.
Quakers and
Unitarians meet in buildings a short distance apart on South Terrace: the Quaker meeting house dates from 1864, while
the Unitarian church was built three years later and opened in 1868. and 1968 respectively. For
Jehovah's Witnesses, Kingdom Halls were registered in St Leonards-on-Sea in 1976 (no longer in use), Hollington in 1988 and Ore in 2007. An
Elim Pentecostal church was registered in 1981, the His Place Community Church—an independent Pentecostal group founded in 1984—now use the former United Reformed church in Robertson Street,
Latter-day Saints and
Christian Scientists registered buildings in Hollington and Silverhill respectively in 1970; the former was replaced by a permanent meetinghouse in 1990, while the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Hastings and St Leonards-on-Sea was dissolved in 1996 and the building is in alternative use. The King's Church (registered 1995) and Sonrise Church, which occupies a
former Anglican church building; another redundant Anglican church was converted into
St Mary Magdalene's Greek Orthodox Church in the early 1980s.
Muslims converted a building in St Leonards-on-Sea into a mosque and community centre in the 1980s. ==Religious affiliation==