West Street Baptist Church

East Grinstead was founded during or before the 13th century: little is known of its early history. It officially became a market town in 1247 when it was granted a charter, but a market existed before this. Standing on an isolated hilltop site in the Weald, away from the main timber-producing and ironworking areas which drove the local economy in the medieval period, it grew slowly over the next few centuries. The north of Sussex developed a strong tradition of Nonconformism and Protestant dissent in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. In 1676, 27% of the population of Ifield, a few miles west of East Grinstead, worshipped outside the communion of the Established Church of England; one of…