An important victory for heritage 2025
The Twentieth Century Society (20CS) recently informed us that the Brighton and Hove Reform Synagogue in Palmeira Avenue, Hove, built in 1966-1967 to designs by Derek Sharp Associates with windows designed by artist John Petts, was Grade II listed by Historic England on April 2, 2025 following an application by 20CS, saving the modernist building and its exceptional stained-glass windows from the unthinkable prospect of demolition.
The 40ft long stained-glass windows depict religious iconography with images including flames and barbed wire that evoke the Holocaust. The Imperial War Museum, which has designated the complex a Holocaust memorial, said that “the site is unique in the UK in that it serves as both a Holocaust memorial and a place of worship”, with its luminescent east facing windows described by Art Historian Dr Alison Smith as “one of the great religious artworks of the 20th century.” Historian and broadcaster Simon Schama considers it to be “a ravishing and exquisite work of Judaic art”.
The main windows include some 1,800 individual pieces of glass, with the central panel showing the Burning Bush in fiery reds and yellows flanked by side panels in blues, greens and greys, with symbols referencing the key Jewish festivals. The elements binding them together are broken barbed wire and the chain link broken by a sapling, representing the oppression of the Jewish people through history and the atrocities of the Holocaust.
The Twentieth Century Society said that the use of stained glass for a memorial of this type is rare in Britain, and no other example on this scale is known. Historians have drawn comparison to Picasso’s seminal painting Guernica (1937), and the way both artworks articulate the personal, emotional and historical dimensions of modern warfare and the atrocities it has engendered.
The building was threatened by plans for a block of 18 residential flats, with a smaller replacement synagogue apologetically placed somewhere on the site. A big thank you to 20CS who first applied to list the synagogue in 2017 in response to consent being granted for its demolition, yet in 2018 Historic England disappointingly recommended against listing. The previously approved plans fell through, and important new evidence emerged regarding the rarity and significance of the windows.
This prompted a new listing application by the 20CS in August 2023, and the synagogue was included in its recent Risk List campaign of the 10 most threatened buildings in the country, followed by a nationwide “List it or Lose it” billboard campaign featuring the synagogue.
After a worrying 18 month wait, a Grade II listing was confirmed in April 2025, to the relief of local campaigners and all who wanted to save this building.
The Brighton Society is a heritage society that values organisations like The Twentieth Century Society for their determination to preserve important heritage assets for future generations. In our city, heritage is and will always be threatened with extinction. If you want to help to preserve the city’s heritage, join the Brighton Society . We would like to thank 20CS for the information in this article and John East for his splendid photos.
