Jarvis Hall, Steyning
Encyclopedia
Jarvis Hall is a former Nonconformist
chapel in the village of Steyning
, in the Horsham district
of the English county of West Sussex
. Since its construction in 1835, the Classical-style building has been used by four different Nonconformist Christian denomination
s: the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion
, Wesleyan Methodists
, the Salvation Army
and Plymouth Brethren
. The Brethren occupied it last and for the longest time. After about 150 years of religious use, it was sold for residential conversion. English Heritage
has listed the former chapel at Grade II for its architectural and historical importance.
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.
Sussex
was a hotbed of Protestant
Nonconformity
in the 16th and 17th centuries, and Puritan
s were active in Steyning from 1587 or earlier. 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) was used by Quakers as a meeting house, and a short-lived Baptist chapel existed on Steyning High Street. In 1835, Rev. Edward Lambert, described as a "Dissenting
minister" from Brighton
, visited Steyning and founded another chapel. It was originally associated with the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion
, a small Calvinistic
Methodist
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. 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.
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. 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. The Methodist trustees paid £350 for the building, and its conveyance
was legalised on 13 October 1843. The chapel became part of the Lewes and Brighton Circuit by March 1844.
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. Its membership was 33 in 1844, but this declined over the next decades: in 1850 the chapel had 17 members, and there were 10 in 1865. 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. 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). Around this time, the name Rose Villa Chapel also existed.
The trustees debated extending the premises, 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. 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, which had begun in the meantime. The new Steyning Methodist Church
, in flint and yellow brick, opened on 13 April 1878.
William Watson sold the building on to the firm of Kilner & Burgess, who used it as a mineral water
processing and bottling factory. It re-entered religious use in about 1883 when the Salvation Army
started meeting there for worship. Meanwhile, from as early as 1875, and certainly by 1884, a congregation of Plymouth Brethren
became established in Steyning; they met in a barn on the farmland belonging to Jarvis House. They moved into the chapel in 1907, and it became known as the Christian Meeting Hall. The congregation shared the building with a school gym
at first, and a theatre and dance school occupied the building for a time during the 1960s. An independent Christian fellowship also shared the chapel from 1970. Brethren worship continued in the chapel for nearly a century, but in 1987 planning permission
was granted to convert the building into flats.
Jarvis Hall was listed at Grade II by English Heritage
on 9 May 1980, when it was still a Brethren meeting hall. This status defines it as a "nationally important" building of "special interest". 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.
building with a single storey. The walls are stucco
ed. The façade has four tall pilaster
s reaching from ground level to a cornice
, above which is a giant pediment
with a circular recess which had a clock-face during the chapel's years of Methodist ownership. There are two tall arched windows flanking a double doorway with panelled doors. This has a straight-headed fanlight
and sits below a cornice.
Nonconformism
Nonconformity is the refusal to "conform" to, or follow, the governance and usages of the Church of England by the Protestant Christians of England and Wales.- Origins and use:...
chapel in the village of Steyning
Steyning
Steyning is a small town and civil parish in the Horsham District of West Sussex, England. It is located at the north end of the River Adur gap in the South Downs, four miles north of Shoreham-by-Sea...
, in the Horsham district
Horsham (district)
Horsham is a local government district in West Sussex, England. Its council is based in Horsham. The district borders those of Crawley, Mid Sussex, Mole Valley, Chichester, Arun and Adur....
of the English county of West Sussex
West Sussex
West Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering onto East Sussex , Hampshire and Surrey. The county of Sussex has been divided into East and West since the 12th century, and obtained separate county councils in 1888, but it remained a single ceremonial county until 1974 and the coming...
. Since its construction in 1835, the Classical-style building has been used by four different Nonconformist Christian denomination
Christian denomination
A Christian denomination is an identifiable religious body under a common name, structure, and doctrine within Christianity. In the Orthodox tradition, Churches are divided often along ethnic and linguistic lines, into separate churches and traditions. Technically, divisions between one group and...
s: the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion
Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion
The Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion is a small society of evangelical churches, founded in 1783 by Selina, Countess of Huntingdon as a result of the Evangelical Revival. For years it was strongly associated with the Calvinist Methodist movement of George Whitefield...
, Wesleyan Methodists
Wesleyan Methodist Church (Great Britain)
The Wesleyan Methodist Church was the name used by the major Methodist movement in Great Britain following its split from the Church of England after the death of John Wesley and the appearance of parallel Methodist movements...
, the Salvation Army
The Salvation Army
The Salvation Army is a Protestant Christian church known for its thrift stores and charity work. It is an international movement that currently works in over a hundred countries....
and Plymouth Brethren
Plymouth Brethren
The Plymouth Brethren is a conservative, Evangelical Christian movement, whose history can be traced to Dublin, Ireland, in the late 1820s. Although the group is notable for not taking any official "church name" to itself, and not having an official clergy or liturgy, the title "The Brethren," is...
. The Brethren occupied it last and for the longest time. After about 150 years of religious use, it was sold for residential conversion. English Heritage
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...
has listed the former chapel at Grade II for its architectural and historical importance.
History
SteyningSteyning
Steyning is a small town and civil parish in the Horsham District of West Sussex, England. It is located at the north end of the River Adur gap in the South Downs, four miles north of Shoreham-by-Sea...
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.
Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
was a hotbed of Protestant
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
Nonconformity
Nonconformism
Nonconformity is the refusal to "conform" to, or follow, the governance and usages of the Church of England by the Protestant Christians of England and Wales.- Origins and use:...
in the 16th and 17th centuries, and Puritan
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
s were active in Steyning from 1587 or earlier. Quaker
Religious Society of Friends
The Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...
and Baptist communities became established: a 17th-century timber-framed
Timber framing
Timber framing , or half-timbering, also called in North America "post-and-beam" construction, is the method of creating structures using heavy squared off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs . It is commonplace in large barns...
house now called Penn's House (after William Penn
William Penn
William Penn was an English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, the English North American colony and the future Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He was an early champion of democracy and religious freedom, notable for his good relations and successful...
, who lived nearby and was associated with it) was used by Quakers as a meeting house, and a short-lived Baptist chapel existed on Steyning High Street. In 1835, Rev. Edward Lambert, described as a "Dissenting
Dissenter
The term dissenter , labels one who disagrees in matters of opinion, belief, etc. In the social and religious history of England and Wales, however, it refers particularly to a member of a religious body who has, for one reason or another, separated from the Established Church.Originally, the term...
minister" from Brighton
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
, visited Steyning and founded another chapel. It was originally associated with the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion
Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion
The Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion is a small society of evangelical churches, founded in 1783 by Selina, Countess of Huntingdon as a result of the Evangelical Revival. For years it was strongly associated with the Calvinist Methodist movement of George Whitefield...
, a small Calvinistic
Calvinism
Calvinism is a Protestant theological system and an approach to the Christian life...
Methodist
Methodism
Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...
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. 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
Tenement (law)
A tenement , in law, is anything that is held, rather than owned. This usage is a holdover from feudalism, which still forms the basis of all real-estate law in the English-speaking world, in which the monarch alone owned the allodial title to all the land within his kingdom.Under feudalism, land...
called Gervases in 1403, and the name originated with the family of Robert Gervays, recorded in 1255.
Meanwhile, Wesleyan Methodism
Wesleyan Methodist Church (Great Britain)
The Wesleyan Methodist Church was the name used by the major Methodist movement in Great Britain following its split from the Church of England after the death of John Wesley and the appearance of parallel Methodist movements...
was growing in strength in Sussex. In 1807, the Lewes
Lewes
Lewes is the county town of East Sussex, England and historically of all of Sussex. It is a civil parish and is the centre of the Lewes local government district. The settlement has a history as a bridging point and as a market town, and today as a communications hub and tourist-oriented town...
and Brighton Wesleyan Circuit
Methodist Circuit
The Methodist Circuit is part of the organisational structure of British Methodism,or at least those branches derived from the work of John Wesley. It is a group of individual Societies or local Churches under the care of one or more Methodist Ministers. In the scale of organisation, the Circuit...
was formed; it covered a wide geographic area and controlled ten chapels by 1841. 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. The Methodist trustees paid £350 for the building, and its conveyance
Conveyancing
In law, conveyancing is the transfer of legal title of property from one person to another, or the granting of an encumbrance such as a mortgage or a lien....
was legalised on 13 October 1843. The chapel became part of the Lewes and Brighton Circuit by March 1844.
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. Its membership was 33 in 1844, but this declined over the next decades: in 1850 the chapel had 17 members, and there were 10 in 1865. Nevertheless, attendances at services held up—especially in the evenings, when Anglicans
Anglicanism
Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English...
from St Andrew's Church are believed to have contributed to the typical figure of 150 worshippers. 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). Around this time, the name Rose Villa Chapel also existed.
The trustees debated extending the premises, but in June 1874 it was resolved to take no action. Later that year, Henry Northcroft—a leading figure in Methodism in nearby Lancing
Lancing, West Sussex
Lancing is a town and civil parish in the Adur district of West Sussex, England, on the western edge of the Adur Valley. It lies on the coastal plain between Sompting to the west, Shoreham-by-Sea to the east and the parish of Coombes to the north...
(to whose chapel he had given money in 1872) and Worthing
Worthing
Worthing is a large seaside town with borough status in West Sussex, within the historic County of Sussex, forming part of the Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton conurbation. It is situated at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of the county town of Chichester...
—gave some land on Steyning High Street to the Methodist cause. 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 £
£sd
£sd was the popular name for the pre-decimal currencies used in the Kingdom of England, later the United Kingdom, and ultimately in much of the British Empire...
223.16s.8d.
Penny (British pre-decimal coin)
The penny of the Kingdom of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom, was in circulation from the early 18th century until February 1971, Decimal Day....
in the building fund for their new chapel, which had begun in the meantime. The new Steyning Methodist Church
Steyning Methodist Church
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...
, in flint and yellow brick, opened on 13 April 1878.
William Watson sold the building on to the firm of Kilner & Burgess, who used it as a mineral water
Mineral water
Mineral water is water containing minerals or other dissolved substances that alter its taste or give it therapeutic value, generally obtained from a naturally occurring mineral spring or source. Dissolved substances in the water may include various salts and sulfur compounds...
processing and bottling factory. It re-entered religious use in about 1883 when the Salvation Army
The Salvation Army
The Salvation Army is a Protestant Christian church known for its thrift stores and charity work. It is an international movement that currently works in over a hundred countries....
started meeting there for worship. Meanwhile, from as early as 1875, and certainly by 1884, a congregation of Plymouth Brethren
Plymouth Brethren
The Plymouth Brethren is a conservative, Evangelical Christian movement, whose history can be traced to Dublin, Ireland, in the late 1820s. Although the group is notable for not taking any official "church name" to itself, and not having an official clergy or liturgy, the title "The Brethren," is...
became established in Steyning; they met in a barn on the farmland belonging to Jarvis House. They moved into the chapel in 1907, and it became known as the Christian Meeting Hall. The congregation shared the building with a school gym
Gym
The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, that mean a locality for both physical and intellectual education of young men...
at first, and a theatre and dance school occupied the building for a time during the 1960s. An independent Christian fellowship also shared the chapel from 1970. Brethren worship continued in the chapel for nearly a century, but in 1987 planning permission
Planning permission
Planning permission or planning consent is the permission required in the United Kingdom in order to be allowed to build on land, or change the use of land or buildings. Within the UK the occupier of any land or building will need title to that land or building , but will also need "planning...
was granted to convert the building into flats.
Jarvis Hall was listed at Grade II by English Heritage
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...
on 9 May 1980, when it was still a Brethren meeting hall. This status defines it as a "nationally important" building of "special interest". 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.
Architecture
Jarvis Hall is a plain NeoclassicalNeoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...
building with a single storey. The walls are stucco
Stucco
Stucco or render is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as decorative coating for walls and ceilings and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture...
ed. The façade has four tall pilaster
Pilaster
A pilaster is a slightly-projecting column built into or applied to the face of a wall. Most commonly flattened or rectangular in form, pilasters can also take a half-round form or the shape of any type of column, including tortile....
s reaching from ground level to a cornice
Cornice
Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...
, above which is a giant pediment
Pediment
A pediment is a classical architectural element consisting of the triangular section found above the horizontal structure , typically supported by columns. The gable end of the pediment is surrounded by the cornice moulding...
with a circular recess which had a clock-face during the chapel's years of Methodist ownership. There are two tall arched windows flanking a double doorway with panelled doors. This has a straight-headed fanlight
Fanlight
A fanlight is a window, semicircular or semi-elliptical in shape, with glazing bars or tracery sets radiating out like an open fan, It is placed over another window or a doorway. and is sometimes hinged to a transom. The bars in the fixed glazed window spread out in the manner a sunburst...
and sits below a cornice.