In the early 1860's there were many houses in the southern part of Portslade, sometimes called Copperas Gap, and that the people who lived there were some distance from their Parish Church of St Nicolas. At the instigation of the Vicar of Portslade, the Revd. F.G.Holbrooke, the Church of St Andrew was built in 1864. The new church would serve the District of Copperas Gap in the Parish of Portslade, the district included both South Portslade and Fishersgate.
One of the conditions for the funding of the new Church was that all seats would be “free”. Pew rents were still payable in many Churches in the 1860's. At St. Nicolas Portslade where pew rents were in operation, there are still some pews marked “free”, dating from Victorian times. A local Brighton architect Edmund Scott designed both St. Andrew's Church and St Nicolas Church School in Locks Hill, Portslade. Scott went on to design probably, the most impressive and nationally known church in Brighton, St Bartholomew's in Ann Street.

"The Surrey Standard" reported on the 25th October 1864, "A church at Copperas Gap, which has been recently erected to meet the spiritual wants of almost 100 souls in that neighbourhood, was on Tuesday last Consecrated by the Bishop of the Diocese. The situation of the new church is just above the Britannia Steam Flour Mill, near the Railway. The total cost of the undertaking is stated at £1,541, of which sum about £350 remains to be provided. There is accommodation for about 350 persons: and the seats are all free and un-appropriated. The edifice is of un-ambitious aspect, and in the Early English style. It will at least be put to more practical purpose than its neighbour, Aldrington Church, which is a ruin and a desolation, but nevertheless supplies a "living" of about £400 a year to somebody."

In 1872 Fr.Enraght was appointed Priest in Charge of St Andrew Church. His defence of Ritualism in published pamphlets and letters to the The Brighton Gazette promoting English Catholic practices in worship. As a priest in Portslade, Fr.Enraght published the pamphlets "Catholic Worship" and "The Real Presence and Holy Scripture"
In 1874 Fr Enraght left Portslade to become Vicar of Holy Trinity, Birmingham, where he was imprisoned in 1880 under the Disraeli Government's Public Worship Regulation Act, for the use of ritualism in worship. He become nationally and internationally known as a "prisoner for conscience sake".

In May 2003 a major re-ordering was undertaken to provide a much needed Community Centre for South Portslade managed by the Community Association of Portslade (South) with an integral smaller St Andrew Church. The Church was officially re-opened in July 2004 by the Bishop of Chichester.

See http://www.stnicolas.standrewportslade.btinternet.co.uk/standrew_church_history_portslade.htm for further information