The present building, with its distinctive pale stone exterior and large rose window, dates from 1908, but the church was founded in 1895 in a chapel built much earlier in the 19th century during a period when the new seaside resort's population was growing rapidly.

Many places of worship were founded in Worthing after its incorporation as a town in 1803: the following decades were a period of rapid growth as a prestigious seaside resort.

[1][2] One such chapel was built in 1839—probably by Charles Hide, a locally important architect and builder—on Montague Street (the old road to Heene),[3] for independent (non-denominational) Christian worship.

[4][5][7] C. Douglas Crouch, originally from Bromley in Kent, was a pastor at Worthing Baptist Church, which was founded in Montague Hall in 1879 and moved to a new building two years later.

[4][6][13] On each side of the buttresses are identical, partly recessed wings, shorter than the main façade, with round-arched entrance doors set below small gables and paired rectangular windows.

[13] Inside, the "remarkable roof structure" is supported by ornate iron pillars which pierce the wooden galleries on each side and hold up the main beams.

[13] To the rear of the chapel, a modern organ and case have replaced the original equipment, which was apparently retrieved from Walmer Castle in Kent.