Providence Chapel, Charlwood

Providence Chapel
The chapel from the east
Location map and quick summary Providence Chapel The chapel shown within Surrey 51°09′24″N 0°13′08″W / 51.1567°N 0.2188°W / 51.1567; -0.2188 Location Chapel Road, Charlwood, Surrey RH6 0DA Country United Kingdom Denomination Strict Baptist Previous denomination Independent Calvinistic History Former name(s) Charlwood Union Chapel Founded c. 1814 Founder(s) Joseph Flint Events c. 1800: built in Horsham as a barracks 1815 or 1816: moved to Charlwood Associated people C.T. Smith (pastor, 1816–1834) Architecture Status Chapel Functional status Closed Heritage designation Grade II* Designated 7 April 1983 Architectural type Timber-framed Style New England Vernacular Completed 15 November 1816 Closed c. 2010 Specifications Number of floors 1 Floor area 1,354 square feet (125.8 m2) Materials Weatherboarding and timber framing on brick base; slate roof

Weatherboarding and timber framing on brick base; slate roof

Coordinates: 51°09′24″N 0°13′08″W / 51.1567°N 0.2188°W / 51.1567; -0.2188

Providence Chapel (founded as Charlwood Union Chapel) is a former Nonconformist place of worship in the village of Charlwood in the English county of Surrey. Founded in 1816 on the outskirts of the ancient village, it was associated with Independent Calvinists and Strict Baptists throughout nearly two centuries of religious use. The "startling" wooden building—remarkably un-English with its simple veranda-fronted style—had seen several years of service as an officers' mess at a nearby barracks. The chapel was put up for sale in 2012.English Heritage has listed it at Grade II* for its architectural and historical importance, but because of its poor condition it is also on that body's Heritage at Risk Register.

Joseph Flint was an early 19th-century shopkeeper in the village of Charlwood on the Surrey/Sussex border. Unlike most residents at the time, he was a Protestant Nonconformist and from around 1814 worshipped in a cottage with a small group of like-minded people rather than at St Nicholas' Church, the Anglican parish church. Meanwhile, during the Napoleonic Wars, a barracks existed in the Sussex market town of Horsham. A wooden guardroom or officers' mess was erected there in about 1800. After the war the barracks was decommissioned, and the timber mess building was dismantled and transported on wagons to Charlwood. There the "strange [and] quaint" structure was re-erected in a field on a dirt track north of the village, and on 15 November 1816 it opened as an Independent Calvinistic chapel for Flint and his fellow worshippers. The opening sermons at Charlwood Union Chapel, as it was originally called, were preached by ministers from chapels at Epsom and Dorking. Epsom had an Independent Calvinistic chapel of its own—the denomination was "closely associated with Surrey" in the 18th and 19th centuries;Bugby Chapel was opened there in 1779.