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Resolution 5 - New Churches

General Assembly receives the churches and mission project listed below as local churches and mission projects of the United Reformed Church.

New Churches

St. Mark’s Church, Hallwood Ecumenical Parish, Runcorn, Cheshire    Mersey (Church of England, United Reformed Church, Methodist) 

Runcorn is an ancient town and the Widness forms the Unitary Borough of Halton. The NEW town was developed in the late 1960s for Liverpool overspill, and it has continued to expand. Hallwood parish covers five new town estates with a population of 14,000. Three of these are private housing, the others 50% rented property managed by Housing Associations. Some parts of the Parish would be classed as Urban Priority Area or ‘high stress’.

Bethesda was the first church in this Parish, a replacement for the 1831 Runcorn United Reformed Church in the Old Town. A multi-purpose building, it was opened in 1976 and fully ecumenical from the outset. St Mark’s a smaller multi-purpose building, was erected by the Church of England in 1981 to supplement Bethesda in the Ecumenical Parish. Its average attendance is 51 adults and 7 children, and the whole parish is served by a Church of England vicar, shortly to be joined by a curate, a half-time United Reformed Church minister (recognised and regarded by the Methodists) and a United Reformed Church Church Related Community Worker. St Mark’s is seen by the Church of England as a separate church in its own right, and wishes the United Reformed Church to recognise it in the same way.

Beechwood West Church, Hallwood Ecumenical Parish, Runcorn, Cheshire   Mersey (Church of England, United Reformed Church, Methodist) 

This began in 1991 as a church plant in another part of the Hallwood Parish, using Beechwood County Primary School buildings. At first there were monthly family services, but services have been weekly since 1996, led by parish staff and members of St. Mark’s Church. Attendance is now 25 adults and 12 children, and the fellowship feels it has grown to maturity and asks to be regarded by the United Reformed Church (as already by the Church of England) as a separate church.

Whiteley  Wessex

Whiteley was one of five ‘principal growth sectors’ included in the South Hampshire Structure Plan approved in 1977. At the time the area was little more than farmland with a few cottages and a farm, but as a projected ‘greenfield’ development site, it was proposed that some 4000 houses should be built. This was scaled down to provide for a population of about 6500 in 2600 homes. Right from the start the United Reformed Church had expressed a desire to participate in any ecumenical venture that might emerge.

In December 1993 the local vicar wrote to possible interested parties about the creation of an ecumenical church on the estate. As a result of this the first service took place on 3 September 1995. Services have been held in a home, the local hotel, the community centre and now in the primary school. The first minister was a Methodist Deaconess who was followed by a half-time Anglican Priest. Under her guidance the church has grown both physically and spiritually. A Declaration of Intent was signed in December 1996.

The church is a Local Ecumenical Partnership between the Methodist Church, the Church of England and the United Reformed Church. A manse was provided on the estate in 1998 and plans are now under way to build a church on a site allocated by the developer, which will provide both a worship centre and rooms for church and community use.

Pontprennau, Cardiff  Wales

Situated in the north east of Cardiff (in the area to come under the oversight of the proposed Ecumenical Bishop), Pontprennau is a new estate established some six years ago when 1500 houses were projected within 15 years. The Church in Wales appointed Revd Steve Willson as Priest-in-Charge with 50% scoping.

A Cardiff-based charity offered to fund 50% of the cost of setting up a worship centre, providing the balance was raised from other sources. It was estimated that at that time there were about 50 church members of various denominations on the estate and these were invited to a Lenten meeting at which the attendance was eight! Nevertheless it was agreed to go ahead with the formation of a Worship Group. Interest grew and it was decided to embark on the Community Church project, Revd Tom Davies, a retired Methodist Minister, working in partnership with Steve Willson.

Steve Willson was appointed full-time Priest and interest continued to grow; there is a good cross-section of people attending and the Sunday School is growing apace. Planning consent has been received for a new Community building. Over £400,000 has already been raised and the community is working hard to raise the balance of £135,000.

A new curate has already been appointed by the Church in Wales following the elevation of Steve Willson to be Rector of Cyncoed under whose aegis Pontprennau comes.

New Mission Project

Churches Together in Cambourne Eastern

In 1994, the Cambridgeshire Ecumenical Council began to plan for an ecumenical church in the new Community of Cambourne, which lies between Cambridge and St Neots. This new ‘village’ was begun in 1999 and will eventually be home to over 10,000 people.

The Churches jointly funded an Anglican minister, and under her leadership a congregation has formed, representative of a wide range of Christian traditions. It meets for worship in the local health centre and is exploring the possibility of using a Portacabin until such time as it is able to build a church centre on land being provided by the developers.

The Ecumenical Council and the local church have recently appointed the Revd Peter Wood (Church of Scotland) as resident minister for an initial 5-year period. The United Reformed Church share of funding comes equally as an Assembly Mission in Ecumenical Situations grant, and from Eastern Synod funds.

Durham Street, Hartlepool Northern

The congregation was founded in 1840 at the Croft in Hartlepool – at that time a small fishing village on the headland. In its heyday the church had around 300 pupils attending Sunday School. It is well known locally for it’s Maypole, it’s banner processions and lately for the hosting of the Hartlepool Recording Studio, where the unemployed are able to play musical instruments and make recordings for sale.

The church building has some structural problems and seems to be twisting. A full survey was commissioned and the work estimated at over £200K. Clearly a massive burden on such a small congregation. Since mid 99 the church has been looking at various strategies for the future – links with Hartlepool St Georges in Hartlepool Town and ecumenical links with other churches on the headland.

After weighing the facts, on 27 May 2000 a church meeting decided that with great sadness they had little option than to close. It has done so with its last regular Sunday Worship on 30 June. A final service of thanksgiving for the life and service of the Church Family in the Community on Sunday 9 July.

Dent, Cumbria North Western

Zion Chapel in the Dales villages of Dent was erected largely by volunteer labour after the purchase of an attractive site at Flintergill in 1835. Prior to that the Independents had met in an upper room in the village, where a church was formed in 1809.

The chapel was built to seat 140 at a time when the membership was 35 and thriving. There were three services every Sunday and outreach to the nearby hamlet of Gawthrop.

At the turn of the century there were 30 scholars and it was thought fitting to build a Sunday School in honour of the church centenary. This building, adjoining the church, was opened in 1912. From that time the number of scholars decreased, though there was an increase during the war with the arrival of evacuees from Bradford. Subsequently fewer children attended and the Sunday School lay unused for several years until it was leased to the Dent Meditation Centre in 1998.

Dent has been part of the synod’s Dales Pastorate whose other, continuing, churches are at Sedbergh and Ravenstonedale. The actual membership of the church has declined until only one member was left, with a few adherents, to attend the monthly evening service. The Minister, having accepted a call to another Synod, presided at her final service at Dent in September 2000. The Lancaster District Council decided to close the church forthwith, giving thanks to God for the witness of the faithful members and adherents of Dent over the years.

Moulton  Mersey

Moulton Chapel will have a place in the memory of quite a number of ministers of twentieth century Congregationalism. It was for many years a test-bed of Ordinands from Lancashire Independent College, all of whom came to preach at Moulton in their first and final years. Their autographs are still there in the Visitors Book.

The Church was opened in 1833 as a plant from the Northwich Church, during the ministry at Northwich of Revd Job Wilson who also founded the churches at Winsford, Middlewich, Sandbach and Haslington. For 120 years it was entirely dependent on the Northwich congregation and only began to have its own independent Church Officers and accounts in 1953.

The worshipping congregation has always been fairly small, but until the 1960’s the chapel had a significant influence in the life of the village through its Sunday School.

The Closing Thanksgiving service, held on 8 October 2000, was at Harvest Festival time and the Moderator gathered our memories of the past and guided our hopes for the future preaching from the text: ‘Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains a solitary grain. But if it dies, it bears a rich harvest.’

Byfield  East Midlands

1.1 The church at Byfield was started in 1827 through the efforts of the church at Daventry.

A chapel was built in the same year and the title deed of 1831 states that it was to be used as ‘a place of public worship for the service of God by the Society of Protestant Dissenters and maintaining the Doctrines called Calvinistic’. (Title Deed 16 August 1831)

1.2 The names of Robert Devonshire, father and son, were closely connected with the starting of this cause, the latter bequeathing £100 at his death for the liquidation of the debt. (Album of Northamptonshire Congregational Churches – T Stephens BA). From then on the wealthy Bush family seem to have kept it going until in 1862 it again sought financial help from Daventry. At this time a union between the two churches came into being with the minister preaching once a fortnight during the week and bi-monthly and Sunday. However, after three years this arrangement ceased as the distance between (7 miles) made it impracticable.

1.3 In Stephens’ Album he describes Byfield as ‘a small, remote village which has found it difficult at times to keep this cause going’. This could well have been written in the 1990’s for little changed over the years except for a period between 1872 and 1892 when the cause seemed to flourish, the church having its own minister and actually owning a manse.

1.4 From 1892 the pulpit was filled by lay preachers from the area. In 1961 the minister at Weedon and Flore (villages some 10 & 12 miles distant) was given oversight of Byfield, preaching there once a month in the afternoon. Early on in his long ministry Byfield Council of Churches was formed which, over the years, proved to be advantageous in making the Christians of the village more united. In 1991 when the local Methodist Church became uninhabitable the congregation began worshipping with the United Reformed Church in their chapel, and in 1993 a sharing agreement for the building came into being. When the quinquenial inspection took place early in 1999 the building was thought to be unsafe and was closed for public worship, the final service held in it being the Harvest Festival in September of that same year. At this time the congregation was almost entirely Methodist and these members have since joined with the congregation worshipping in the nearby village of Baddington.

1.5 Over a period of some 170 years this small church has played its part in the life of the community, providing good non-conformist worship for those who wanted it. Latterly several of its members have applied their Christian principles more widely and have played a significant part in the planning and running of many local organisations. We pray God’s blessing on the continuing Christian witness in this place.

St Paul’s Reading  Wessex

Originally a mission from St Andrew’s Reading in 1897, Caversham Road Presbyterian Church opened in 1902, and adopted the name St Paul’s in 1915. Much good work was done in the early days, and again during and after the Second World War. Following the formation of the United Reformed Church, a partnership was established with ITEM (an industrial mission), in which a minister was shared from 1973 to 1995. By 1985 it was clear that the state of the building was deteriorating, and that large sums of money would be needed to repair it. Plans to demolish and redevelop the site with flats and a smaller church did not materialise, so the decision was taken to close in the hope that God will provide for the mission needed in the area in a way that the church could not. The congregation left with much sadness, but at a closing District Service on 8 July 2000 it was recognised that St Paul’s had been a place of vision and hope, faith and fellowship.

Pangbourne with Theale  Wessex

In October 1999 Theale abandoned their church building and united with Pangbourne. Last November, with numbers dropping rapidly due to advancing age and to people moving away, and with the loss of income from land rental, the decision to close was made reluctantly but also with a sense of relief.

The history of these two churches reveals that their lives have been intertwined from their earliest beginnings. In July 1797 the Reading Evangelical Society sought permission for Nonconformist preaching in both villages, but the first preachers were ‘hooted and pelted’ out of Theale. Later the butcher, John Cumber, started to hold religious services in his shop until it became too small. In 1832 he sold part of his garden to provide a site for a church building. Succeeding generations of the Cumber family were to take a leading role in Theale church life until the 1990s. In Pangbourne the first church building was opened in 1824 with the Revd William Wooley as its first minister. He stayed for thirty-two years and in 1844 chaired the first church meeting in Theale during which the resolution was passed that John Cumber should become Deacon of the Church.

Both churches moved to other buildings. In 1913 Theale built a new church on the site of the Old Angel Inn. In Pangbourne in 1928, at a meeting attended by William Cumber of Theale representing the County Union, those present decided to buy the Quaker Meeting Room and the one third of an acre on which it stood. In more recent years Pangbourne and Theale formed the West of Reading Group with Grange. Most of the few remaining members of the congregation have chosen to worship in future at Grange.

We cannot know what influences these churches have had either on their congregations or on the communities in which they have lived and worked. We do know, from the records that have been deposited in the Berkshire Record Office, that many men, women and children have passed through their doors. A letter from a former elder states, ‘In its time, Pangbourne United Reformed Church gave great help and fellowship to a wide range of members and their families and we are grateful. It also gave a number of us the opportunity to do things we never dreamt we could have done.’

On Sunday 11 March 2001, a congregation of around seventy gathered to thank God for memories and friendships, for lives that had been touched and changed and for all who had served these churches and their communities.

Charndon  Wessex

Charndon was a small hamlet in the rural area of North Buckinghamshire near the Oxfordshire border, inhabited mainly by agricultural workers. People met in a cottage as early as 1844, when Congregationalists from Marsh Gibbon endeavoured to provide for their spiritual needs for more than 40 years. In 1881, when the cottage became too small for the numbers attending, a Chapel was erected under the leadership of Revd David Truss. The site was purchased and the building erected at the total outlay of £180, the villagers exercising great self-denial in order to contribute to the building fund. So many people attended the opening service on 27 September that the Revd Truss conducted the service inside and the Revd Feltham of Winslow preached to the people outside.

Minutes of the early church meetings seemed to be kept to the minimum - the main business being nominations for people to become church members. It is interesting to note that records of collections taken were for specific purposes, namely - Minister, coal and oil, sweeping and cleaning, horse hire fund, the poor etc.

In 1924 the Sunday School room was built on the back costing £192, some of which was borrowed from the National Sunday School Union.

Midweek meetings of fellowship, prayer and Bible Study were held and Sunday services were held in the morning and evening, mainly conducted by Lay Preachers. The Sunday School was well attended over the years.

As far back as 1961 concern was felt about the state of the building and various repairs were carried out over the years.

The parish has grown - the increased population are mainly commuters - and congregations have dwindled. The building was closed in September 2000 but we trust the spiritual side of the church will continue.

St Andrew’s, Woolwich  Southern

The final service of worship of St Andrew’s was held jointly with St Mary’s Church of England on 10 September 2000. A Presbyterian church came into existence in Woolwich in 1662 when the then Rector of Woolwich was ejected and took many of his congregation with him. For most of its history it served not only the local population but a large Scottish contingent at the nearby Woolwich military garrison. During the 1960s it entered a sharing agreement with St Mary’s Church of England, and during the 1980s the now St Andrew’s United Reformed Church formed an LEP with St Mary’s. For some years the joint congregation flourished. Though it almost imperceptibly became more Anglican the United Reformed Church element remained identifiable and took part in District affairs. However the LEP lapsed and, in the late 1990s, the Anglican Rector refused to renew it. The elderly and declining United Reformed Church congregation decided that closure was their most dignified option.

Isle of Grain  Southern

The Isle of Grain lies at the tip of a windswept Kent peninsula where the River Medway flows into the River Thames. Thomas Castle, a coastguard living in the isolated community there, became concerned at the spiritual impoverishment of the local people, especially the children. In 1822 he began holding services in his cottage.

The next year he appealed for help to the strong Congregational Chapel on the other bank of the Medway at Sheerness. ‘A special meeting of the male members of the church’ agreed unanimously to select eight of their number to support the new cause and lead worship at Grain. A Meeting House was opened in 1827 and replaced by a larger Chapel in 1895.

The Grain Chapel remained under the care of the Sheerness church, who bought a rowing boat to ferry preachers across to Grain. One Sheerness deacon served as lay pastor for over 50 years and made the crossing 3,000 times, occasionally having to stay overnight in Grain if a storm blew up during evening service.

In more recent times the public ferry and church boat both ceased to function and the isolation of Grain Chapel made the provision of ministry difficult. New arrangements made by the Medway District Council in 1997 failed to increase the membership of four and after two deaths it was decided to cease regular worship. The District Council accepted formal closure in 2000, but all who have loved the chapel and its faithful members are glad the building at the heart of the village is being used for regular weekday work by the Parish Church.

West Hill, Dartford Southern

The origins of the former Independent Church in the centre of Dartford were in a split within the Countess of Huntingdon’s Chapel in the town. The date of foundation was probably 1818. Unfortunately controversy was to prove a familiar feature of much of the church’s history with periods of growth and progress often cut short by disputes and division.

The ministry of the Revd Edward Hayward (1875-1908) was a high point. The church moved to a prominent corner site and erected what was meant to be the first phase of a large, confident set of premises. Chronic financial problems and the First World War intervened. Later in the century, new road schemes left the site far less attractive and the premises limiting and expensive. After abortive attempts to move or unite elsewhere, the Church Meeting decided to close with effect from 9 December 2000 and the 27 members agreed to disperse to other nearby churches.

At the closing service, both the attendance and reminiscences were a reminder of how far the church’s influence had spread. The Synod Moderator, David Helyar, explained that his Call to the ministry had been heard as a result of a service there. The Dartford ministry of the young Peter McIntosh is still remembered for several reasons; and in the same era the pulpit was sometimes filled by a promising teenager from Gravesend named David Cornick.

Tretower United Reformed Church, Powys  Wales

In the first half of the nineteenth century, a small group of people were invited by one of the Vaughan’s of Tretower Court to meet for worship in the Court. A room was adapted and a pulpit installed; this was the origin of the Congregational Church at Tretower. A Chapel was built in 1844 to accommodate the increased congregation drawn from the village and the surrounding area. The Chapel, along with the Parish Church, provided for the spiritual needs of the community. With the coming of labour-saving machinery to the farms, there was a declining need for as many workers. The amalgamation of farms, smaller families, and the need for the young people to seek work further afield all contributed to diminishing membership and congregations.

At a Church Meeting in July 2000 the few remaining members discussed the situation and decided to close and join the Chapel at the neighbouring village of Cwmdu. A short closing service was held on Sunday 19 November 2000. We give thanks to God for the faithful witness of the congregation over 150 years.

Govan  Scotland

The congregation in Govan was founded in 1870 and moved to its newly-built church in 1895. Set in the industrial heart of Glasgow, the Govan church maintained a Christian witness among the shipbuilding community until, in the 1960’s and ‘70’s, industrial decline began to take its toll on the community and the church.

With an ageing, dwindling congregation and a large building vulnerable to vandalsim, it became increasingly difficult for the church’s mission to be sustained, and the decision to close was taken in 2000. A service of thanksgiving for the life and witness of the church over its 130 year history was held on 19 November.

Broomhill Trinity  Scotland

The result of the coming together of Broomhill Congregational Church (founded 1898) and Trinity Congregational Church (founded 1862), Broomhill Trinity maintained the tradition of both its constituents of scholarly preaching and quality worship. The retiral of its minister, the Revd Sidney Bindemann, in early 2000 prompted a re-evaluation of the church’s work, and the small congregation decided that closure would now be appropriate.

A service of thanksgiving was held on 9 July 2000.