A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 6 Part 3, Bramber Rape (North-Eastern Part) Including Crawley New Town. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1987.
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'Lower Beeding: Nonconformity', in A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 6 Part 3, Bramber Rape (North-Eastern Part) Including Crawley New Town, (London, 1987) pp. 28. British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/sussex/vol6/pt3/p28 [accessed 25 April 2024]
NONCONFORMITY.
Four recusants were listed in St. Leonard's Forest in 1625. (fn. 1)
There was at least one Quaker at Bewbush in the 1650s, and on one occasion before 1661 the Horsham meeting was held in Lower Beeding. (fn. 2)
A Particular Baptist chapel on the north side of Mill Lane at Crabtree was built in 1835, the premises serving also for a day school in 1851. On Census Sunday in the latter year 50 attended the morning and 60 the afternoon service. Both then (fn. 3) and later the minister was non-resident. (fn. 4) The chapel was still used in 1874, but services had ceased by 1896. (fn. 5)
There was no chapel at Colgate in 1875, when the three families of dissenters who lived there attended chapels at Horsham or Handcross (in Slaugham). (fn. 6) A small brick Baptist chapel seating 100 was built there in 1890, and survived in 1909. (fn. 7)