List of places of worship in Horsham District
The area has a long history of Christian worship, in both the main population centres (Horsham, Billingshurst, Henfield, Pulborough, Steyning and Storrington) and the surrounding villages and hamlets.
Plymouth Brethren are well represented in the north of the district; Baptists, Methodists and United Reformed Church worshippers have many churches; William Penn lived and preached in the area, which still has a strong Quaker presence;[1] and one of eight chapels belonging to a now vanished local sect, the Society of Dependants, still stands at Warnham.
[5] Horsham is a large, mostly rural district in southeast England, which covers about 205 square miles (530 km2) of land between the North and South Downs.
[6] More than one-third of residents live in the ancient market town of Horsham, which has grown rapidly since the 19th century to support a population of 45,000.
As worship became more elaborate, settlements grew larger and building techniques improved, many of these Saxon-era structures were extended or replaced,[13] and Norman or early Gothic architecture characterises many of Horsham district's churches.
Gordon Macdonald Hills, who conducted "particularly damaging restorations" at more than 30 Sussex churches,[19] was especially active in the Horsham area, but other architects such as Samuel Sanders Teulon, Henry Woodyer, John Loughborough Pearson, George Gilbert Scott, Jr. and R.H. Carpenter also left their mark on the district's old churches in the 19th century.
[21] Roman Catholic worship in the area has had an unbroken history since before the English Reformation,[22] despite being outlawed for centuries by various Acts of Parliament.
Rich families such as the Wappingthorns at Steyning[23] and the Carylls at West Grinstead maintained the faith, sometimes using secret rooms to celebrate Mass.
Example survives in the Priest's House next to the 19th-century Church of Our Lady of Consolation and St Francis in West Grinstead,[24] and possibly at Henfield.
Many denominations founded chapels and meeting places between the 17th and 19th centuries, both in the towns and in rural areas; many survive and remain in use.
The last named sect, also known as Cokelers, established eight chapels in Sussex and Surrey in the 19th century, often with co-operative shops nearby.
[46][47] The only non-Christian place of worship in the district is a mosque, which found a permanent home in Horsham town centre only in 2008: the community used houses and industrial buildings previously.
The former Jireh Independent Baptist Chapel, which passed out of religious use in the mid-20th century,[37][48] became Madina Mosque after Horsham District Council granted planning permission in 2008.
Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism had a lower following in the district than in the country overall: in 2021, 6.73% of people in England were Muslim, 1.81% were Hindu, 0.92% were Sikh, 0.48% were Jewish and 0.46% were Buddhist.
[53] The churches at Billingshurst, Broadbridge Heath, Colgate, Coolhurst, Itchingfield, Lower Beeding, Mannings Heath, Nuthurst, Partridge Green, Roffey, Rudgwick, Rusper, Shipley, Slinfold, Southwater, Tisman's Common, Warnham and West Grinstead, and the four in Horsham town, are in the Rural Deanery of Horsham.
