Buildings

Saint Cecilia’s C of E School, London

SAINT CECILIA’s is a growing school in Southfields, south London, but sits in a conservation area. When building a new teaching wing in re­­cent years, the school, in partnership with the diocese of Southwark, em­­barked on a sweeping programme of new green technology.

Now, there are automatic sensors for lights, sealed classrooms with mech­­anical ventilation, an air-source heat pump, and solar panels. Else­­where, LED lights, sensors to cut water usage in lavatories, and an underground rainwater tank have helped minimise the impact the building has on the environment.

The school’s business manager, Dave Cobb, said that efforts have also been made to encourage wildlife and biodiversity, including bat boxes, bug hotels, and wildflower planters, to create a “green corridor” for flora and fauna which runs from the street through to the school’s garden.

The school’s solar panels alone generate enough electricity to power five houses for a year, and, when combined with timed lights and modern insulation and ventilation, have slashed the school’s carbon footprint, he said.

Thanks to donations from the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival and generous locals, the play­­ground is also gradually becom­ing filled with trees and plants, making it a pleasanter space, and better for wildlife and insects, too.

Next on the list of improvements are more rooftop solar panels and a review of the school kitchens, to see how catering can contribute to the school’s reduced carbon ambi­tions.

Lighthouse Church, the Wirral

THE parish of Heswall, on the Wirral, long had a mission church and hall in the village’s high street, but both buildings were tired, cold, and run down, and would have cost too much to renovate. Instead, the con­gregation decided to replace both with a sustainable building that could continue to serve their com­munity.

Daniel HopkinsonA Sunday service at the Lighthouse Church, the Wirral

After consulting neighbours, the church worked with a Christian firm of architects who shared the vision of a bright, airy, welcoming space for mission and ministry, which upheld the highest modern standards for energy efficiency.

The new church, rechristened the Lighthouse Church, has no gas supply; instead, it relies on solar panels and an air-source heat pump, and is built to be almost airtight to reduce energy usage.

A spokeswoman for the parish, Christine Wetherall, said that the congre­gation had been determined to live out the Fifth Mark of Mission, and build something which was future-proofed, too.

Non-churchgoers in the village now often wander into the revamped church and appreciate that it is both warm and fossil-fuel free, she said.

The main thing for other churches to learn before embarking on a major build is to “get the vision right,” she said. “Before you even start looking for builders and archi­tects, you have to know as a parish what is right.”

The congregation paid for almost the whole eco-build through their own fundraising efforts and dona­tions, without any major grants or loans.

“Basically, it was the parish who gave, and trusting in God for that was scary, to be honest. You put your heart in your mouth when you do something that big. . . It was a long process and hard work, but we know God was there all the time.”

Church House, London

A POST-COVID decline in demand for office space in central London required meant that Church House, the national headquarters of the Church of England, in Westminster, could embark on a top-to-bottom renovation of the Grade II listed, century-old building, before welcom­­ing in new tenants.

The chief executive of the Corp­oration of Church House, Stephanie Maurel, said that they de­­cided to seize the op­­portunity to make the building construction process itself net-zero.

Jim StephensonA room in the newly renovated Church House

The building’s odd design and listed status ruled out some obvious moves, such as installing solar panels on the roof or cavity insulation. Instead, they got creative, using re­­cycled wine corks for floor and wall insulation, carbon-absorbing paint, and plastic internal walls from recycled washing machines.

We wanted to be a building of light for the people of light, and open out the building to be rooted in the community,” Ms Maurer said. “We also were motivated by the Fifth Mark of Mission.”

OTHER STORIES

RHS Chelsea Flower Show to include garden from St James’s, Piccadilly

THE Chelsea Flower Show will this year include a garden from St James’s, Piccadilly — the first time for many years that a church has been represented at the RHS event

With trustee backing, Church House spent about ten per cent of the project’s budget ensuring that materials used in the work were carbon-neutral. They are already seeing the benefits in lower heating and lighting costs.

“We have all learnt so much about the choice of materials that are better for the environment, and how to look at things through a different, greener lens,” Ms Maurer said.

She has now repainted her own hallway at home in the same carbon-absorbing paint.

Net-zero targets may still be many years in the future, but, she said: “In fact, the imperative is to start as soon as we can.”

Land and Nature

St Luke’s, Sway, Hampshire (churchyard)

IN 2022, the EcoChurch group at St Luke’s, Sway, in Hampshire, came up with a new approach for manag­ing their churchyard, which would prioritise wildlife and diversity.

Out went relentless lawnmowing, chemical pesticides, and invasive non-native plants, and in came native hedgerows, bug hotels, wild­flower meadows, and garden-waste composting.

Andrea Janssens, one of the group, said that they relied heavily on advice from the charity Caring For God’s Acre, which led to a careful scheme of planting pollinat­ing flowers. As a result, they have seen a huge increase in the number and types of wildlife using the churchyard.

The number of species identified in the space has gone up by more than 50 per cent since the project began just two years ago, Ms Jans­sens said.

St Luke’s, Sway, in Hampshire

Unlike potentially trickier efforts focused on divisive issues, such as solar panels or heat pumps, boosting biodiversity was an easy way to engage those living in the village be­­yond the congregation, Ms Janssens said.

Prayer meetings and annual en­­vironmental church services help to connect the work on the churchyard to the church’s faith and mission, and their enthusiasm is now spread­ing, with local gardeners taking in­­spiration to start wildlife-friendly gardening.

“Villagers have started using the churchyard as a place to contem­plate, and we’ve also involved the local children in making bug hotels,” she said. Messy Church services have included seed-planting outside.

The revitalisation of the church­yard has helped St Luke’s to connect with other churches also tackling the same issues, with limited money but keen volunteers, as well as others further afield, through Caring For God’s Acre webinars.

“It has been really enriching to working alongside other people,” Ms Janssens said. “You can see that you’re part of a bigger community of people that are all trying to help nature.”

Chapel en le Frith Methodist Church, Peak District (Townend Community Garden)

THE Methodist Church in Chapel en le Frith, a picturesque town in the Peak District, had previously paid little heed to their simply mown field of grass.

But, after just a few years of at­ten­tion, it has been transformed into an oasis of life. It can now boast not just biodiversity but also organic home­grown fruit, vegetables, and herbs.

The Townend Community Gar­den, as it is now known, features raised beds for growing flowers and crops, wildflower areas, a pond, bug hotels, fruit trees, and a tranquil sen­­sory area in which people can relax, reflect, and pray.

Heat and light for seedlings comes from a solar-power generator, and all water used is recycled rainwater.

One of the church members, Mary Craner, said that she felt strongly that God had led her to use her life experience and gardening skills “to make life a little better for the people of Chapel en le Frith”.

It had been “very rewarding and heart-warming to see the garden blossom over the past five years, both in what we grow and in the people we have worked with and supported”.

Bees, hedgehogs, and frogs are regularly spotted in the garden, and so are children from the school next door.

Raised beds of different heights allow people with limited mobility to take part in growing fruit and vege­tables, some of which are later don­­ated to the foodbank too.
Local groups — including those for people with learning difficulties or mental-health issues — meet in the garden for events and services, and individuals enjoy the peace to reflect and relax.

The aim is to educate all who pass by, whether garden users or just visitors “about a lifestyle that is healthy for people and the planet”, she said. “We are very proud of what we have achieved and the garden is well loved by local residents.”

St Matthew’s, Bristol (wildlife garden)

ST MATTHEW’s sits on a hill close to the centre of Bristol, in a densely packed neighbourhood with little green space.

Over the past six years, the con­gregation has been ex­­perimenting with turning their churchyard into an oasis for both nature and the com­­munity.

First, they stopped mowing the lawn, before adding in insect-friendly native plants, bug hotels, and bird feeders.

What was a gloomy, little-used space, overshadowed by dark trees, has been opened up into a wildlife garden used by the whole neigh­bourhood (including foxes, badgers, bats, and birds). A new gate allows greater access to the community.

OTHER STORIES

Church in Wales Governing Body: Restoring Welsh Waters presentation

THE Archbishop of Wales, the Most Revd Andrew John, was reportedly chastised by the chief executive of Welsh Water (Dwr Cymru) on Wednesday for “daring [in his presidential address] to mention sewage in a catchment known for factory-farm pollution,” the chief executive of River Action, James Wallace, told the Governing Body in a presentation, Restoring Welsh Waterways, on Thursday

Deborah TomkinsThe wildlife garden at St Matthew’s, Bristol

One of the PCC members is Simon Pugh-Jones, who also chairs the diocesan advisory committee. He said that the church had experi­mented each year with different ways in which to encourage bio­diversity, and they had been pleas­antly surprised at how quickly wildlife began to frequent the space.

The pandemic lockdowns brought people out of their homes for socially distanced walks. Many dis­covered the garden, and seized on the oppor­tunities for community gardening.

“The footfall is constant,” includ­ing plenty who had no previous connection to the church, Mr Pugh-Jones said. “We have regulars in the church who had never been in the building — daily dog walkers, those who need peace in the city, a couple who eat their breakfast on a bench.

“And we have lots of conversa­tions with people who are just wandering by and need a bit of solace. Before you know it, you’re into a quite deep and meaningful faith conversation, simply because there is a lovely tranquil place of sanctity.”

Besides serving as a “church without thresholds”, the garden has been relatively easy to establish, Mr Pugh-Jones explained. To anyone with a similar space, he would simply say “give it a go, be inspired; every little intervention is relatively easy and you can’t go too far wrong.

“It’s a very joyful thing, and it’s made us part of the community in a way that we weren’t before — what’s not to like?”

Congregation and Community

St Mary’s Scottish Episcopal Church, Dunblane (ECO Fest)

ST MARY’s in Dunblane, central Scotland, has been an Eco Church for two decades. They have ad­­dressed energy efficiency, rewilded the grave­yard, and incorporated crea­tion spirituality into their worship.

In 2021, they realised that the one thing they were yet to do was to look beyond the church to the town. This was the genesis of ECO Fest, a church-led community day dedi­c­ated to educate the town about care for the Earth and encourage more action for the environment.

The first event, in 2022, featured a public debate on environmental is­­­sues, a plethora of eco groups (local and national) who offered informa­tion, and a foraging/recycling activity for young people.

Bethany NelsonThe Assistant curate of St Mary’s, Dunblane, the Revd Rachael Wright, in conversation on ECO Fest Day in May this year

The 2023 event was expanded, and community groups joined in the organising: there were more exhibi­tors, an electric-car dem­onstration, live music, ice cream, and a COP26 display.

The response was so positive that the decision was taken to turn the ECO Fest this year into a week-long event, incorporating a repair café, clothes swap, wildflower-meadow planting, and environmental discus­sions at schools.

The Rector, the Revd Dr Nerys Brown, described the festival as “all about enabling: getting all the organ­isations in Dunblane to do some­thing that week to raise aware­ness, including all five schools, the uni­formed organisations, the library and the youth centre”. There were creation-focused services in the church at the start and end of the week.

Dr Brown said that ECO Fest was in accord with the church’s ethos of putting faith into action. (It also works with asylum-seekers and engages in overseas ministry.) “It’s a small group of us in the church, but we’re working in part­nership with so many other organ­isations.”

Volunteer-led and run, ECO Fest has even bigger plans for the future, including launching a bi-monthly Eco Café with speakers, alternating with a Repair Café, so that the level of awareness raised during Dun­blane ECO Fest Week will con­tinue among local people throughout the year.

Holy Trinity, Barnes, London (Growing Together)

IT WAS when Holy Trinity, Barnes, in south London, had to hold Sun­­day services outdoors in their churchyard, that a parishioner, Helen Hewitt, first spotted that this green space was under-appreciated.

A few years and a career change later, Ms Hewitt launched Growing Together, a transformation of the derelict land into a flourishing com­munity garden.

As well as growing kilos of fruit and vegetables, given away at the foodbank which is also run by the church, the garden also hosts free sessions to teach neighbours — in­­cluding children and their families from a nursery near by — how to garden for themselves.

Prioritising regenerative “no-dig” gardening methods, the team, led by Ms Hewitt, compost waste, collect rainwater, minimise chemical fertil­isers, and build habitats for wildlife, resulting in a blossoming of bio­diversity.

“Connecting us to our food, and where our food comes from — which, obviously, in London is hard to tell — but also using our land to benefit others, that’s the thing that has captured imaginations,” Ms Hew­itt said.

Holy Trinity Barnes, in south London, runs Growing Together, a community allotment

The social-justice element has drawn both members of the congregation and the wider community into the gardening project, she added.

Surplus and imperfect produce grown near by, in private allotments, is also collected by the Holy Trinity team, to supply the foodbank or to be turned into preserves and chut­neys, sold to fund the foodbank.

OTHER STORIES

£5.2 million to be issued to 114 churches to achieve net-zero target

MILLIONS of pounds are to be distributed in grants to 114 of the highest carbon-emitting churches in England in a push to meet the Church’s target to reach net-zero by 2030, it was announced on Thursday

The next phase is turning another part of the churchyard’s memorial garden into a flood-resilient rain garden, which will create more habitats for wildlife and also en­­courage parishioners to use the space more.

“It’s about a missional space that isn’t the church,” Ms Hewitt said, “and gets people thinking about creation care and why this might be important for us as a church.”

For parishes with equally un­­derused churchyards, the best place to start is A Rocha Eco Church re­­sources, Ms Hewitt says, al­­though finding community par­tners is also a vital next step.

Watford Salvation Army (community allotment)

BRINGING a splash of green to the grey has been the target for the Watford Salvation Army in their community allotment project.

That splash features a plethora of planters, raised beds, wildflower meadows, a pond, a summer house, and much more for children from the Cherry Tree Primary School near by to use.

More than 120 pupils and staff visit each week to learn gardening skills, take part in forest school, and enjoy services and harvest celebra­tions.

Most local young people live in flats without any outdoor space, and there are pockets of real deprivation; so the allotment is a vital outlet for the community.

Mark Scoulding  Corporate volunteers from Pickfords head office give up a Saturday to build compost heaps at the Watford Salvation Army Community Allotment

“Pollution, biodiversity, and ac­­cess to green space are all important neighbourhood issues,” one member of the congregation, Mark Scould­ing, said. “We try to help, as disciples of Jesus, by offering oppor­tunity, building aspiration, support­ing cohe­sion, and greening the grey.”

Pupils with additional needs and behavioural struggles part­icularly benefit from time outdoors, learning patient gardening skills, and being surrounded by nature.

The Headteacher of Cherry Tree, Cheska Tyler, said that the project had been “absolutely transforma­tional” for pupils.“The children come back with fresh produce to share with others, and excitedly talk about the new fruits and vegetables they have tasted. It is now an intrinsic part of our curriculum, and truly helps our children to understand the im­port­ance of looking after our world.”

As well as being introduced to new fruit and vegetables, the children have learnt about low-intervention gardening techniques, which boost biodiversity and cut waste: a bathtub is the pond, planters are made from old tyres, and, wherever possible, woodchip comes from diseased trees that had to be felled.

Next week: the shortlisted projects in the other categories. The winners will be announced at the Church Times Green Church Awards ceremony at St John’s, Waterloo, on 26 September.