Originally known as the Mission Hall, it was founded in 1885 by the redoubtable Augusta Fairthorne, who came from a philanthropic village family. Concerned that the church was not reaching out to poorer people, she spread her evangelism across the village – much to the annoyance of the Rector. In his diary entry for Easter Sunday 1885, the Rev Francis Cunningham recorded that: “Several of last year’s communicants had lapsed, through the evil influence of the Mission Hall.”
