Horam – Christ Church

 


Horam was  a hamlet in the parish of Waldron and gained in importance after a station on the railway from Tunbridge Wells to Eastbourne was opened in 1880.  H P Monckton in 1890 (BN 89 p883) designed a modest brick chapel with lancets and an octagonal timber belfry, painted white, with one more elaborate window in a south transept-like projection.  Monckton added a chancel to match the earlier work in 1899 (CDG 70 p12).  The interior is plain with a roof that has solid arch-braces.

Plans for a larger replacement by W H Murray in 1914 came to nothing (Elleray (2004) p32) and a parish was only established in 1963, incorporating parts of Heathfield and Hellingly as well as Waldron (Youngs p513).  In 1973, as a foundation stone shows, the church was extended to north and west with a hall, cloakrooms etc in the utilitarian mode of the period with mostly flat roofs.  At the same time, the interior was modified with roof-lights to replace the north lancets now blocked by the extensions.   A further hall was built subsequently as a separate structure immediately south of the church, thereby effectively creating an enclosed space of which the vicarage forms the third side.  Neither now nor originally were there any fittings of note.

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