OUR NEW CHURCH written by a Trustee in 1966

When you enter this building, you enter a building quite different from most of the Churches you have ever known. Of course, it is a modern building, and most Churches are not modern buildings. But there are other differences. For instance, this Church is a completely square building, though traditionally Churches have been rectangular. You may, therefore, ask why we have built what we have built. My aim in what follows is to give a layman's answer to this question, for I believe that there are reasons for all the significant features of this building. Some of these reasons can be found in the shape and size of the site, others in the choices we made in planning and designing the building.

FITTING OUR REQUIREMENTS ON TO THE SITE

The first problem in designing a building of any kind is to design something which will meet the needs of those who are to use it and which will also fit on to the site. Modern Methodism requires not only a Church for public worship but also a considerable variety of other rooms-classrooms where children can worship and be taught apart from adults, halls for meetings and other activities, vestries and, of course, a kitchen. All these are needed for the total activity of the modern Church community, and they make considerable demands for space.

To meet these requirements we have had to cover almost all the site with buildings, and the shape and size of the site have dictated the arrangement of the various rooms. We believe that a very high order of architectural skill has been shown in the layout and fitting together of the several parts of the building on this site. Moreover the site has also dictated the shape of the Church itself, its height and its orientation. We felt that the Church should be a separate structure rather than one storey in a combined structure. We considered that it was only fitting to put the Church in front of, and not behind, the other buildings. To avoid dwarfing the Church by the other buildings (which are in two storeys) we had to build it to its present height. We had to make a proper functional connection between the Church and the other rooms and also to provide adequate space for the organ. The only Church building to meet all these requirements on this site was a square building facing south. And this is the basic reason why we have a square Church. In addition, we were required to provide a car park on the site. This has meant lifting the building up so as to leave room for sufficient parking spaces underneath.

SIMPLICITY IN BUILDING

We chose to build a simple building. We did this because modern architecture is, fundamentally, simple and functional. We also did this because elaborate ornamentation is not in our Free Church tradition and because we remembered that when Free Churchmen had tried their hands at ornate buildings they had not been particularly successful.

Moreover we could not afford elaboration. The whole scheme has cost us at least £30,000 more than we received from the sale of our old Church and although we have had generous help from the Joseph Rank Trust we have still had to raise over £20,000 from our own members. Indeed, when the tenders for the building were received, we had to cut out some £10,000 worth of most desirable work in order to keep within our budget. There never has been money to burn on this project.

So far as the Church itself is concerned, there is one distinctive architectural feature - the profile block wall behind the Table and the Pulpit. This feature is an attempt to use light and shade for ornamental purposes. There is something else about it. These profile blocks are mass produced concrete blocks. They are produced by a mechanical process which achieves absolute perfection in line, but not absolute perfection in colour and texture. And they have been included in our Church in the central position as an offering to Almighty God of the product of men's machines. Folk often seem to suggest that the only fit offering to God is an article of individual craftsmanship. But this is a way of saying that Christianity belongs to the past and demands the production techniques of bygone ages. We reject this view. The mass production techniques of the 20th. Century are among the greatest achievements of the human mind. Today we live and move and have our being in the products of these techniques and we have, therefore, deliberately offered to God one such product. In our use of Christian symbols we have also aimed at simplicity. There is the ancient Christian symbol of the fish (the ?????) on the organ case. There is the shell, from the Wesley family crest, on the wall by the Pulpit. There is the barley grain on the Pulpit fall (the work of one of our members) - symbolising the Bread of Life and, incidentally, linking together both Word and Sacrament. There are the Cross and the Ship - the ecumenical symbol - on the lectern. There is the solid square font - the Rock of Ages, the Rock which is Christ into Whom we are baptised, and it bears on each face an ornamented circle, symbol of eternity and reminder that all who are baptised into the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are now, and for ever, persons who have been so baptised.

Over the Holy Table we have lifted up a simple Cross. This was the architect"s idea. We started with a wooden Cross, and quite properly. But you do not see the Cross rightly if you just see the old rugged Cross, the emblem of suffering and shame. The Cross is only seen aright if it is seen in the light of the Resurrection. Therefore we overlaid the wood with silver to symbolise the Resurrection light. And we lifted it up on high, remembering the words: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me". And we attached it to the back of the Table because it is there that the memorial of the one perfect and sufficient sacrifice is set forth and because, also, we hoped that by so doing the Table would remain set apart for its sacred purpose and would not become a stand for flowers or for ecclesiastical bric-a-brac.

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