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Good reason to rejoice
by Margaret Duggan
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SIX YEARS AGO, when the Revd John Lomas arrived in the parish of Holywell, in the Welsh diocese of St Asaph, he found a badly damaged church hall and a burnt-out curate’s house. He also found that the part-medieval parish church, St James’s, was on a dangerous corner of a steep hill, with nowhere to park, and no proper vestry. The only place for children to sit (just four toddlers at the time) was on the floor of a temporary vestry, partitioned off from the church. “It was awful to use,” he told me. It was only after he had arrived that someone told him that the parish owned another piece of land, where the dilapidated Church of St Peter had been demolished. When Mr Lomas went to look at what appeared to be a field with a couple of gravestones, he found an ideal level site for a new church with an integral hall. |
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| It has taken five years to raise £680,000, partly by selling the old hall and the curate’s house, and also by “doing all the usual things”, he says. But he is “really proud of the people of Holywell, the way they put everything into it”. All the bills are paid, and they now have a dual-purpose community church that can either seat 200, or have a good-sized hall by screening off the chancel. There are also a schoolroom for the children, a large meeting-room, a parish office, a large kitchen, and all the usual facilities. When they held an open day, nearly 400 people came. When they invited the children (numbers grown from four to 20) to see their new schoolroom (left), they were thrilled. The Bishop of St Asaph, the Rt Revd John Davies, came to open and dedicate the new St Peter’s on Palm Sunday. Mr Lomas tells me that St James’s will remain the parish church, with a regular 8 a.m. Sunday communion service, and weddings and funerals, but he is hoping that St Peter’s will soon be in use on most days of the week. |
