Building Anew at St Mary with St Alban
Introduction
Building Anew is the project to equip Teddington’s historic parish church with much-needed facilities to make it truly welcoming for all and fit for purpose, today and into the future. Currently the church has no toilets, social space or facilities to offer refreshments. This greatly curtails the use that can be made of this beautiful building. Building Anew will remedy this by providing fully accessible toilets, a kitchenette to serve refreshments and a meeting space adjoining the church.
The scheme has been carefully designed to enhance our existing building and the way it relates to the beautiful churchyard around it, creating a new space where people can come together and connect, while minimising the additional footprint needed. The new development will be fully accessible and prioritise the use of sustainable energy and materials.
It is the culmination of a long process of discernment, research, planning and consultation. The positive feedback received during our consultation processes with Historic England, the Diocese of London, The Teddington Society, our local community and others has been extremely welcome and encouraging.
Richmond Council has granted planning permission and we are now excited to be launching the fundraising campaign to raise the £1 million needed for the building work. We are looking for your help.
To donate to this Appeal please click HERE - with options to Gift-Aid and make a one-off or regular donation.
For a bank transfer to Building Anew via our CAF Bank account for PCC Parish St Mary St Alban Teddington, please use Account Number: 00099858 and Sort Code: 40-52-40. If you are not already opted-in to Gift Aid with us, and are a UK taxpayer, please download our Gift Aid Declaration Form, by clicking here.
Cheques can be made out to PCC Parish St Mary St Alban Teddington, please, and left in our letterbox at the parish hall: St Mary's Parish Hall, Langham Road. Teddington. TW11 9HF. Please write BUILDING ANEW on the back of the cheque.
Thank you very much.
Or what about running a fundraising event or getting involved in raising money in any other way, large or small, we would be delighted to hear from you. Please email us at future@teddingtonparish.org or call the Parish Office on 020 8943 2262. Fundraising appeal brochures are also available at the back of the church and in the entrance to our parish hall.
Building Anew is about making our contribution to the 800-year history of the church which has been added to every century. Every generation has done their bit to ensure the building is fit for purpose for their own particular time. This will be the first major development of the church in 140 years.
We very much hope you will support this project, which offers an exciting opportunity to make this beautiful church truly welcoming to all in our community, able to:
Overview of our Building Anew project
We are privileged to worship in an historic parish church set within a beautiful churchyard. Today, it is up to us to ensure that this wonderful oasis in the middle of a busy London suburb continues to flourish and provide for the spiritual and other needs of our community.
To achieve this we face a challenge! Our church has no toilets, kitchen facilities or flexible gathering/meeting space. This greatly curtails the use we can make of our beautiful building. Although we are lucky enough to have a Parish Hall with facilities, it lies across a busy main road with no safe crossing place, making it difficult to access for many, especially the young, the elderly and those with disabilities. We are seeking to remedy this by providing fully accessible toilets, a kitchenette and a meeting space adjoining the church, enabling us to extend our welcome to all.
After months of hard work by the project team and the governance group under the guidance of the PCC, we have designed a space to provide the facilities we need to make our church more welcoming and fit for purpose. We have considered a wide range of approaches, with expert input sought across all relevant areas, including the heritage of the building, engineering, accessibility, archaeology, the churchyard, environmental impact and future sustainability.
The approved design, meticulously prepared by A&RME architects, seeks to preserve all the significant historic features of our church, maximise the use of the space available within the existing building and add a sympathetic extension providing toilets, kitchen facilities and a new multi-purpose space – the Garden Room.
The Garden Room Extension
The Garden Room will be on the north side of the church, replacing the current choir vestry which will be demolished. It will be accessed directly from a new doorway in the north wall of the church via a glass-walled passageway. The new doorway will be created by enlarging the window opening nearest the organ on the north wall, with the stained-glass window currently located there restored and repositioned to replace the clear glass central window.
The extension will have glass walls on the north and west sides opening up views onto our glorious churchyard. Two toilets – one accessible with baby-change facilities – will be located off the passageway. The west wall of the Garden Room will contain a kitchenette complete with sink, microwave and dishwasher. The Garden Room will be large enough to host coffee after services, Children’s Church and other church and community groups linked to the church during the week. The new extension will also free up availability in the Parish Hall for community use and commercial hire, bringing in much-needed additional revenue.
The Garden Room will benefit from direct access to the churchyard, with a south-facing door onto a Mary Garden, providing a welcoming entrance from the south and east sides of the church. A contemporary glass artwork will be commissioned to be integrated into the east wall of the Garden Room to echo the existing stained-glass windows in the church, adding ambience and bringing in further light. The whole extension is designed as an integrated space with the church, which will be step-free and accessible from both church and churchyard.
Internal re-ordering of the church
To minimise the size of the extension and keep costs as low as possible, the proposed design includes a re-ordering of the rooms in the northeast of the church to make the most efficient use of its existing footprint.
Firstly, the significant amount of space in the current organ chamber will be liberated by replacing the pipe organ with a new state-of-the-art digital organ. Experts have confirmed that the current pipe organ is of no historical significance and not a high-quality instrument. Replacement of this with a new digital organ (with 20 drawstops) will improve the sound quality as well as free up the space currently occupied by the pipes and bellows.
This area will become the sacristy, an area used by the clergy before and after services, with a mezzanine floor inserted to accommodate storage above. It will be accessed by a new doorway and staircase from the current sacristy (the room to the left of the altar) which will become the new choir vestry. This room can also be used as a further meeting room when not required by the choir.
Fundraising Campaign and Next Steps
Following the welcome news in December 2022 that Richmond Council had granted planning permission for this long-awaited development, we are now excited to be beginning the next phase of the project. This will involve many elements, not least raising the money needed to build it.
We launched our fundraising appeal on Sunday 23 July and are now looking for your help to raise £1 million.
If you would like to make a donation, please click here.
This offers options to make a one-off or regular donation and apply Gift Aid if you are an eligible UK taxpayer.
If you would prefer to make a bank transfer instead, please use the following CAF Bank account details:
Account Name: PCC Parish of St Mary with St Alban Teddington
Sort Code: 40-52-40
Account Number: 00099858
Reference: Building Anew
Alternatively, cheques can be made out to PCC Parish of St Mary with St Alban Teddington, and left in our letterbox at the parish hall: St Mary's Parish Hall, Langham Road, Teddington, TW11 9HF. Please write ‘Building Anew donation’ on the back.
For bank transfers and cheques, if you have not already opted-in to Gift Aid with us, and are a UK taxpayer, please download our Gift Aid Declaration Form, by clicking here.
Also, if you would like to get involved in the fundraising campaign or communications team in any capacity, large or small, we would be delighted to hear from you! Please email us at: future@teddingtonparish.org, or contact a member of the clergy, or call the Parish Office on 020 8943 2262.
Thank you for supporting this project, which represents an exciting opportunity to make this beautiful church truly welcoming and accessible to all in our community.
