Worshippers at Ore Church - Rev. J. Parkin - Halton Church
When I say that the Rev. Dr. Fearon's sermons had the power of attracting numbers of church-going people from the town, I mean more particularly from the old town of Hastings; for, St. Leonards at that time, had its popular minister in the person of the Rev. Sydney Widdrington, whose discourses, if not of the very highest order of eloquence, were at least sufficient to fill with attentive listeners the only church then existent for the two parishes of St. Leonards and St. Mary Magdalen. The Rev. Dr. Fearon was getting to be an old man, and those who used so frequently to attend his ministrations from the town were mainly members of the old contemporaneous families of the Norths, the Briscos, the Bishops, the gills (sic), the Scrivenses, the Bevills, the Crouches, the Milwards, the Shadwells, the Shorters, the Manningtons, the Thatchers, the Breedses, the Bayleys, and the Amoores. These would be induced during the summer months to take a rural walk to the little beacon church upon the hill at Ore, and during the interval of morning and afternoon services sit beneath the shady pines and elms, discussing the merits of sermons and sandwiches, and thus dilating upon two of the recognised requisites of body and soul. Visitors also would occasionally join these Sunday groups or form small parties by themselves, now and again asking questions of the old church-clerk or his wife, and expatiating upon the beauty of the landscape and sea-scape before them. It was no uncommon thing to see half a dozen vehicles (including mule-chaises and private carriages) waiting in the avenue leading to the church for their occupants. The enjoyably humble part which St. Leonardensis performed in connection with the Ore services has been previously stated. The venerable pastor, in the sermon which I have recently transcribed from the short-hand notes, speaks of a less vicious taint in the conduct of his parishioners "twenty years ago," but when, as already explained, the population of Ore was probably less than a fourth of what it was in 1838, and when even the bulk of that population was nearly as far away from the church as were many of the people who attended it from Hastings. How different, too, were the surroundings of the little church to what they now are in relation to the original site and remaining ruins. The most frequented path thither was over the West hill to the left of the three windmills (now Plynlimmon), down the Long Fields (now St. Mary's terrace), up towards the white-fronted farm-house tenanted by Mr. Tutt (now Mount Pleasant), down to Ore Valley (where stood the Rectory amidst a cluster of trees), and up the steep incline now known as Elphinstone road. This road was, doubtless, named after General Sir Howard Elphinstone, who, about the "twenty years ago," referred to by Dr. Fearon, purchased the house and estate close to the church and known as Ore Place. An engraving is here produced from a sketch taken about 1826, in which the mansion of Sir Howard Elphinstone, the church, and the Rectory are the only buildings in a landscape the site of which is now occupied by five churches as well as by some hundreds of houses. No wonder that the old church, thus standing in "sacred solitude upon a hill," served as a "landmark to mariners upon the sea." Nor wonder was it that Caroline Fry - a long-period visitor at Hastings and a frequent attendant at the church - made it the subject of a poem, commencing thus :-
"Where, amid tumultuous waters,
Sickening with a hope repressed,
Far from all his soul's desires,
Loves the sailor's eye to rest?
Is it not on that far beacon,
Faintly beaming through the gloom,
Which some friendly hand has lighted,
Marks the path which leads him home?"
That Ore Church, like Fairlight Mill, was once a landmark to coasters I do not doubt, but if ever "faintly beaming through the gloom," it was "a beacon which some friendly hand had lighted," it must have been before the present writer had made its acquaintance, and certainly long before 1838, at which time the edifice had again become too small even for the would-be worshippers of its own parish.
But the increase of population was not solely applicable to the parish of Ore. The augmentation of the borough and the growth of its inhabtants (sic) were as general as they were rapid, and in no district, probably, - not even in that of St. Leonards, - was the progress just at that time more apparent than in the locality immediately contiguous to the parish of Ore, and known as Halton, This, the late "Barrack-ground," was the St. Clement's upland district, where the need of spiritual instruction and devotional facilities was felt to be so urgent that, in the same year, the late Countess of Waldegrave (then Mrs. Sarah Milward), gave the ground whereon, and the stone wherewith, to erect a chapel-of-ease together with an endowment of a thousand pounds. The further requirements were met by Society grants and public subscriptions; and on Wednesday, 18th of April, the first stone of the building was laid by the chief benefactress. The weather was very severe for the time of year, yet the interest in the undertaking was sufficient to attract a gathering of from three to four hundred persons, including nearly 100 children, for which latter a school was soon after built, and almost at the sole expense of Mrs. Milward. The Chapel - or, as it is more generally named, Halton Church - was provided with 542 sittings of which two-thirds were to be free and unappropriated. Mr. Catley (the Borough Surveyor) was the architect, and the work was executed so expeditiously as to enable the church to be opened in the same year. It was consecrated by the Bishop of Chichester on the 11th of December and on that occasion the Rev. G. B. Foyster preached the sermon, the Rev. J. Parkin was installed as the Incumbent, and the service was attended by a crowded congregation.
When not crowded with worshippers, the accoustics (sic) of the building were somewhat remarkable. The following narration may suffice for an illustration. It happened that a Mr. and Mrs. Giles - who were aunt and uncle to the late organist of that name, and whose aged father and mother were respectively clerk and pew-opener at Ore chuch - were the first appointed clerk and attendant at Halton church; and, as the Halton clerk was a millifluous (sic) vocalist as well as a fair instrumentalist on him devolved the additional duty of leading the choir. "St. Leonardensis" had also transferred his occasional assistance from Ore to Halton, on the score of convenience; and as he was engaged in musical studies which were already in transitu from an amateural to a professional character, his assistance in the new choir and the new church was not wholly despised. During choir-practice, then, it was discovered that even a single instrument - a flute for instance- when properly played upon had a charming effect in certain parts of the slightly occupied building, whilst the harmonious sounds of only a few voices were almost as voluminous as those of a full orchestra in a building less favourable to sweet sounds.
Forty-six years later, Mr. Parkin was presented with a valuable testimonial, and on that occasion the following paragraph appears in Brett's Gazette :-
Never was a testimonial more thoroughly deserved and more condially bestowed than that for which the Rev J. Parkin. M.A. attended in the Council Chamber of the Town Hall on Monday last as the recipient, and the clergy and laity as the donors. "St. Leonardensis," of the Gazette, - who many times listened to the earnest exhortations of the Rev J. Parkin as curate of Ore, who was present at the laying of the foundation stone of Halton church on April 18th, 1838, who witnessed the consecration on December 11th of that year, and who heard the Incumbent preach his first sermon - wrote, while giving his remiscences, (sic) in 1880, as follows:-
It is now 42 years since that worthy Incumbent commenced the faithful discharge of his ministerial duties, and the general respect with which he his (sic) surrounded may be taken as an earnest of the wish that he may be spared yet a long time to be the guide and counsellor of his flock." Since the quoted words were written four more years have passed, making with his four years curacy, over fifty years that the receiver of the testimonial has performed his ministrations at Ore and Halton.
Also, when giving a report of the presentation the Hastings Observer gave a portrait of Mr. Parkin, of which the following is a copy :-
It may be stated that the burial ground attached to that church was pre-existent; it having served for the interment of soldiers between the years 1805 - when the Duke of Wellington held the command of troops in this neighborhood - and 1823, when the barrack buildings were sold in lots to the highest bidders. Of those whose ashes found a resting place in the then military burial-ground there were but few memorials, and those few, being of a perishable nature have long since disappeared. There is not one of them that I can recall to mind, although I still remember the interment of a soldier and the military formality usual on such occasions. There are, however, in that modernised old grave-yard many memorials of the departed which serve to reawaken the memories of the past. One of the earliest interments in that ground after the erection of the church was that of Mrs. Mary Roe, to whom I referred in Chapter 48 of this history. The old lady, and her granddaughter, Anna Maria Cooper, had their remains there deposited in the year 1839. In the same year and in the same ground were placed the old mortalities of George Ticehurst a man of three-score and ten, of whom I knew but little. Familiar, however, as household words was the name of the magisterial Crouches, and one of these (Nathaniel Crouch) closed his existence at the age of 64, when his earthly tabernacle found a resting place at Halton in 1841. Thither it was followed by that of his wife Julianna, fourteen years later, after it had borne its living tenant seven years beyond the traditional allotment. The Halton burial-ground also bears record of the bereavement which befel (sic) its (sic) worthy incumbent in the year 1846, when his wife and his first-born son were both taken from him, the former at the age of 30[a] and the latter at the age of nine. A subject for somewhat less sorrowful reflection was the interment (sic) in the same ground of three daughters of another Incumbent, the Rev. John Peers, the said three ladies (Anne, Susanna and Lucy) having reached the respective ages of 50, 67 and 73. The name reminds me that Miss Peers, (another daughter of the Rev. John Pears (sic)) - who had been a patient of Robert Ranking, Esq., commonly known as "Dr." Ranking, became also his second or third wife: and this fact further reminds me that the said Robert Ranking who was a 36-years' resident of Hastings, and was once or twice its mayor, died while at Deal at the age of 83, when his remains were brought to Hastings to be deposited in the little cemetery at Halton. One of that gentleman's local contemporaries and near neighbours was the Rev. Webster Whistler, and it was in the same place of -
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