St Stephen's Church is a former Anglican church in the Montpelier area of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. The building, which dates from 1766 in its original incarnation as the ballroom of Brighton's most fashionable Georgian-era inn, has been used for many purposes since then, and now stands away from where it was built. It spent less than 90 years as an Anglican church, and is now used as a centre for homeless people. In view of its architectural and historical importance, it has been listed at Grade II* by English Heritage. History Brighton began to develop as a spa town and seaside resort in the mid-18th century, encouraged by local doctor Richard Russell's influential advocacy of the therapeutic use of seawater, by drinking it and bathing in it. These activities became fashionable among high society and rich people, which gave the declining fishing village a surge of popularity in the 1750s. The Steine (now Old Steine), an area of flat, grassy, sheltered land behind the seafront, developed as the growing town's promenade, where visitors would walk and socialise. The surrounding area soon became built up, and in 1752 innkeeper Samuel Shergold bought a recently built house on the southwest side of The Steine and converted it into a tavern with assembly rooms. The venue, called the Castle Inn or Castle Tavern, became increasingly popular, and in 1766 John Crunden designed an extension on the north side of the inn. This extension housed a 450-capacity, ballroom. For the next half-century it was one of the most popular social venues in the town, rivalled only by the Old Ship Inn and assembly rooms (whose owner cooperated with Shergold to provide a regular programme of alternating social events). Contemporary accounts described the Castle Inn's ballroom and assembly rooms as some of the best and most architecturally impressive in England. Decline set in during the early 19th century, and the assembly room's first summer-season closure occurred in 1815. Crunden's ballroom was closed the previous year. In 1815, Shergold offered a 25% share in the building and its land, and the Prince Regent (later King George IV) bought it through an intermediary, Thomas Attree, for £1,960 (£ in ). He acquired another 25% share in 1816 and the remaining 50% in 1822, and the inn closed to the public soon afterwards and was demolished in stages between 1819 and