The old tower which stands in the churchyard at St John the Baptist Church is all that remains of the first 'Chapel of Ease' built on this site in 1828. The land was given to the Reverend William Garnier, Rector of Droxford, by the Bishop of Winchester. Prior to this Chapel being built parishioners belonged in Droxford parish but because Droxford is a fair distance from Shedfield, parishioners used to worship at either Wickham or Bishops Waltham. Shedfield became an Ecclesiastical Parish in 1843. The chapel eventually seated 272 parishioners but after 40 years the roof of the chapel began to leak and at a vestry meeting in 1873, Frederick Townsend proposed that a new church should be built in its place.