Parish History
St Wilfrid’s Church has been part of Haywards Heath since the earliest days of the town. As well as providing a place of worship for the living Church of today, the building also reflects the history of the church, town and people in its memorials and windows both in and around the church.
A short history and guide written by the past Rector Rev. Ray Smith (written in 2001)
ST WILFRID’S CHURCH – EARLY DAYS
In the first years of the 1800s Haywards Heath consisted of two inns, eight farmhouses, one windmill with a house (on the site of St Wilfrid’s Church), and nine cottages. The area was part of the Parish of Cuckfield.
The residents of Cuckfield successfully resisted the construction of the London to Brighton Steam Railway and its route was diverted across the heath – the rail track being laid in a cutting and tunnel through the highest point of the heath. The spoil heap is there today alongside Victoria Park. The rail track reached Haywards Heath in July 1841 and the railway soon encouraged a rapid growth of the town of Haywards Heath, and the decline of the coaching services upon which Cuckfield’s prosperity was founded.
In early 1856 one of Cuckfield Parish’s Assistant Curates, The Revd J.H. Cooper, held Anglican Services on Sunday afternoons in the loft of a carpenter’s shop near the Station. In May 1856 The Revd Robert Edward Wyatt began his ministry in Haywards Heath and continued with these loft services until the building of the Church School opposite the Star Hotel. From 16th December 1856 Matins and Evensong were held in the School Building every Sunday and Holy Communion once a fortnight.
THE BUILDING OF ST WILFRID’S CHURCH
St Wilfrid’s Day School opened on 1st April 1857 with Mr Newington as the first Head Master. The Church Services continued on each Sunday in the School with the area shut off “all the week by folding doors”.
At first the town was centred around the Market Place and Boltro Road with houses being built along the main roads such as South Road, Paddockhall Road and Perrymount Road.
The 1860s was a period of rapid expansion and, on the east side of the town, the Sussex Asylum was opened in 1859.
At the end of 1861 the plans for a permanent church for Haywards Heath were initiated and in 1862 the site was provided for the church by the ‘Inclosure Commissioners’.
On St Wilfrid’s Day 1863 the corner stone of the church was laid by Miss Dealtry of Bolnore, who with her sister gave generously to the building fund. The Church was designed by Mr G.F. Bodley R.A. and was built by Mr John Fabrian of Brighton. The building work continued throughout 1864, on a hill, 300 ft. above sea level – the highest point in Haywards Heath, and at the centre point of the old county of Sussex. The Church was built of local stone quarried at Birch Green on the Franklynns Estate and the low spired tiled Sussex tower is 88ft. high.
St Wilfrid’s Church was consecrated on Monday 5th June 1865 – St Boniface’s Day – by Bishop Gilbert, and a service of Holy Communion was celebrated for the first time on the following day. On this date St Wilfrid’s became a separate ecclesiastical parish with The Revd R.E. Wyatt as the first Vicar. Haywards Heath at last had its own church and parish.
CHURCH PLANTING AND EXPANSION
Haywards Heath continued to expand and the Parish of St Wilfrid’s responded by providing new and local churches. Called “Mission Churches” they were staffed by assistant curates. The Revd T. G. Wyatt (the Vicar’s son) was appointed as assistant curate in 1879, and The Revd F. H. Talbot was appointed in 1880 serving the parish for seventeen years.
Fifteen old thatched cottages formed the area known as the ‘America’ settlement – thirteen of them in Lindfield Parish. Miss Mary Otter (Bishop Otter’s sister) had a pastoral concern for these inhabitants and services were held in one of the cottages from Lent 1880. It was by her generosity that the first iron clad Mission Room was opened in New England Road on 15th August 1882. The building was enlarged in 1886 and on the Festival of The Presentation of Christ in the Temple (2nd February) it was opened and received its dedication name – The Chapel of the Presentation.
It was Mary Otter’s generosity which built the permanent brick church which survives to this day and was opened on 15th August 1897. The iron building remained in use as the Church Hall until it was burnt in 1979, and the new hall built on the same site in 1983.
The Triangle area was developed in the early 1870s but it was not until 28th May 1895 that the chapel of the Ascension was opened in Asylum Twitten (now St John’s Road) following the enlargement of the parish to take in Asylum Corner from Wivelsfield and Keymer Parishes.
A NEW PARISH
On 5th June 1897, in the Jubilee Year of Queen Victoria, the northern part of Haywards Heath was served by a new Church which opened in Sydney Road. Dedicated as the Chapel of the Holy Spirit, the site was given by Dr T. A. Compton.
On 1st October 1916 the division of St Wilfrid’s Parish began when the Conventional District of St Richard was formed. This was a trial period for St Richard’s District which demanded that the proposed new parish could prove its financial independence. A house and garden and a site for a Parish Room was given by the Vicar of St Wilfrid’s. A Parish Room at the top of Paddockhall Road which had opened in September 1908 for “ …the northern part of the parish” was consequently closed in 1917.
The foundation stone of the new St Richard’s Church was laid on Sunday 5th September 1937 and the Church was opened on St Richard’s Day on 3rd April 1938 with its parish status following from 14th March 1939.
Today the two parishes of St Richard and St Wilfrid form a legally constituted Group Ministry which came into operation on 1st April 1980 – the same day as the Team Ministry of St Wilfrid’s Parish. The Group Ministry intended a closer co-operation between the Anglican Churches of Haywards Heath and the possibility of a shared strategy for mission to the whole town.
A CENTURY OF CHANGE AND WAR
On Easter Day 1906 some 566 communicants worshipped in all the churches of St Wilfrid’s Parish as against 26 in the room at the Carpenter’s Shop on Easter Day 1856.
St Wilfrid’s Church Lad’s Brigade Drill Hall in Gower Road opened on 16th February 1898 – the gift of Miss Grey of Hollywood. The Hall was taken over by the Red Cross Hospital from 1st April 1917 for the remainder of the War. It was closed in 1965.
The London Rifle Brigade arrived in Haywards Heath for the 1914/15 winter months with their Chaplain, The Revd Guy Vernon Smith. St Wilfrid’s Church was used for Battalion services and choir practices. The Chaplain instructed and encouraged some 500 soldiers of the Battalion who passed through Haywards Heath en-route to the trenches of the front line, many receiving their first and their last communion at St Wilfrid’s Church. In February 1918 a loss of clergy to the forces reduced the number of services across the Parish.
The Upper Churchyard was full and closed on 5th June 1918, exactly nineteen years after the consecration of the Lower Churchyard in 1899.
Between the two World Wars the first Ascension Church was closed and moved to the old Congregational Church in Wivelsfield Road (now the Scout Hut). This Church was known as St Edmunds & served the area until 1966.
During the Second World War the tower of St Wilfrid’s served as an observation post for fire-watchers and the church vestry was an ARP Warden’s Post. A telephone insulator can still be seen outside the Vestry – probably from that era, and the remains of a red ARP or Shelter notice is on the boiler room staircase.
THE TEAM PARISH
In the post-war years the expansion of Haywards Heath continued, and once again the Parish was challenged by the demands of new communities in the Sheppeys and Beech Hill areas.
Franklands Village had been built between 1933 and 1939. Services were first held in a room above the Village Hall from 1948 and on Sunday 5th December 1965 a new wooden church was dedicated to The Good Shepherd on land leased from the landowners of Frankland’s Village. The Church was extended in the early 1990s.
In the Sheppeys area during 1966, a new Church of the Ascension was built. This prefabricated wooden building replaced St Edmunds Church on Sussex Road. The Ascension Church was rebuilt in the 1997/8 winter following the deterioration of the wooden cladding.
The Team Ministry was established on 1st April 1980, with the District Churches of The Presentation, The Good Shepherd and The Ascension moving from the status of daughter churches with curates-in-charge, to Churches with Team Vicars of Incumbent status.
In the first months of 1997 St Wilfrid’s Church was reordered. The pews were replaced by chairs and a new floor was laid. Some original Victorian floor and wall tiles were restored and a new organ built by Kenneth Tickell was placed on the new balcony during 1998.
As the parish entered its third century and a new millennium hard questions were confronting our national church about falling attendance, and the costs of sustaining the ministry and church buildings. In Haywards Heath we were also caught up in the pressure to meet our full costs or reduce our overheads. After months of difficult discussion and the publication of a working group report the Church of the Good Shepherd was closed after morning services on the 29th June 2003.
© 2001 The Revd Ray Smith