You are here: A building history tour > A Tour of the Church

A tour of the Church

The main entrance into the church nowadays is through the newly created glass-doors, (6) a key feature in the church reordering scheme. You will find it a good place to view the church as a whole as you can see right through the lounge, nave and chancel, right through to the East Window. It’s a special place for brides to take a moment to stand and take a deep breath as they prepare to walk down the length of the church (7). The newly created foyer is welcoming and the redesign of this end of the church allowed the installation of modern toilet facilities (8). Moving anti-clockwise through the building we start in what is now the gents toilets where we find the first of many stained-glass windows (9). It depicts Jesus blessing the children and the text reads ‘Suffer little children and forbid them not to come unto me’. (KJV Matthew 19:14) .

Moving on into the Lounge

The modern carpeted “Wesley lounge” lounge is now used most days of the week for worship and for social activities for church and community groups. On one wall is the porcelain bust of John Wesley (10) that came from the Wesley Southbank Rd building. The second stained-glass window (11) is now in the newly-created kitchen and depicts the scene of Dorcas helping the poor (from Acts 9:36-43). The KJV text reads ‘Dorcas: This woman was full of good works and almsdeeds which she did’. Both these windows were given ‘In loving memory of Frederick Backhouse Richardson, who died 22nd July 1884, aged 43 years’ To find the next two stained-glass windows you need to go into the storage room behind the lift. The first represents the Good Samaritan (12) and the other, Jesus addressing the disciples in the Sermon on the Mount (13). These windows were given “In loving memory of Edwin Henry Wood, who died 9th May 1880, aged 43 years”.