The original chapel was founded in 1784. This became too small, so a second chapel seating 500 people was erected in 1824. You can see this building in the picture.

This chapel was known as the Ebenezer Chapel (Ebenezer means 'stone of help'), and the original stone is now built into the wall of the current church building.

THE BOMB

On Friday 31st May 1940 at 5:15 the old Congregational Church building was bombed by one of our own planes! 

The church and school hall were completely destroyed, and two cottages were also damaged. Thankfully there was no loss of life, the church and school being empty at the time. The only casualties were three slightly hurt in one of the Church Cottages.

The bomb was dropped from one of nine ALBACORE aeroplanes from 826 Squadron Fleet Air Arm based at Detling. They were returning from a raid on Nieuport Harbour in Belgium. Each of the planes carried six bombs weighing 250 lbs. It was one of those bombs that fell onto the church, the bomb having been left hanging in the rack all the way from Belgium.

50th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS

A licence for the building of the new church was issued on 26th January 1950, and the present United Reformed Church building was erected in 1952. In 2002 many friends joined us for a 50th anniversary celebration, as you can see from the picture.