Church of the Good Shepherd
Sands, Surrey
Back in Elizabethan times, puritans were thick on the ground and very influential in Farnham, despite the presence of the Bishop of Winchester in Farnham Castle. During the commonwealth and protectorate, the Anglican incumbent was ejected and the living held by Presbyterian ministers. The Presbyterian Minister was ejected in 1660, and he and his followers built a Meeting House in West Street.
Towards the end of the 18th century, an evangelical group was ejected from the parish church, and they built the Ebenezer Independent Chapel in East Street. The moribund Presbyterian group threw in their lot and joined them. In 1870 the railway arrived in Farnham, and a new road was built to connect the town and the station.
Now known as Congregationalists, our ancestors secured a plot of land on this new road, and built an imposing neo gothic church, with a spire taller than the parish church tower, to show the world that the newly liberated Nonconformists were a true church with a permanent presence.
