St Swithun’s Church
The Rebuilding of St Swithun’s Church
Following the fall of the tower of St Swithun’s
church, on 12 November 1785, some church
walls had to be pulled down. Some of the
present pillars and capitals were preserved and
are considered very fine examples of the late
Perpendicular style.
An Act of Parliament was passed in 1787 for the rebuilding of this church. The date 1789 is
engraved in a stone over the west door of the church. In the tower belfry, the date 1813 is
carved. The cost of rebuilding was about £30,000.
This was partly met by a ‘Brief’, which recommended collections in churches
throughout the land for parishes in distress. A brief for the sum of £4,000 for East
Grinstead was issued in 1786. The funds did not stretch to seating in the church, nor to
completion of the roof. A flat plaster roof was put up, and rushes were strewn over the
paving. The congregation brought their own chairs until 1806.
Briefs ceased in 1827. The Act abolishing compulsory Church Rates was passed in
1868, but in East Grinstead, Church Rates were still collected for another 7 years in order
to pay off loans for the rebuilding. ‘This did not improve relations between Church and
Town’, according to GM Smart, who wrote A Guide to East Grinstead Parish Church in
1975.
The church was designed by James Wyatt, architect (1746-1813). The stone was
quarried nearby at Selsfield, Blackwell and Wych Cross. After the death of Wyatt, the
tower was designed by JT Groves and the building was supervised by the brothers
Inwood. There is a story that Mr Speaker Abbot, who lived in Forest Row at Kidbrooke,
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required the tower to be 25 feet higher than the old one, so that he could see the weather
vane from his house. The last 25 feet proved to be very expensive. Mr Abbot bought
Kidbrooke in 1805. He apparently wrote to the Home Secretary asking for the bodies of
highwaymen, which were publicly displayed, to be removed before his wife travelled into
town (in a horse and carriage, of course). The original design for the church was never
completed: there were meant to be pinnacles on the side buttresses, too.
The finished church, on its hilltop site, was an imposing battlemented building in the
Perpendicular style. Clerestory windows were inset, but probably had plain glass at this
time. The clock was described as
being 8 feet in diameter with 13 inch
long hour figures and dots of 1¾
inches.
In 1836, a pinnacle was blown
down in a gale. It fell through the
church roof into the vicarage pew.
Another pinnacle fell in 1928. You can read about this and even see a photograph of men
on the roof, on St Swithun’s website: www.swithuneastgrinstead.org.uk/history
In 1868, JC Stenning was very critical of the appearance of this church in an article,
describing it as ‘somewhat poor in architectural detail’. He noted that there was a nave,
with 2 aisles, but no transept, and that the chancel was ‘small and meagre in comparison
with the body of the building’. The walls and ceilings were whitewashed, and there was ‘no
stained glass’. The windows of the south and north doors had ‘some diagonal pattern of a
bad blue and dingy yellow’ painted ‘in very questionable taste’. He concluded ‘This church
had the misfortune to be built when ecclesiastical architecure was at its lowest point’.
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There were pews in the nave with the names of farms and houses whose residents
sat there. Those pews were replaced in the next phase of the development of the church,
in the 1870s. Fortunately for us, since 1868, generous patrons have given the beautiful
stained glass windows which embellish the church today.
Caroline Metcalfe
Pictures:
History of the church from the notice board in the church porch
Fragments of the old church- a cross, and a Ducal crown (possibly for the Sackvilles,
who were Dukes of Dorset for 5 generations and who held the gift of the living of this
parish after 1554).
Sketch by JMW Turner Rebuilding the tower of St Swithun’s c. 1810
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-sackville-college-eastgrinstead-with-the-tower-of-st-r1134681, accessed 07 May 2015.
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