St Mary's Church, Bitton

Future Plans – What & Why

Our starting point is very simple. It is a very old church, that is expensive to maintain and is currently just about managing to get by.  Its future is by no means assured and unless action is taken soon the prospect is that this ancient church could simply become a museum or a festival church – open a couple of times a year for special services. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

The church is unused for much of the time when it could be used and developed to bring in an income stream and provide a more modern speace for a wide variety of activities as well as new expressions of worship.

To do this we have put forward some ambitious plans, grouped into three phases of work that are intended to turn Steh church from a beautiful but rarely-used space to a dynamic, hospitable and well used community resource, place of worship and centre of heritage.  This will mean making some significant changes to the way the church is set out and used.  This section sets out what it is planned to do and why we want to do it.

Phase 1 (Complete)

What?

  • The removal of 5 rows of pews at the rear of the nave (the largest part of the church) and the choir stalls.
  • The fronts of the choirstalls were retained and put on wheels.

Why?

  • To make a space at the back of the church to test out whether we could use the church in more flexible ways.
  • To do the same at the front of the church creating a new space for performance and possibly assisting in new methods of worship.
  • Putting the choirstall fronts on wheels provided the opportunity to seat a choir or singers ina traditional manner in seats placed behind the choir fronts or in other informal ways.

Current position:

The work was carried out in 2017 under an Archdeacon’s Licence  and has been partially successful. The area opened up at the rear of the church meant that not only was there a larger space at the rear of the nave, but it could be combined with the adjoining chapel to provide a much larger space as needed This provided an area in which our Family Café Church could expand enabling additional young families to attend, without feeling cramped. It provided a much more welcoming area and much more room for socialising after services.  An increasing number of community events could be accommodated in this area and included Burns Night Supper and even a comedy evening. The result at the front of the nave was far less successful, but this was mainly the result of an unexpected discovery of a vault ( burial chamber) the top of which was higher than the remaining floor and had been well covered by a platform within the choirstalls.  As a result there has been a no opportunity to test out different uses of the choirstall fronts.  The vault, which had an open top was temporarily covered with plywood, providing an awkward platform on the north side of the church. The work also discovered that under the pews there was no flat surface.  Instead of the expected paving stones, under most of the area where the pews and choirstalls were removed there was nothing but rubblestone.  It would seem that when the pews were last reordered in the late 1960s, they were bolted to a wooden raft floor, which itself sat on the rubblestone, the latter to provide a ventilated surface for the wood.  As a temporary measure the newly exposed areas were filled in using limecrete (a form of soft concrete that can be easily removed).

Phase 2

What?

  • Make the remaining pews mobile using the existing pew ends.
  • Conserving and cleaning the walls.
  • Installation of a new level floor.
  • Install a heating system that will be more sustainable in the future.

Why?

  • To create a fully flexible building allowing the church to be used for a wider range of religious and community events.
  • It will allow the church both to appear in its traditional form with forward facing pews but by enabling them to be easily moved will not constrain the level of flexibility.
  • As a result, it should be possible to introduce new expressions of worship aimed particularly at different age groups and conduct services in a wider variety of formats.
  • We have to install a new floor to enable the pews to move and because much of the floor at the rear of the church is breaking up.
  • A new level floor will provide greater accessibility to all.
  • A new floor and better accessibility arrangements mean that the heating system will need alteration.  In making these changes we will look to a more sustainable plan for the future to guide us including the use of heat pumps rather than gas.
  • Cleaning and conserving the walls will make the church brighter and more hospitable, as well as ensuring that the walls are maintained for future generations.

Current position

We have been granted a faculty (planning permission) to take forward this phase of work.

Phase 3

What?

  • A new building on the south side of the church between the church and the wall fo the Grange.
  • It will cover all of the area currently occupied by the single lavatory and other buildings and extend down the south side of the church.
  • It will incorporate a small to medium sized professional kitchen, lavatories and storage.
  • It will be accessed from the church by opening up the south door. This is a beautiful Norman door, which as bricked up in the nineteenth century.

Why?

  • These additional facilities are required if the church is to play its full role as a focus and an asset for the community.
  • The kitchen will enable the church to prepare and serve food to a degree that is currently not possible.
  • A single lavatory is not sufficient for a building that can hold over 250 people at one time. More facilities are urgently required.

Current position

Phase 3 will only commence after the Phase 2 changes have been fully implemented and are successful.