Great Horkesley: Nonconformity

NONCONFORMITY.

In 1696 Jacob Lynne of Westwood Park refused to take the oaths of supremacy and allegiance. A merchant was returned as a papist in 1767. (fn. 1) In 1657 several Quakers attended a Meeting at Great Horkesley. Mary Ball, recorded as a Quaker in 1665, was probably the wife of William Ball who gave land near Spratts Marsh for a burial ground before 1674. (fn. 2) The Horkesley Quaker James Naylor was libelled in a poem by John Denham, formerly lord of Little Horkesley Hall, in 1659. (fn. 3) Some Quakers were buried in the churchyard in the later years of the 17th century, but interments took place in the burial ground up to 1772. In 1778 there was a single Quaker resident. (fn. 4)

A private, probably nonconformist, chapel known as St. John's was built on Nayland Road sometime between 1829 and 1837 by J. L. Green of Terrace Hall, who also owned a chapel in West Bergholt. A new chapel was built to the east of the original one c. 1845. (fn. 5) The chapel was described as Baptist in 1845, as Independent in 1863, and as formerly Congregational in 1878. (fn. 6) In 1865 the Zion Chapel, as it was then called, had four tenements or cottages around its yard, and two lodges at its entrance. (fn. 7) By 1874 it was owned by the rector of Great Horkesley. The freehold passed to the parish church in 1925. (fn. 8)

A Primitive Methodist chapel on Horkesley Causeway was built before 1863. It remained open in 1874 but had closed and been converted to a working men's club by 1878. (fn. 9)