£ s. d. ‘Eccl’ia de Brighthelmston 20 0 0 Vicar’ ejusdem 5 0 0 P’or Lewens. The Vicar of Brighton was at one period saddled with a yearly pension of seven shillings and sixpence to the Vicar of Hove; and in this state the Vicarage continued, the impropriation of the great tithes vesting in the Priory of Lewes, till the suppression of that monastery, in 1538. The impropriation and patronage of this parish were granted by Henry VIII. to Lord Cromwell, his Vicar-General, who in that year, 1538, ordered a public register of baptisms and burials to be kept at Brighthelmston, and in every other parish of the kingdom. On the death and attainder of Cromwell, the church was conferred by Henry to his repudiated queen, Anne of Cleves, and on the death of that princess, in 1557, it again reverted to the crown. In the reign of Elizabeth, the patronage and impropriation were severed, the former being attached to the see of Chichester; and so it continues to the present day. There is a great tithe on Brighton, of small extent, now belonging to Thomas Attree, Esq., Queen’s Park, Brighton, as Lay-Rector, and it formerly belonged to Thomas Read Kemp, Esq., as Lay-Rector. The church is built of cut flints and grouting of lime and coarse sea-sand, with stone coignes. The old map picture of 1545, represents the church as cruciform, and the tower circular: probably errors of the artist, whose design was doubtless more to illustrate the prominent features of the scene,—the attack upon and burning of the town,—than the architectural details of the buildings. The sacred edifice consists of a body, chancel, and a somewhat low embattled tower, surmounted by a sloping roof, in the centre of which is a cast-iron standard, in which is a flagstaff that may be raised or lowered at pleasure. An arrow vane is on its top. Formerly, within the last half-century, the vane was represented by a gilt fish, doubtless intended as the representation of a dolphin; but in 1796 a visitor, considering that the figure bore more resemblance to a shark than any other fish, penned the following verses upon it:— Say, why on Brighton’s church we see A golden shark display’d, But that ’twas aptly meant to be An emblem of its trade? Nor could the thing so well be told In any other way: The town’s a Shark that lives on gold,— The Company its prey. A musical peal of eight bells was cast in 1777, by Mr. Rudhall, ironmonger, of the firm Rudhall and Dudlow, North street, Brighton, now Langworthy and Reed, at his foundry, at Bristol. The tenor bell, which is pitched in the key F, weighs 1,500 pounds. The belfry had a peal previous to that date, as in the vestry minutes of October 25th, 1736, is the order:—