Churches of the British Isles

Nonington Baptist Chapel stands on the eastern side of Easole Street, about sixty metres south-west of the roundabout in Nonington. The parish in 1676 was recorded as having nine nonconformists including Baptists. Nonington's Baptists appear to have been founded in the early 1500s as part of Eythorne Baptist Church (see 'related links'). The Easole house of farmer Henry Furley Spanton was used for worship in the 1800s. Eythorne gained a new chapel in 1804.

There were around thirty Baptists in Nonington by the early 1900s. Services began in the Easole cottage of a Mr Cross in 1908. Eythorne Church decided that Nonington needed its own chapel, so land on Easole Street was purchased in 1910 and the chapel was built and opened in 1911. A Sunday school was opened soon afterwards. The congregation now holds joint services with the  Anglican congregation of St Mary’s Church in Nonington (see links).

The location is unknown for the Nonington Quaker Meetings so the village hall is shown here - as good a potential location as any, although the use of a private house is more likely. Quakers were to be found in Kent's small towns and rural areas by the mid-1650s. Monthly meetings are recorded for Nonington, and this meeting seemed to have had some importance. Prominent Quaker William Penn visited 1672, but the meeting gradually dwindled until it was cancelled in 1691.

Nonington Old Chapel (St Alban's Abbey & Convent) would have stood at Beech Grove, to the north of the Sandwich Road. St Albans Court is shown on a 1501 map as St Albans Abbey with convent land. It was transferred into private hands after the Dissolution, with the old chapel already in ruins a short distance to the south of the house. The manor house was demolished in the 1800s and the present building was erected. From 1995 it was Beech Grove School.

Beech Grove Bruderhof Community occupies the replacement for the old manor house (see above). The Brudehof is an international Christian church community, one which was founded in Germany in 1920. Following the rise to power of the Nationalist Socialist Party in 1933 the community became a target for oppression. It was dissolved at gunpoint in 1937 so its members fled, most ending up in Paraguay but with three staying in Britain to restart the community in 1997.

All photos on this page copyright © Neil Chadwick (four) and Nick Smith (two), via Geograph, reused under a cc licence. Additional information on Nonington's churches and chapels by Clive Webb of the Nonington History website.