The Rev Arthur Wagner was responsible for one of the most amazing churches ever built in Britain.

St Bartholomew’s in Ann Street Brighton is the nation’s tallest church, being higher even than Westminster Abbey.

Imposing and austere, it was known for years as Noah’s Ark because of the mistaken belief that it was built to the same dimensions.

Surprisingly Wagner chose an almost unknown architect, Edmund Scott, to design the church and his hunch worked.

But there was controversy over its immense size and many poor people living nearby complained that it prevented their fires from working properly. Wagner’s response was to buy all the houses, about 400 of them, and reduce the rents.

It was the third church he had built in Brighton, the others being St Mary and St Mary Magdalene and the Church of the Annunciation.

He went on to commission a church even larger in floor space, St Martin’s in Lewes Road, a tribute to his father, theRev Henry Wagner, who had been Vicar of Brighton.+

Wagner later built a church behind what is nowChurchill Square called the Resurrection. This was largely underground because a nearby brewery objected to the original height.

It was a remarkably gloomy building and after Wagner died it was converted into a meat store, finally being demolished in 1966.

Wagner himself presided for half a century at St Paul’s in West Street only about 100 yards away and was very high church which caused constant controversy.

When his father preached at St Paul’s he took at his test: “Lord have mercy upon my son for he is lunatic and sore vexed.”

He was also criticised for running St Mary’s Home near the Clock Tower for women who had fallen on hard times including prostitutes,

One of the residents was a woman called Constance Kent who had been involved in a celebrated court case over whether or not she had murdered her half-brother, a young child.

Kent was acquitted of murder but later confessed to Wagner that she had committed the crime. She served many years in prison following another trial in which she pleaded guilty.

Wagner was reviled for refusing to say what Kent had told him in her confession and a police guard had to be placed on his home.

He was also assaulted in the street but it was hard to say whether this was as a result of his unpopularity over the Kent affair or whether he was e victim of drunken ruffians.

In later life Wagner became immensely fat and stated to lose his mind well before his death in 1902.

He also spent so much on building and maintaining churches that he left little cash for his own needs.

Wagner was a hugely generous man of high principles who would not easily be deflected from his chosen path.

The religious rows that occupied him are largely forgotten today but three of his great churches survive as monuments to this strange and solitary man.