Wellspring Church

The Aim

To meet the needs of their congregation and the wider community, Wellspring Church approached us wanting to create extra meeting spaces for the community to use on the site of an underused car park next to the existing Victorian Methodist Church.

The Design

To realise their needs, we designed a new annex to the main church, connected by a modern glass link. The building takes a traditional form, but has contemporary detailing and materials to differentiate it from the historical church. To respect the original building, the ridge and eaves lines are lower than the church which keeps it subservient to the host building. Within the extension, there is a new accessible cafe with a lift and meeting rooms on the floors above for community groups to use. As part of the works, refurbishments to the church were also made. The new entrance and stairs are housed in the glazed link so that the whole of both of sides of the buildings are now fully accessible.

A Positive Community Reaction 

"“Wow” is the comment we frequently hear when people walk into our re-styled and enlarged church for the first time. They are amazed at how much additional space we have gained by building on our tiny backyard.

Allan Joyce Architects have engaged with us thoroughly at every point: not just in producing the creative design but before that at the public consultation and afterwards during the technical design, construction stage and post-completion follow-up. Since site meetings had to take place online during the Covid pandemic, Allan Joyce Architects were the essential link between the church and the builders as the work was progressing."

Wellspring Church