The Church

The History of St. Swithun's East Grinstead.

There has been a church on the site since the 11th century. It was struck by lightening in 1772 and after re-building it was opened in 1789.

Historical Background
This hill-top site where several tracks met would have been the obvious place to build a church when our area began to be settled in the late tenth century: and one of the most popular saints of that time, St Swithun (Bishop of Winchester, 852-862), was the unsurprising choice for its patron. We can only speculate about the original building and how it developed but pictures from the late eighteenth century show that a church of largely fourteenth and fifteenth century style stood here until 1785 when the collapse of its tower (poorly rebuilt in 1684 after being struck by lightning) made the present building necessary.

A national appeal for funds (a 'brief') raised £516 in 1788. Building began the next year but funds ran out when little more than the walls had been constructed. An Act of Parliament was therefore obtained authorising trustees to levy rates and raise loans. By 1793 the church was in use but in 1811 a further Act was necessary to pay off loans of £4000 and to raise as much again to build the tower, a task completed the following year. By the time the final loan repayments were made, in 1876, the church had cost some £30,000.

The local gentry and tradesmen responsible for all this were originally led by Gibbs Crawfurd, M.P., whose house Saint Hill was being built at the same time. It was probably he who secured one of the leading architects of the day, James Wyatt, to design the church, which is still structurally as he planned it, except for the tower, modified by William Inwood, a protégé of Charles Abbot, Speaker of the House of Commons, who settled at Kidbrooke, Forest Row, in 1805 and soon came to the fore in the rebuilding work.
 

Interior facing east.

Normally at this date such a church would be in classical style on basilican plan or an open hall without aisles or dividing columns. It would be roofed by a plaster decorated barrel vault. However, here Wyatt combined the requirements of the Church at the time with a respect for the earlier traditional mediaeval church on the site, displaying remarkable sensitivity a generation before the establishment of the Gothic Revival. Thus, for example, his pillars are very like those in the previous church and he provided a small structural chancel.

A programme of restoration in 1874 inaugurated the present appearance of the interior by removing Wyatt's plastered paneling from the walls, taking down his flat ceiling, converting one bay of the nave into a choir and installing the present seating. In 1876 the present roof was put in. Stained glass began to be inserted in the windows at about the same time. Since then chapels have been formed either side of the choir, east windows have been inserted in them, an organ has been built in the gallery intended for singers and instrumentalists, and numerous furnishings and decorations have been installed.

Walk Round the Inside

STARTING at the south door (the one nearest the High Street) and walking to the back of the church, notice first the brasses of the two husbands of Dame Katherine Grey (died 1505) and an unknown man of c. 1520 where her figure should be. These and other memorials are all that survive from the old church. On the walls above and at the back of the church are four hatchments, coats of arms carried at funerals, of members of the Sackville/Compton, Nevill/Pelham and Cranston/Newland families. Under the gallery, on the wall, is a photograph of the historic church plate, now on show in Chichester cathedral treasury, and (dated 1713) the first of four cast-iron slabs, memorials from the days of the local iron industry. The next such slab, however, on the north wall, is actually a fireback cast in the mould made for a graveslab of 1591 at Crowhurst, Surrey.

The window above it (illustrated above) shows John Mason Neale, the hymn writer and founder of St. Margaret's Convent in the town, depicted in front of Sackville College, East Grinstead, where he was Warden, 1846-66. With him are other nineteenth century church leaders with Sussex connections. His prayer desk is in the Chapel of the Nativity at the far end of this side of the church, together with the console from which the organ is played and some pipes from predecessor on which the then vicar painted portraits of some of the parishioners.
 

Passing through the chapel, stand in front of the sanctuary, which has some fine monuments on its walls and floor. The mosaic was the work in prison of Constance Kent, a girl condemned in 1865 for the murder of her half-brother. The statues, by Miss Elizabeth Dempster, represent St Swithun (with ducks to recall the rain associated with his day) and St Edmund, a ninth century East Anglian king martyred by Danish archers. Step back to see, on the arch overhead, Christ in glory by Sebastian Comper.

Turning to the centre of the church, pass through the screen by Arthur Blomfield (1919) bearing a crucifix by Sir Ninian Comper (1961). In front lie two more iron graveslabs, including the oldest dated example in the country (1570), and some gravestones brought in from the churchyard in hopes of preserving them longer under cover as good examples of their kind.

The Memorial Chapel in the next corner, also designed by Blomfield (1920), commemorates the dead of both world wars. The stonework arch in the wall in front of it is, like the similar ones on the opposite wall, the entrance to a private burial vault. To enter it the arch has to be unblocked and the floor taken up.

The seats in the church date from 1874. The shields of arms of local families on the ends were carved by East Grinstead Boy Scouts in the 1930s and the embroidered kneelers, each incorporating a different design of significance to the donors, were worked by church members in the 1980s.

Locked away when not in use during services are the processional cross, from a design by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, and the churchwardens' staves made in 1931 by a local craftsman, Mr F. C. Hounsome. The parish registers (dating from 1558) and other documents are in the Diocesan Record Office at Chichester. Also out of sight are the bells in the tower, the largest peal in the county, recast in 1982 and later augmented to thirteen to commemorate the centenary of the Sussex Ringers' Association. The clock in the tower dates from 1813.

A Walk Round the Outside
LEAVING the church at the back door under the tower and turning right, come to the hall built in 1971 to the designs of the Hubbard Ford partnership, then the north doors made in 1926 by the Yorkshire craftsman Robert Thompson using a traditional adze and 'signed' like all his work with a carved mouse. The churchyard contains a fine collection of gravestones, worth studying for their inscriptions and carving, art forms easily overlooked. It was closed to burials in 1868, preserving it from unsympathetic later developments, but in 1960 part was converted to a garden of remembrance for ashes from cremations, and displaced stones were laid along the boundary. In the south east corner is the memorial to John Mason Neale designed by G. F. Street in 1866 and given a formal setting for his centenary in 1966. Near the main entrance to the church are three large slabs put down early this century over the supposed remains of three people burnt to death in the town for their Protestant faith in 1556.

Today and Tomorrow
The people of East Grinstead are proud of their parish church and raised over £500,000 for a restoration programme still in progress to put it in a sound state of repair and renewal. For its members it is a base for the worship and service that characterise the Christian life. It is open every day for regular services and for those seeking a place of peace and quiet for reflection or prayer. It is also used for special occasions of all kinds, not only religious celebrations but concerts and other events too. The building, the clergy and the members are always available to help in whatever way they can. You can see more about the work of St. Swithun's Restoration Trust on their website www.therestorationtrust.org..