Faculty to enable the Rector (P G Crofts) to take down the old church in 1839

(NB A Faculty is the church’s equivalent of Planning Permission.
It is issued by the legal department of the Diocese of Chichester.

The Petition reads as follows:

That the said parish of St John contained according to the last census, 2,421 inhabitants.
That the present church contained only 270 sittings, of which 214 were appropriated to individuals as Private sittings and only 56 were free and inappropriated.
That in order to remedy so great a want of church accommodation within the parish, it had been proposed to take down the present church and erect on a piece of Glebeland adjoining a new church to contain 1000 sittings, 500 at least of which were to be free and that by voluntary subscription and other means a large portion of the expense to be incurred had been raised.