Publications
Baptist Chapel and Hawkswood Sunday School, by Stephanie Jerrold, published June 2009 in Sussex Family Historian (vol. 18 no. 6, article, pp.318-320) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 15860] & The Keep [LIB/508973] & CD SFH40 from S.F.H.G.
Preview:It all started with such a short, simple statement, but then doesn't it always. After that I was hooked - again!
My husband and I were house-hunting, looking for that perfect bungalow to move into, that we could make our home. We were being shown round one that had distinct possibilities and then the estate agent said it! 'It used to be a chapel.' Well, it was like fuel to the fire of a genealogist's heart. Apart from the fact that the bungalow would suit us perfectly, there was that added interest of some history and yet more research to be done. And so it all began.
Of course I couldn't wait until we'd moved in before I started the research. I went straight down to the library to see what I could find out. Was it really a chapel? If so, which denomination? When was it built? Why wasn't it a chapel any more?
Over the following weeks, which incidentally contained exchange of contracts and completion, I found out the answers to these questions and many more, and of course there were, and still are, many more questions that were born of the answers to the first ones.
We live in what was called The Chalet, Falcon Way, Hailsham, which was originally Hawkswood Sunday School, and also used as the Baptist Chapel. It was built in 1917 and we have the original date stone with the initials 'S S' and the date '1917' on it.
My husband and I were house-hunting, looking for that perfect bungalow to move into, that we could make our home. We were being shown round one that had distinct possibilities and then the estate agent said it! 'It used to be a chapel.' Well, it was like fuel to the fire of a genealogist's heart. Apart from the fact that the bungalow would suit us perfectly, there was that added interest of some history and yet more research to be done. And so it all began.
Of course I couldn't wait until we'd moved in before I started the research. I went straight down to the library to see what I could find out. Was it really a chapel? If so, which denomination? When was it built? Why wasn't it a chapel any more?
Over the following weeks, which incidentally contained exchange of contracts and completion, I found out the answers to these questions and many more, and of course there were, and still are, many more questions that were born of the answers to the first ones.
We live in what was called The Chalet, Falcon Way, Hailsham, which was originally Hawkswood Sunday School, and also used as the Baptist Chapel. It was built in 1917 and we have the original date stone with the initials 'S S' and the date '1917' on it.