Teaching The Heathens

Our Club member Howard continued the story of teaching the Heathens – the children of Mannings Heath – in his talk to the club meeting held at the Horsham Cricket Club in February. He told us about some of the people involved in creating and sustaining the school and some of the battles that the village had to fight with local and national authorities to keep the school in being.

Although the school was closed in 1946, the Methodist community continued their role of teaching the Heathens through Sunday Schools, which stayed in being into the 1980s, making use of the two Methodist Chapels, Forest House in Winterpit Lane and ultimately the Mannings Heath Village Hall.

Howard hopes to publish his book in March which tells the whole story from the early 1800s right up to the 1980s.