A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 6 Part 3, Bramber Rape (North-Eastern Part) Including Crawley New Town. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1987.
This free content was digitised by double rekeying. All rights reserved.
A P Baggs, C R J Currie, C R Elrington, S M Keeling, A M Rowland, 'Henfield: Protestant nonconformity', in A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 6 Part 3, Bramber Rape (North-Eastern Part) Including Crawley New Town, ed. T P Hudson( London, 1987), British History Online https://prod.british-history.ac.uk/vch/sussex/vol6/pt3/p157 [accessed 16 November 2024].
A P Baggs, C R J Currie, C R Elrington, S M Keeling, A M Rowland, 'Henfield: Protestant nonconformity', in A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 6 Part 3, Bramber Rape (North-Eastern Part) Including Crawley New Town. Edited by T P Hudson( London, 1987), British History Online, accessed November 16, 2024, https://prod.british-history.ac.uk/vch/sussex/vol6/pt3/p157.
A P Baggs, C R J Currie, C R Elrington, S M Keeling, A M Rowland. "Henfield: Protestant nonconformity". A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 6 Part 3, Bramber Rape (North-Eastern Part) Including Crawley New Town. Ed. T P Hudson(London, 1987), , British History Online. Web. 16 November 2024. https://prod.british-history.ac.uk/vch/sussex/vol6/pt3/p157.
PROTESTANT NONCONFORMITY.
John Barber or Barker was gaoled for refusing tithes as a Quaker in 1656, yet served as overseer in 1661-2. (fn. 1) The five nonconformists listed in 1676 (fn. 2) and the parishioners presented in the 1670s and 1680s for absence from church may have included Quakers. (fn. 3) A Quaker meeting house was registered in 1705, (fn. 4) but no more is heard of it. A place of worship for Baptists was licensed in 1690. (fn. 5) Five Baptist families were mentioned in 1724. (fn. 6) A meeting place of the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion was registered in 1764. (fn. 7)
In 1810 there were said to be no conventicles in the parish, (fn. 8) but in 1811 a building in the village was registered for the worship of Independents. (fn. 9) A new chapel was built in 1832 on the east side of High Street. It originally had only two bays and was separated from the street by the minister's house, but in 1901 or 1904 the house was demolished and the chapel extended, with a new faôade of flint and red brick with stone dressings. (fn. 10) George Hall was resident minister for 40 years from 1832. (fn. 11) Congregations on Census Sunday in 1851 numbered 103 in the morning, 25 in the afternoon, and 82 in the evening, (fn. 12) but in 1856 the chapel was said to be not well attended. In that year and later congregations were said to be drawn chiefly from the lowest class, with in 1856 two or three shopkeepers besides. (fn. 13) The building could seat 150 in 1951, when there were 33 church members. (fn. 14) By 1965 it was called the Henfield Evangelical Free church. (fn. 15) The mission was said to have four out-stations in 1851. (fn. 16)
Five houses were licensed between 1813 and 1824 for the worship of unspecified Protestant dissenters, (fn. 17) and a room in 1829 for the worship of Calvinists. (fn. 18)
Rooms in houses in High Street were registered for worship by Baptists or Particular Baptists in 1876 and 1881, and another building in High Street for the same purpose in 1891. (fn. 19) A Particular Baptist minister from Mayfield often preached in Henfield at that time. Later a church was formed, and a small iron chapel erected in 1897 in Nep Town; (fn. 20) it was still being used, as Rehoboth Baptist chapel, in 1984, when it seated 80 and there were Sunday and Thursday services. By c. 1981 there was a resident minister. (fn. 21)