A new landmark at the entrance to Alfold
Alfold Chapel stands above Loxwood Road at the western approach to the village, where its red brick and steep roofs form a familiar landmark. Its story began in a dispersed rural parish of farms, cottages, woodland holdings and estate properties. The 1881 census records agricultural labourers, farmers, carters, gardeners, domestic servants, shopkeepers, a rural post messenger and a licensed victualler among the households of Alfold Street and the surrounding lanes. These occupations place the chapel within a community whose weekly routines followed livestock, crops, household service and journeys on foot along heavy Wealden roads.
The village Board School had opened in 1876 and soon became a useful public meeting place. During the early 1880s, Sunday evening services held there drew crowded congregations. The Reverend J. F. Cottam, a minister involved in these preliminary meetings, helped to demonstrate the strength of local interest. The gatherings attracted the attention of Samuel and Mrs Barrow, a prosperous evangelical couple who were already financing chapels and ministers across Surrey.
Samuel and Mrs Barrow build at Alfold
Samuel Barrow had made his fortune through the family tannery business in Bermondsey and Redhill. He and his wife directed part of that wealth towards chapel building, beginning at Redhill and Merstham in 1875, followed by Horley and Godstone in 1879 and Fern Hill in 1880. After their move into the Alfold-Dunsfold district, they supported chapels at Alfold, Dunsfold and Burningfold.
Their friend Thomas Rowland Hooper designed the Alfold building. Hooper was an architect associated with several Barrow chapels, and his plan combined a principal worship space with a schoolroom and vestry. Henry Spooner, a builder based at Alfold Bars who later worked on Loxwood Parish Church, constructed the group in local brick. Samuel Barrow purchased the prominent site and met the principal cost, while village supporters subscribed towards the seats.
Alfred Barrow, named on the commemorative stone as the person who laid it, performed the ceremony on 29 May 1883. The inscription quoted Matthew 6:33: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” Construction advanced through the summer. A report in the West Surrey Times praised the open timber roofs, stained and varnished woodwork, plentiful light, ventilation and comfort. The chapel could hold about 250 people, and the site and buildings cost about £600.
Opening day: 5 September 1883
The new chapel opened on Wednesday 5 September 1883, a day described by the West Surrey Times as the beginning of “a new era in Alfold”. The afternoon service brought ministers and visitors from London, Guildford, Limpsfield, Godstone, Horley, Tunbridge Wells and neighbouring villages. The Reverend W. Cuff, Baptist minister of Shoreditch Tabernacle, preached the principal sermon, while the Reverend Cottam and other ministers joined the service.
Gifts from the Barrow family and their friends furnished the interior. Mrs Barrow presented an American organ, Samuel Barrow junior supplied eight oil lamps, and E. Catchpole junior gave a pulpit Bible. These objects supported the chapel’s central activities: Scripture, preaching, congregational singing and evening worship.
After the afternoon service, 170 people gathered in a large tent beside the chapel for tea. Admission cost sixpence, and cut flowers decorated the tables. The evening meeting filled the chapel again. W. V. Cook sang “Sowing the Seed”; Thomas and Alice Botting, members of the musical family at Brewhurst Mill near Loxwood, contributed a refrain; and Miss Barrow accompanied the singers on the new organ. Plans were announced for a library in the schoolroom and a singing class led by Thomas Botting.
Samuel Barrow explained the personal purpose behind the schoolroom. At nine years old he had been hired to a neighbouring farmer for one shilling a week and his board. Sunday School had supplied his main opportunity for education. He wanted Alfold children to receive Christian teaching, encouragement, reading practice and the confidence that he associated with his own early lessons.
Sunday School and the Band of Hope
The Sunday School began with the chapel. A surviving girls’ register records Ellen Denyer and Ada Henly entering a class on 7 October 1883 and Emma Routley on 4 November. Their enrolment within weeks of the opening shows how quickly the schoolroom gained its intended purpose. Anniversaries, winter parties and harvest suppers soon created a regular chapel year, with children singing, reciting and taking part in special services.
Temperance work followed early in 1884. The Alfold Band of Hope was formally organised on 21 February with fortnightly members’ meetings and monthly public gatherings. Six new pledges brought its recorded membership to seventy-eight. Addresses, hymns, recitations and organised outings joined moral teaching with recreation. Fifty people marched through the village singing hymns on Easter Monday 1884. Members later travelled by train to Brighton, and eighty members and friends visited Hastings in June 1885.
Ministry, trust and changing stewardship
From about 1885, the Reverend F. Joseph served Alfold, Dunsfold and Burningfold. Samuel and Mrs Barrow financed his ministry, and he travelled among the three rural congregations for about eighteen years. After his departure in 1903, visiting preachers continued the services. Some arrived by horse and trap, others by bicycle or on foot, and chapel families supplied lunch and tea.
On 5 September 1888 Samuel Barrow conveyed the chapel to trustees for Particular Baptist worship. The trustee list connected Alfold with Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the prominent London Baptist preacher, together with members of his family and ministry network. The deed provided for the chapel to become a preaching station of Spurgeon’s Pastors’ College if membership fell to six, and it named the Stockwell Orphanage as a later safeguard for continued Christian use. Spurgeon had founded the college to train ministers and the orphanage to house and educate vulnerable children.
The building entered Methodist stewardship in May 1905. Baptist trustees acquired it again in September 1915 for £250, establishing the ownership under which the congregation continued through the twentieth century.
Outings, missions and practical change
The chapel year developed with the changing possibilities of travel. Early Sunday School outings took place in a field at Tickner’s Heath. Later, children and parents rode by horse wagon to Billingshurst Station and continued by train to Bognor Regis. On the journey home they searched the roadside banks for glow-worms. Motor lorries with solid rubber tyres eventually carried the party all the way to the coast.
From the First World War to the approach of the Second, visiting evangelists held summer children’s missions in the field opposite the chapel. A canvas tent filled with hymns, Bible verses, recitations and evening meetings for parents. During the Second World War an evangelistic caravan housed the missioner, while services used the chapel or open air according to the weather.
Oil lamps continued to light winter worship until 1937, when the Cranleigh Motor Company installed electricity. The change brought steady light to the chapel and schoolroom for evening services, classes and meetings.
Welfare, youth work and the chapel today
From 1947 to 1972 Surrey County Council hired the schoolroom about once a fortnight as a welfare centre, extending the room’s long service to local families. Youth work expanded in 1959 with a boys’ Covenanter group led by John Hendy and John Pullen. A girls’ group followed in 1960 under Joyce Horder, and Janet Hendy began Junior Covenanters in 1964. The boys’ and girls’ organisations united as Covenanters in 1982.
In 1983 the Reverend J. Clement Connell, the minister who compiled the centenary history, gathered registers, minute books, accounts and personal memories into Alfold Chapel: A Brief History 1883-1983. His work preserved the voices and details behind the dates: long walks through Sidney Wood, seaside outings, mission tents, oil lamps and generations of children in the schoolroom.
Alfold Chapel remains an evangelical place of worship in the original Victorian building. Its current congregation meets on Sunday mornings, with Bible teaching, hymns and gospel songs continuing the purpose established in 1883.
Conclusion
The chapel’s story joins philanthropy, local craftsmanship and sustained village participation. Samuel and Mrs Barrow provided the building and ministry; local families furnished seats, taught children, welcomed preachers, organised meals and maintained the programme. The red-brick landmark still carries the character formed on its opening day: worship, teaching, music, hospitality and fellowship.
