A History of Horsham Unitarian Church

Apart from St. Mary’s Parish Church, our beautiful church is the oldest place of worship in Horsham.

Matthew Caffyn (1648-1714)  

Matthew was born in Horsham, the eldest son of Thomas and Elizabeth Caffyn. Thomas, a farmer, was employed by the Onslow family, who owned Drungewick Manor on the Sussex/Surrey border. When Matthew was around 7, Richard Onslow adopted him as a companion for his own son. The two boys were educated at a grammar school in Kent, and in 1643 both were sent to All Souls College, Oxford, to study for the Church of England ministry. However, Matthew soon faced difficulties at All Souls for questioning infant baptism and the Trinity and then for advocating Baptist tenets. The university failed to induce him to suppress his own views and he was expelled in 1645.

Now 17, Matthew returned to Horsham and was installed at Pond Farm in Southwater by his adoptive father. He quickly joined the General Baptists (the oldest dissenting body in the Horsham area) and acted as assistant to Samuel Lover, who had led the dispersed congregation for many years. From 1648 Matthew became sole pastor.

Caffyn preached assiduously in Sussex villages and was imprisoned 5 times for unauthorised preaching. His influence on Baptist causes through southeast England was considerable. In 1696 his increasingly radical unorthodox beliefs caused a schism in the General Baptist Assembly; its response to his changing theology was significant in the history of Unitarianism.

At some point he moved from Southwater and rented Broadbridge Farm and Mill in Old  Wickhurst Lane, Broadbridge Heath. At this time, worship took place in local houses and barns. Broadbridge Farm was registered for worship by the General Baptists and the mill pond was used for baptism.

Around 1710, Caffyn ordained his eldest son, also named Matthew (born 1655), and Thomas Southern as his successors. Caffyn senior died on 10th June 1714 at the age of 86 and was buried in the churchyard at Itchingfield. Sadly, he did not live to see the building of a permanent home for the congregation in 1721. His life is commemorated in the memorial window installed in the north wall.

The last member of the Caffyn family to have been actively connected with the church was Miss Emma Caffyn, a direct descendant of Matthew Caffyn senior; she died in 1903.

Purchase of Land

In July 1719, the land on which the church now stands was purchased by congregation members John Dendy, an apothecary, and John Geere, a cloth merchant, from Edward Payne, a weaver, and his wife Hannah for £36 15 shillings. In 1720-21 this piece of land was transferred ‘to Nicholas Hayler, plus six elders, for the sum of 5s with rent of 1d per annum for one thousand years if lawfully demanded by the said vendors, their heirs executors, or assignees, at the Feast of Michael the Archangel (September 29)’.

The site was registered for worship by the General Baptists in 1719 and work started on the building of the present church in 1721.The original grant stated that it was to be ‘a meeting place for religious worship for the congregation of Protestants, called Anabaptists*, dissenting from the Church of England… Residing, or who during ye said term (one thousand years) shall reside in or near ye parishes of Horsham, Billingshurst, Slinfold, Shipley and Sullington…’

* Anabaptist = ‘one who baptises again,’ referring to the practice of baptising persons even if they had been baptised as infants.

Church Building

The Act of Toleration passed in 1689 had given freedoms to Nonconformist groups and they were allowed to worship publicly. However, the Blasphemy Act of 1697 made life uncomfortable for certain dissenters from the established faith, and so the new building was set back from the road and designed to look like a conventional two-storey cottage surrounded by a garden to avoid attention being drawn to it.

The main part of today’s church is the original rectangular brick building with a Horsham stone roof. Inside it had a gallery on 3 sides, with a multi-tiered pulpit facing the entrance door and box pews. In 1728 it was agreed ‘That a porch be builded after a Decent Manner, and that the Charge be defrayed by the Church.’

In 1752, the multi-tiered pulpit, which could accommodate 4 or 5 elders, was replaced with a round one for one person only. In 1771, a piece of ground adjoining the south end of the church was purchased in border to build ‘ye Baptistery and Conveniency’s thereto… Ye water to be brought down from ye well belonging to this church Pompe and Shootts’ to fill the baptismal tank. The tank, disused since circa 1840, still exists under the floor of the former baptistery, and the well is believed to lie beneath what is now the kitchen.

In 1850, an organ was purchased for £50 and was installed in the east gallery above the entrance door. Between 1867 and 1872, the interior of the church was radically reordered: the gallery was removed except at the northern bend; the pulpit was moved from the west wall to the southern end next to the arch of the former baptistery, and bench pews replaced the box pews. The present organ, installed at the southern end of the church, was built in 1914 at a cost of £160. It is played during services and regular lunchtime recitals.

By 1966, the condition of the pews had deteriorated through age and woodworm. The replacement oak pews were presented to the church by the Unitarian Meeting House at Crediton in Devon which was being demolished. The pulpit was also in very poor condition and a new one was constructed from surplus pews. In 1971, the church floor, under which there are several vaults, was deemed unsafe and replaced by the present floor of New Zealand oak.

The garden

In the 1960s, the gravestones were cleared from the area in front of the church, and lawns and flower beds were laid down. In 1975, the overgrown graveyard to the south was cleared and the gravestones removed; the area was landscaped and planted with trees and shrubs. In 1978 it was dedicated as a Garden of Remembrance.

Today, part of the garden to the north is home to an evolving Wildlife Haven.

Church Hall

The Hall (now called the Unitarian Community Hall) was built circa 1870 and was originally a schoolroom. During his tenure (1831-1858) Rev Robert Ashdowne started a Book and Tract Society which became the first lending library in Horsham, containing at its peak around 4000 volumes.

In 1893, the Horsham Museum Society was founded by Rev John J Marten. The artefacts were kept in boxes and cupboards where they were only brought out on special occasions. They were moved to Park House on North Street in 1930 and eventually to Horsham Museum in the Causeway.

Church’s name

The move away from General Baptist beliefs and towards Unitarianism began at the beginning of the 19th century and was well established by 1820. Down the years from 1878, the name of the building has been changed in a number of ways: Horsham General Baptist Chapel; Horsham Unitarian (Baptist) Chapel; Horsham Free Christian Church; Horsham Free Christian (Unitarian) Church; Horsham Unitarian and Free Christian Church, and eventually Horsham Unitarian Church.

Today we call ourselves Horsham Unitarians.

Historical anecdote:

Stories abound about all old places of worship. Here is one about Horsham Unitarians. In his 1911 book ‘Reminiscences of Horsham’ John Barstow recalls an unusual burial at the church: 

‘Another remarkable night funeral I have heard my father say was that of Miss Elizabeth Gatford, a most eccentric lady, who died the 8th July 1799. She willed, in 1790, that her corpse was not to be buried for one month, and that spirits of wine was to be used for its preservation. Accordingly between £30 and £40 was spent in this manner; she also willed that she was to be buried in four coffins – a shell, and one each of lead, oak, and stone, and that the ceremony should not take place until after 10 o’clock at night. She was buried in a vault at the Old Baptist Chapel in Worthing Road, at 12 o’clock mid-night, the Rev. Evans of Worship Street, London, preaching the burial sermon. The chapel and burial ground were crowded with church folk and dissenters of all sects. In her will she left £15 per annum to support, till they died, certain animals, cats, dogs, parrots, guinea pigs, &c., whom she had lived with; and also £5 5s per annum to be given in bread to the poor, a charitable bequest that is still regularly discharged.’            

There is a commemorative plaque to the Gatford family on a church wall, and her vault is beneath the church floor.