Steyning was founded early in the Saxon era, and was already an important trading settlement when St Cuthman founded St Andrew's Church in the 8th century. He was later buried there, as was King Æthelwulf of Wessex, increasing the village's significance. Throughout its early history, Steyning was one of Sussex's main settlements, but its importance declined from the 16th century. Residential growth resumed in the 19th century, though.[1]
Sussex was a hotbed of ProtestantNonconformity in the 16th and 17th centuries, and Puritans were active in Steyning from 1587 or earlier.[2]Quaker and Baptist communities became established: a 17th-century timber-framed house now called Penn's House (after William Penn, who lived nearby and was associated with it)[3] was used by Quakers as a meeting house, and a short-lived Baptist chapel existed on Steyning High Street.[2] In 1835, Rev. Edward Lambert, described as a "Dissenting minister" from Brighton, visited Steyning and founded another chapel.[4] It was originally associated with the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion,[5] a small CalvinisticMethodist denomination found mostly in Sussex, but the cause was unsuccessful. Rev. Lambert returned to Brighton, where he was later associated with Zion Chapel in the town's Bedford Street.[4] Jarvis Lane, on which the originally unnamed chapel stood, was named after its most prominent building—Jarvis House, a 15th-century timber-framed farmhouse. The land around it was part of a tenement called Gervases in 1403, and the name originated with the family of Robert Gervays, recorded in 1255.[6]
Meanwhile, Wesleyan Methodism was growing in strength in Sussex. In 1807, the Lewes and Brighton Wesleyan Circuit was formed; it covered a wide geographic area and controlled ten chapels by 1841.[7] In that year, the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion congregation stopped meeting at the Jarvis Lane chapel and it was sold to a local butcher. According to deeds and newspaper reports, a Wesleyan congregation was formed in Steyning in about September 1841 and acquired the chapel in 1843.[8] The Methodist trustees paid £350 for the building,[4] and its conveyance was legalised on 13 October 1843.[8] The chapel became part of the Lewes and Brighton Circuit by March 1844.[7]
By 1855, when a local guide noted that "the Wesleyans have a neat chapel at Steyning", the place of worship had a name: Trinity Chapel.[9] Its membership was 33 in 1844,[2][10] but this declined over the next decades: in 1850 the chapel had 17 members, and there were 10 in 1865.[10] Nevertheless, attendances at services held up—especially in the evenings, when Anglicans from St Andrew's Church are believed to have contributed to the typical figure of 150 worshippers.[2] The chapel's Sunday school was also very successful: 64 children attended in 1876, despite the building's shortcomings (it had a large, tall single space which could not be partitioned).[10] Around this time, the name Rose Villa Chapel also existed.[2]
The Methodist community moved into the new Steyning Methodist Church, partly funded by the sale of Jarvis Hall, in 1878.
The trustees debated extending the premises,[10] but in June 1874 it was resolved to take no action. Later that year, Henry Northcroft—a leading figure in Methodism in nearby Lancing (to whose chapel he had given money in 1872) and Worthing—gave some land on Steyning High Street to the Methodist cause.[11] In 1875, the trustees successfully sought permission from the Methodist Conference to sell Jarvis Hall and establish a new larger chapel. At an auction on 27 May 1878, the chapel, its land and all fixtures and fittings were sold to a local builder, William Watson, for £235. After expenses, the trustees had £223.16s.8d. in the building fund for their new chapel,[11] which had begun in the meantime. The new Steyning Methodist Church, in flint and yellow brick, opened on 13 April 1878.[12]
William Watson sold the building on to the firm of Kilner & Burgess, who used it as a mineral water processing and bottling factory.[11] It re-entered religious use in about 1883 when the Salvation Army started meeting there for worship.[2] Meanwhile, from as early as 1875,[2] and certainly by 1884,[6] a congregation of Plymouth Brethren became established in Steyning; they met in a barn on the farmland belonging to Jarvis House.[2][6] They moved into the chapel in 1907,[11] and it became known as the Christian Meeting Hall.[5] The congregation shared the building with a school gym at first,[13] and a theatre and dance school occupied the building for a time during the 1960s.[14] An independent Christian fellowship also shared the chapel from 1970.[13] Brethren worship continued in the chapel for nearly a century, but in 1987 planning permission was granted to convert the building into flats.[15]
Jarvis Hall was listed at Grade II by English Heritage on 9 May 1980, when it was still a Brethren meeting hall.[16] This status defines it as a "nationally important" building of "special interest".[17] As of February 2001, it was one of 1,628 Grade II listed buildings, and 1,726 listed buildings of all grades, in the district of Horsham.[18]
Architecture
Jarvis Hall is a plain Neoclassical building with a single storey. The walls are stuccoed.[5][16] The façade has four tall pilasters reaching from ground level to a cornice, above which is a giant pediment[16] with a circular recess which had a clock-face during the chapel's years of Methodist ownership.[19] There are two tall arched windows flanking a double doorway with panelled doors. This has a straight-headed fanlight and sits below a cornice.[16]
The Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion is a small society of evangelical churches, founded in 1783 by Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, as a result of the Evangelical Revival. For many years it was strongly associated with the Calvinist Methodist movement of George Whitefield.
The Thieves' Kitchen is a pub in the centre of the town and borough of Worthing, West Sussex. Established as a public house in the late 20th century, it occupies two early 19th-century listed buildings in the oldest part of the town: a Greek Revival-style former wine merchants premises, and a Neoclassical chapel built for Wesleyan Methodists in 1839. The main part of the pub is in the wine merchants building facing Warwick Street, while the old chapel, facing Bedford Row, serves as its function room. Both buildings have been designated separately as Grade II Listed Buildings.
The Wesleyan Methodist Church was the majority Methodist movement in England following its split from the Church of England after the death of John Wesley and the appearance of parallel Methodist movements. The word Wesleyan in the title differentiated it from the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists and from the Primitive Methodist movement, which separated from the Wesleyans in 1807. The Wesleyan Methodist Church followed the Wesleys in holding to an Arminian theology, in contrast to the Calvinism held by George Whitefield, by Selina Hastings, and by Howell Harris and Daniel Rowland, the pioneers of Welsh Methodism. Its Conference was also the legal successor to John Wesley as holder of the property of the original Methodist societies.
West Street Baptist Church is a Baptist church in East Grinstead, a town in the district of Mid Sussex, one of seven local government districts in the English county of West Sussex. Founded in 1810 as a chapel linked to the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion, it was the first Nonconformist place of worship in East Grinstead; the town's subsequent development made it a local centre of both Protestant Nonconformity and alternative religions. The red-brick building is still used by a Baptist community, and is protected as a Grade II listed building.
Southover General Baptist Chapel is a former Baptist place of worship in the ancient village of Southover, now part of the town and district of Lewes, one of six local government districts in the English county of East Sussex. Founded in 1741 as the first Baptist place of worship in the area, it attracted a congregation of General Baptists whose theological views gradually moved towards Unitarianism. This led to their union with the members of the nearby Westgate Chapel, after which the flint and brick building housed other congregations and secular groups before its conversion to a house. The building is protected as a Grade II by English Heritage.
Steyning Methodist Church is a Methodist place of worship serving Steyning and surrounding villages in the Horsham district of West Sussex, England. Built for a Wesleyan Methodist congregation who had outgrown an earlier chapel nearby, the Gothic Revival building opened in 1878 and has since been extended. The flint and yellow brick church is set back from Steyning's ancient High Street and is within the village conservation area. It is one of nine churches in the Worthing Methodist Circuit.
Billingshurst Unitarian Chapel is a place of worship in Billingshurst in the English county of West Sussex. The cottage-like building was erected in 1754 for General Baptists, hence its original name of the Billingshurst General Baptist Chapel, but the congregation moved towards Unitarian beliefs in the 19th century, and still maintain these. It is a member of General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, the umbrella body for British Unitarians.
The present Angmering Baptist Church and its predecessor building, known as Church of Christ, are respectively the current and former Baptist places of worship in Angmering, a village in the Arun district of West Sussex, England. Baptist worship in the area can be traced back to 1846, when the "strangely towered" Church of Christ was founded and built. After the Gothic-style chapel became unsuitable for modern requirements, the congregation acquired a nearby barn and converted it into a new church, after which the old building was sold for residential conversion. The church has been designated a Grade II listed building.
Horsham Unitarian Church is a Unitarian chapel in Horsham in the English county of West Sussex. It was founded in 1719 to serve the large Baptist population of the ancient market town of Horsham—home of radical preacher Matthew Caffyn—and the surrounding area. The chapel's congregation moved towards Unitarian beliefs in the 19th century, but the simple brick building continued to serve worshippers drawn from a wide area of Sussex. It is one of several places of worship which continue to represent Horsham's centuries-old tradition of Protestant Nonconformism, and is the town's second oldest surviving religious building—only St Mary's, the parish church, predates it. English Heritage has listed the chapel at Grade II for its architectural and historical importance.
Bethel Baptist Chapel is a Strict Baptist place of worship in the village of Wivelsfield in East Sussex, England. The cause was founded in 1763 by members of a chapel at nearby Ditchling; Henry Booker and other worshippers seceded and began to meet at Wivelsfield after hearing a sermon by George Whitefield. Although some members of the new church soon returned to the Ditchling congregation, the cause thrived under Booker's leadership, and the present chapel—a building of "quiet and unassuming elegance" set in its own graveyard—was erected in 1780. It has served the Strict Baptist community continuously since then, and members founded other chapels elsewhere in Sussex during the 18th and 19th centuries. The chapel is a Grade II Listed building.
Religion in Sussex has been dominated over the last 1,400 years by Christianity. Like the rest of England, the established church in Sussex is the Church of England, although other Christian traditions exist. After Christianity, the religion with the most adherents is Islam, followed by Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and Sikhism.
The history of Christianity in Sussex includes all aspects of the Christianity in the region that is now Sussex from its introduction to the present day. Christianity is the most commonly practised religion in Sussex.
The former Salvation Army Hall in Godalming, Surrey, England, now an office building known as Aurum House, has been used by three religious groups since its construction c. 1830. The ancient town in the English county of Surrey has a long and diverse history of Protestant Nonconformity, and three Nonconformst denominations are represented: at first it served Congregationalists, but when they built a larger chapel in the town it passed to the Methodist Church. In the 20th century it was occupied by The Salvation Army, but it closed in 2012 and was redeveloped for commercial use. The building has been listed at Grade II for its architectural and historical importance.
South Street Free Church is a church in the centre of Eastbourne, a town and seaside resort in the English county of East Sussex. Originally Congregational, it is now aligned to the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion—a small group of Evangelical churches founded by Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon during the 18th-century Evangelical Revival. The church was founded in 1897 as an offshoot from an earlier Congregational chapel, and initially met in hired premises. Local architect Henry Ward designed the present church in 1903; the "characterful" and "quirky" Arts and Crafts-style building has been listed at Grade II by Historic England for its architectural and historical importance.
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