St John the Evangelist's Church, Burgess Hill
| St John the Evangelist's Church | |
|---|---|
St John's parish church from the west
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| 50°57′26″N 0°08′00″W / 50.9573°N 0.1332°WCoordinates: 50°57′26″N 0°08′00″W / 50.9573°N 0.1332°W | |
| Location | St John's Road/Crescent Road, Burgess Hill, West Sussex |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Denomination | Church of England |
| Website | stjohnsbh.org.uk |
| History | |
| Founded | 4 November 1861 |
| Dedication | John the Evangelist |
| Dedicated | June 1865 |
| Consecrated | June 1863 |
| Architecture | |
| Status | Parish church |
| Functional status | Active |
| Heritage designation | Grade II* |
| Designated | 22 April 1950 |
| Architect(s) | Thomas Talbot Bury |
| Style | Gothic Revival |
| Groundbreaking | October 1861 |
| Completed | June 1863 |
| Construction cost | £6,045.3s.3d. (£521,300 in 2017) |
| Administration | |
| Parish | Burgess Hill, St John |
| Deanery | Rural Deanery of Hurst |
| Archdeaconry | Horsham |
| Diocese | Chichester |
| Province | Canterbury |
| Clergy | |
| Vicar(s) | Kevin O'Brien |
St John the Evangelist's Church is the Church of England parish church of Burgess Hill, West Sussex, England. It is a Gothic Revival church built of local bricks. It was consecrated in 1863 and was the town's first Church of England church. Since then it has administered several other churches in the town as either mission chapels or daughter churches, but all have either closed or been given their own parishes. The church is a Grade II* Listed Building.
The area now covered by the town of Burgess Hill was, until the mid-19th century, rural common land that straddled the boundary of the parishes of Clayton and Keymer. The area developed as a settlement after the inclosure act for Keymer's part of St John's Common passed on 18 April 1828 was implemented, and the London and Brighton Railway Company opened its line from a temporary terminus at Haywards Heath to Brighton on 21 September 1841. The line passed through the area of St John's Common and the company opened Burgess Hill railway station on the same day. The railway stimulated residential development and the Keymer Brick and Tile Works, already well-established as Burgess Hill's main industry, was able to expand its sales. The inclosure of Clayton's part of the common was completed in 1857, and the town's growth accelerated.
From the early 1840s, Church of England worship was held in the school in London Road. When inclosure was completed in 1857, its inclosure act provided for 1.5 acres (0.6 hectares) of land to be reserved to build a church. This had been suggested in 1854, when a local newspaper noted that between them the schoolroom, Keymer parish church and Clayton parish church could not cope with the number of worshippers. There was an impasse until 1861: the land reserved for the church turned out to be too far away from where the town centre had developed, and even when a landowner offered 2 acres (0.8 hectares) of undeveloped land in the town centre free of charge, agreement was not reached. A group of landowners in Clayton parish was so angry at the proposal to move the church away from the site set by the inclosure act award that they took out a newspaper advertisement in July 1861 protesting against any change to this plan. They were ultimately unsuccessful, and building of the church began on the donated land.Thomas Talbot Bury had been commissioned to design it, and a building firm from Chichester submitted the successful bid for the building work. The Bishop of Chichester, Ashurst Turner Gilbert, laid the foundation stone on 4 November 1861, and building work continued until June 1863, when the church was consecrated.
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