Jarvis Hall, Steyning

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 denominations: the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion, Wesleyan Methodists, the Salvation Army and Plymouth Brethren.

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.

[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).

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.

[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.

[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.

The Methodist community moved into the new Steyning Methodist Church , partly funded by the sale of Jarvis Hall, in 1878.