St James Church

Mrs Betty Lovejoy (nee Fitz-Simon) is the daughter of the former Rector and still lives in the village having married Arthur Lovejoy after his first wife, Bella, died.
 
She has many vivid memories and says:
 
 When my father came here the parish was almost entirely agricultural and most people lived in poverty. The only gentry, apart from very modest ones, were Mr and Mrs Fisher Unwin and Mr and Mrs Macdonald. The latter lived in Brown's Copse; he had been a Privy Councillor and she was a cousin to Philip Noel-Baker, later a Nobel Peace Prize winner, who stayed frequently with them and is buried in our churchyard.
Of the richer folk very few were actively church people, so the church shared the general poverty of the village. The church building itself was rather dark inside and was lit by oil lamps which gave a brownish light.
The east window was partially obscured by a plaster reredos (now removed), on either side were rectangular metal plaques bearing the Lord's Prayer, the Creed and the Ten Commandments.
The east end of the north aisle was a mess, the space between the front pew and the window being filled with brooms, spare hassocks and other paraphernalia.
In the 1920s Mrs Smallwood of North End had this renovated, and a side altar installed, in memory of her husband.
At the west end of the church, near the font, was a huge tortoise stove, the only means of heating. At Evensong in the winter the entire congregation would be bunched around this stove, leaving a vast space between themselves and the Rector and choir.
The normal Sunday services were 8.00 Holy Communion, 11.00 Matins and 6.30 Evensong, Once a quarer there was a 12.00 service of Holy Communion.
Towards the end of this regime a visiting parson failed to make a pause between Matins and the following service, and afterwards expressed to Leslie Parry, then Verger, his admiration at the number of communicants. 'You wouldn't have had half as many 'said Leslie ' if you had given them a chance to get out!'
The services were usually supported by a choir of six to eight men and the same number of boys, but on high festivals there were too many to fit into the stalls or indeed to robe in the vestry. They would process through the door singing the first hymn loudly.
The choir had some knowledge of singing because one of the schoolmasters has considerable skill in teaching it.
He was also a talented cricketer and coach and for some decades Heyshott had fielded a very respectable team.
There was also a girls choir, but its members were not robed and they sat in the front pews of the south aisle. They and the boys came to choir practice on Thursday evenings and were paid a penny or tuppence for doing so; There was a further payment for attendance on Sunday.
The organist in 1923 was Miss Edith Hutt; she was succeeded not long afterwards by Miss Edith Wright, who continued until her final illness in 1956.
 
The school was a church school and the two were in close liaison.
Sunday School was taken by the weekday teachers:
Mrs Davis in the top class, Miss Standing in the second and a succession of younger staff in the infants.
The Rector was a regular visitor, as indeed he was during the week.
On Good Friday, Ascension Day and Empire Day the whole school would be marched down to the church for a 10am service and then given the day off.

 
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A big proportion of Heyshott men had fought in the World War 1 and, on Whit Monday every year, the ex-servicemen held their annual reunion and dinner. They met at the school, marched in procession to the church for a service and marched back to the school for a hot dinner provided by the Mothers' Union. This was still a potent force in the village and remained so till the appearance of the W.I. in 1931. There was also a junior branch of the Mothers' Union, the Girls Friendly Society, who's members were enrolled in the church and enjoined to follow a rule of purity in thought, word and deed. Somehow it was never wildly successful!
 
Occasionally, in a fine summer, the pattern would be varied with a drumhead service instead of Evensong. I can remember one held on the Post Office Green in the 1920s, and a marvellously attended one behind Cobden Club in 1932. There was at the time a Church Army Mission to the village - its members encamped in caravans near the Foundry and one, or possible two, Guide Camps elsewhere.
They together with the choir, the Heyshott Brownies, the school and a large numbers of villagers made up a huge circle in the meadow.
The last of these services was run by the Rev Freddie Palmer in 1957.
 
The war memorial window in the south wall of the nave was dedicated in 1921 and records the names of the 14 young men who died. The names of the 9 who died in the Second World War were added later.
Many of the memorial tablets in the church and headstones in the churchyard have interesting inscriptions. They are all recorded in a file hanging at the back of the church.
The churchyard used to end just north of the present path to the vestry. It was extended twice, first in 1898 and then again shortly before 1939-45 War.
 
The earliest headstone which can be read is over 300 years old and stands under the yew tree in the south-west corner of the churchyard.
It commemorates Katherine Austen who died in 1693. She was a member of the Austen family which were prominent in the village for many years and after whom the village council houses are named. It is a great tribute to the stone mason that the wording is still so clear after so many years.

HERE LYETH THE BODY OF KATHERINE THE DAUGHTER OF NICHOLAS & SUSANA AUSTEN WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE THE 10TH DAY OF APRIL 1693       click to enlarge photograph