A History of Rickford, Worplesdon

Mr. Hardiman, another Hackney student took over in 1850, and in 1851 married Mr Haymes’s daughter.  One might wonder if that was the primary reason for accepting the post, but in any case, he laboured faithfully until 1859, at which point he moved to Essex.  

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At this point, the Surrey Mission, through lack of funds, was having trouble giving support to its Chapels.  Meanwhile services were maintained at Perry Hill with tolerable regularity, first by local brethren, and then by Mr. Colebrook, a lay preacher from Guildford. 

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In 1862 the Mission again took charge of the district, and in October of that year appointed Mr. Lynn to Perry Hill, also covering Pirbright. He introduced singing classes, lectures, and popular readings in order to interest and instruct the villagers. In Pirbright, these were so successful that a large room in a cottage was used for services.

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Mr Lynn moved on in 1867, and The Rev WM Hawkins replaced him.  It was during Mr Hawkins’s tenure that the Providence Chapel at Pirbright was built.

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1869-1890:  Association with the Pirbright Providence Chapel

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In August 1869, a Mr. Benjamin Smith of London Wall built the Providence Chapel at Pirbright, with a manse adjoining.  He had owned the property since 1866, but why he had chosen to buy property in Pirbright and then build a chapel on the site is a mystery.  He handed the Chapel and the manse over to the Mission, and this began a period of association between the Perry Hill and Pirbright Chapels.  

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Mr Hawkins resigned in 1870 to enter Nottingham College.  Excerpts from the local newspaper report are revealing:  He was "a man who fearlessly urged on the work of civilisation generally, irrespective of creed.  He did his best to set the ball rolling.  Well known for his indefatigable efforts to intellectualise the agricultural population of this village.  He was pre-eminently a man of the times.  He leaves pleasant memories behind him and bearing with him the good wishes of all".

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Job Fifield (born in Gloucestershire in 1830), who had previously been evangelist at Ewhurst, was appointed minister of the Perry Hill Chapel, but also had a responsibility for Pirbright as well.  He lived in the manse, next door to the new Providence Chapel in Pirbright.  At a meeting to mark the second anniversary of the opening of the Chapel, he said “His desire was the formation of an evangelical union, eschewing all denominationalism, for the 2 parishes of Pirbright and Worplesdon.”  He noted that his predecessor, Mr Hawkins had “battled with Sunday cricketing, and had raised his voice on the Village Green against Sabbath desecration”, and noted that “even now, on his way to Perry Hill on Sunday morning, he saw boys, youths and even men indulging in that highly intellectual pursuit of pitch and toss”.  He reported that around 50 people attended the Perry Hill services, and 70 attended at Pirbright (out of a total population of around 2,800).

[If you’re interested, pitch and toss is a game in which all players toss a penny at a mark (eg a stone), and the player who pitches their coin nearest to the mark has the first chance to toss all the coins, winning those that land heads up.  It was played until the 1960’s]

In 1871, Job Fifield started a Band of Hope at Perry Hill Chapel.  This national organisation had been formed in 1847 in Leeds with an objective to teach children the importance and principles of sobriety and teetotalism.  It must have tapped into a real social issue of the times, as by the end of the century it had over 3 million members.  Thereafter it declined in popularity, and it exists today as the charity Hope UK (covering not just alcohol, but all drugs, including cigarettes).

During the 1880’s Perry Hill and Pirbright Chapels dissociated somewhat from each other (the reasons may have been denominational – the Pirbright Chapel had leant towards Baptist teaching – but this distinction is outside the author’s area of knowledge).  We will leave the Pirbright Chapel to itself, and restrict ourselves here to coverage of Perry Hill Chapel, but not before recording what happened to Job Fifield.  Job remained as pastor of Pirbright Providence Chapel until his death in 1892.  By then he had also taken on the role of Non-conformist chaplain at the Woking Necropolis (now known as Brookwood Cemetery).  The Rev W Farris (see below) conducted the funeral service.  In 1898 Richard Fifield (a son of Job) became pastor at Pirbright, but soon after, he became a colporteur employed by the Metropolitan Tabernacle Colportage Association.  

[In case you don’t know, a colporteur is a door-to-door peddler of religious books and tracts....]

1890 onwards:  As an independent entity

In 1874, Perry Hill Chapel had been adopted by the Guildford Congregational Church, and William Farris (who was an assistant minister with that Church) was assigned responsibility for the Rydes Hill, Normandy and Perry Hill Chapels.  In 1882, Mr Farris gave an address to the Perry Hill Temperance meeting, “setting forth many reasons why working men, of all people, should be Total Abstainers”.  

By 1890, the local parishioners sought independence from the Guildford Congregational Church, and applied to the Surrey Mission for permission to become independent of it.  We are very fortunate to have the manuscript notes of Herbert Farris (William’s son) to shed light on what happened next.  

The minister at Guildford and some of the deacons there opposed this move to independence, but William marshalled enough support to win the day.  One of those supporters was Lord Henry Francis Hope Pelham-Clinton-Hope, a gentleman who owned an estate at Deepdene, Dorking, and who became the 8th Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne in 1928 on the death of his brother.  Lord Hope was living in Worplesdon at the time, and had stated that “people should have their freedom”.  

As a standby, in case the local community lost their bid for independence, and thereby lost the use of the Chapel, Lord Hope had a Mission Hall built, at his own expense, in the grounds of Perry Hill House, with the permission of Mr & Mrs Samuel Burch, who lived there and were staunch supporters of the Chapel.  It became known as Hope Hall.  This proved to be of great benefit to the Worplesdon congregational community, but things ended less well for Lord Henry.  The future duke married an American actress in 1894, lived an extravagant lifestyle, and became bankrupt in 1896.  During a world tour, his wife fell for an American gentleman, and refused to return to England.  The couple divorced in 1902.  Meanwhile Lord Hope had to sell much of his property, including Deepdene, in order to pay his debts.

 

In 1890, William Farris was appointed as minister at Perry Hill.  He also lived locally (at Highclere), and is notable not just for his energetic work at the Chapel, including the restoration work he was responsible for in 1896, as stated on the stone, but also for being the father of Henry Freeman Farris, who built 2 houses adjacent to the church (Farris’s Cottages).  

There was a drama on the day of William’s appointment.  His son relates how, that Sunday, both William and the Guildford minister arrived to conduct the service.  The congregation did not know what to do until the Chapel secretary arrived, waving a piece of paper from the Surrey Mission, confirming that the Chapel was now independent.  William entered the Chapel to take the service, while the Guildford minister returned to Guildford.  High drama in Worplesdon, indeed.

It is a little known fact that 2 young (less than 1 year old) children were buried by William Farris in 1890 in front of the Chapel.  This might seem a little odd to us today, but perhaps this was William exercising his right to do this as some sort of statement.  Whatever the circumstances, future burials of Rickford residents took place in St Mary’s churchyard, as they had done previously.

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The congregation increased significantly over the next few years, perhaps encouraged by the various social activities which had been introduced – outings, parties, tea meetings, etc.  However Herbert Farris describes the Chapel in those days as “a rather dreary place...a coke burning stove for heating, and oil lamps for light”, and by 1896, more space was required to meet the needs of the enlarged congregation.  

£400 was raised to fund the building work required, which comprised a new roof, new vestry and new rostrum, and the resulting renovations are now commemorated on the foundation stone at the entrance to the Chapel.  However the work was not without its complications:  Early excavations showed that the Chapel had no foundations, which created rather a problem for installing a new roof.  The architect’s solution was to build 7 buttresses to provide the necessary support, which required additional fundraising efforts to the tune of £200.  Mr Hope gave £10, and the Surrey Mission provided £5 (which seems rather paltry).  

Henry Rance had been invited to join the Chapel Committee during the year, and we must assume that he was involved in the building work – possibly as the main contractor.  One can only wonder whether, in those days, there was a requirement to put such work out to competitive tender.  Or was it possible that William Farris simply asked the builder who lived a few doors down the road to do the work?  Mr Rance was a regular at The New Inn, and so he and William would have had some philosophical differences on certain matters, I’m sure.

William Farris was clearly a character.  At a public meeting in 1899, an external speaker congratulated the church on its vitality, remarking that “the tone of its services was a striking contrast to the usually hum-drum services at the generality of village chapels”.  Albert Enever relates how William used to thump the top of the pulpit while delivering his sermons, and on one occasion he thumped so hard that the candles used for light jumped out of their sockets, and one landed on a lady’s lap.  He also notes that William was short in stature, and had to stand on a box to see over the pulpit.  On one occasion, he had just delivered the line “a little while he shall see me, a little while he shall not”, when the box broke.  William fell behind the pulpit amid much laughter from the congregation.