Refurbishing All Saints’ Church and Hall
Our story
All Saints’ Church and Hall have stood in our corner of Whetstone for decades, as the area has grown and developed, and have been part of the lives of local people throughout this time. Our beautiful church, built in 1882, stands proudly and has been a place of happy memories and comfort for so many in our community. Our hall, built during the inter-war years, has seen countless local people enjoy the space whether through dances, parties, celebrations, baby groups, exercise groups or lunch clubs. It is a space where friendships have formed and lasted throughout the years.
Sadly, both our church and our church hall are in need of extensive work and investment and we are undertaking two separate projects to bring preserve these vital spaces.
Church Hall Toilet Refurbishment
If you’ve visited All Saints’ Church Hall in recent years, you will know that our toilet block is in desperate need of refurbishment. The walls are damp, the floor is damaged, the block itself requires structural work and we want to provide accesible toilets and baby changing facilities. Our church community is working hard to fundraise towards the costs of this, which are substantial, in the hope we can provide safe and clean facilities. Our hall is used for dance classes, exercise groups, baby and toddler groups, Junior Church, educational classes, parties and much more. We also have hopes to use it for opportunities such as Winter Night Shelter, once the facilities are refurbished.
We have worked hard on fundraising, and you can see how we’re getting on below:
We are grateful to both the National Lottery and The Benefact Trust, who have awarded us grants towards our projects. We are continuing to apply for grants as well as fundraise locally. Each donation and grant gets us one step closer to our target!
If you are able to donate to help us reach this target, please click here.
All Saints’ Church Heating and Lighting Project
All Saints’ Church is a beautiful Grade II listed church, built in 1882 and designed by J Clarke. The church contains stained glass windows illustrating the Works of Mercy and the life of Christ and the Chancel is richly decorated with wall paintings featuring angels and saints designed by Sidney Gambier-Parry. However, this wonderul space cannot be truly appreciated due to the poor lighting which is both insufficient and requries significant re-wiring. It is also highly inefficient.
Similarly, our heating system is an eyesore, relying on a huge gas boiler and unsightly metal trunking that runs through our beautiful church. The church is very cold in the winter months, and the current system is not only reliant on fossil fuels, but is not capable of heating our building.
Therefore, our heating and lighting project aims to reinvent the lighting scheme in the church, to truly beautify the building we have and to provide energy efficient lighting with designated lighting zones and LED lights. We also aim to replace our exisiting gas boiler heating system with electric under-pew and infra-red heating, which will not only be far more effective and energy efficient, but also remove all of the current unsightly heating system.
We have well on the way towards achieving our fundraising goal for this project, and are the process of applying for final grants towards it.
