A chapel for the northern farms
Holy Trinity stands beside the pond and opposite Ye Olde Sun Inn, where roads from Kirdford, Ifold, Shillinglee, Dunsfold and Chiddingfold meet. This crossroads was already the centre of worship long before the present church. Plaistow formed the northern part of Kirdford’s extensive parish, and families from its farms and woodland holdings faced a journey of about three miles to the mother church. Winter rain turned the Wealden clay into deep ruts, giving a local chapel an essential place in parish life.
The setting also lay close to the boundary between two dioceses. Plaistow, Kirdford, Loxwood and Wisborough Green belonged to Chichester, while nearby Alfold and Dunsfold stood within the diocese of Winchester. Loxwood’s inhabitants had been travelling to the nearby church at Alfold, because the route to Wisborough Green was difficult. in 1404 the Loxwood villagers petition led the Bishop of Chichester to authorise an oak framed oratory to be built which was completed by 1407. An oak framed chapel of ease was built at Loxwood in about 1447. Plaistow’s Chapel of St Thomas is thought to have followed around 1480.
St Thomas takes shape
The Plaistow chapel was constructed in the regional timber-framed tradition, using local oak, woven wattle and clay daub. It followed the east-west orientation customary for a church. Worshippers entered at the west, probably passed first through a threshold or narthex and gathered in the nave. The chancel and stone altar occupied the eastern end. A rood beam, cross and attendant figures, would have marked the approach to the sanctuary. Plain oak benches, candles, altar cloths, service books, vessels and an image or light associated with St Thomas completed the interior.
The chapel at Plaistow compares architecturally with the Loxwood worship. The 1404 oratory combined sacred space with accommodation for the priest in the west bay. The 1805 view of Plaistow shows a similar bay projecting from the chapel’s south wall beneath a hipped roof. The bay is believed to have provided a priest’s house, lodging or office, giving the serving clergyman a place to prepare, keep books and vestments, receive parishioners and stay when duties required. Both sites used compact timber-framed forms suited to the wooded border country.
Robert Osborne and John Phelyp
Robert Osborne brings Plaistow chapel into the written record. Osborne was vicar of Kirdford and lived at Plaistow. In 1520 his will was proved in the chapel before an ecclesiastical official. He asked to be buried in Kirdford chancel before the image of Our Lady, linking his Plaistow residence with the mother church where he served and expected burial.
On 18 February 1527 John Phelyp, also known as John Mylle, of Wisborough Green granted Richard Mose of Kirdford an acre beside the Chapel of St Thomas at Playstowh and the highway towards Chiddingfold. The deed was issued at Loxwood. Will extracts containing the Phylippe name and gifts made by George Cowye to Loxwood chapel place the transaction within a network of families who moved between Plaistow, Loxwood, Wisborough Green and Kirdford and supported local worship through land, rents and bequests.
Reformation, prayer and parish memory
The Chapel of St Thomas was created for the late-medieval Mass. During the Reformation its rood, images, lights and stone altar would have been removed as worship changed under successive Tudor governments. The neighbouring churches preserve two striking altar traditions. Loxwood villagers concealed their altar stone in the chimney of the former priest’s house; it later reached Wisborough Green and returned to worship in the 1930s. At Alfold, a fossiliferous altar slab is traditionally associated with concealment beneath the nave floor and recovery during the restoration of 1845-46. The later history of the altar stones and principal medieval fittings from Plaistow and Kirdford remains unclear in surviving records.
A coloured parchment estate plan of about 1607, now held at Surrey History Centre in Woking, shows the church, houses and barns at the crossroads, with a tower and spire drawn in elevation. Around 1670 Plaistow residents petitioned about the provision of services, showing the value placed upon regular worship. In August 1815 the chapel hosted a thanksgiving sermon after Waterloo, carrying national victory and local bereavement into the same small building.
The chapel beside the Sun
The 1805 drawing records St Thomas during its later life. The long chapel stands beneath a steep roof with a small belfry towards the west. The south range projects towards the road, and the signboard of the Sun stands in the foreground. Ye Olde Sun Inn, a building of seventeenth-century or earlier origin, was next to the chapel, and may have been early accommodation for the priest.
By the early 1850s the timber chapel was significantly damaged by a fire and was beyond repair. The Plaistow Hamlet recorded by the 1851 census contained 127 people within that enumerator’s route, while farms and cottages in the wider landscape also used the chapel. A larger church would serve the expanding pattern of village worship, schooling and estate life.
Joseph Butler builds Holy Trinity
Joseph Butler, a Chichester architect and surveyor who worked with architect Richard Cromwell Carpenter during the restoration of Chichester Cathedral, prepared the replacement plan in May 1853. His drawing, titled Plan of the New Chapel at Plastow, is marked “Built 1853-4”. The old building was removed in 1854, and a newspaper recorded a grant of £41 from the Church Accommodation Society, which supported additional church seating, towards the work.
Butler designed an Early English Gothic chapel in weathered local sandstone. The nave measured about 55 feet by 26 feet and the chancel about 25 feet by 14 feet 6 inches. Lancet windows, an open English-oak roof, carved oak altar, pulpit and desk, low seating and a shingled spire created a clear Victorian church interior for about 300 worshippers. Horsham slabs on the south porch may preserve roofing material from St Thomas.
The Bishop of Chichester consecrated the church as Holy Trinity on 26 July 1856. The Reverend John Francis Cole, vicar of Kirdford, took part in the service, the bishop preached and the offertory raised almost £50. More than one hundred candidates attended the confirmation held that afternoon. A directory of 1867 described Plaistow as a large chapelry and recorded a service every Sunday. The village school opened nearby in 1869, bringing church and education together at the centre of Plaistow. Sunday services, confirmations and seasonal festivals now took place beside the daily movement of children, farm carts and travellers at the junction. The church supplied room for a choir, regular congregational singing and the growing pattern of Victorian parish activity, while its continuing status as a chapel of ease kept the vicar of Kirdford and the mother church within the life of Plaistow.
Clock, glass and a growing village
Holy Trinity developed with Plaistow. Work in 1882 adapted the church, and the clock added for Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887 turned the tower into the village timekeeper. In 1897 the stained-glass artist Charles Eamer Kempe supplied the east window above the altar, depicting the Nativity for the Diamond Jubilee. A single bell followed in 1909.
The 1901 census summary for the northern district containing Plaistow recorded 326 people in 77 inhabited houses. Its ecclesiastical heading joined “Kirdford St John the Baptist” with “Plaistow Holy Trinity”, preserving the relationship between chapel and mother church. Farmers, labourers, estate workers, tradespeople, servants and schoolchildren filled the church at baptisms, marriages, funerals, harvest services and village commemorations. Memorial glass and stone associated with the Winterton family of Shillinglee added the estate’s history to the interior.
Five centuries at the crossroads
Holy Trinity continues the work begun by St Thomas. The medieval chapel gave northern Kirdford a place of worship within reach of its farms and woodland homes. Thought to have followed the Loxwood chapel of ease during the later fifteenth century, it formed part of a network of worship serving communities near the diocesan border. Its priest’s range, altar, bell and east-west plan belonged to that local tradition. Butler’s sandstone church carried the congregation into a new architectural age while remaining a chapel of ease to Kirdford. The clock, bell, stained glass and memorials record later generations, and the church still occupies the crossroads where Plaistow first gathered for worship more than five centuries ago.
