Project Lead for the refurbishment, Ian Warren, writes:

The Grove Centre Church in Sydenham, South London officially celebrated the opening of its newly refurbished Grove Centre House on June 6th 2025. The Church is a Baptist Union (BU) and United Reformed Church (URC) Local Ecumenical Partnership and was formed 50 years ago. It has always endeavoured to be a “A Place For People” welcoming all from within its local community to use its facilities and ensuring the Church is seen to be at its heart.

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While having a full programme of both Church and community activities the Church recognised the limitations in its adjoining Georgian style, listed House Hall and offices. The building was inaccessible, tired and failing to meet the direct needs of our many user groups.

The project, which has been 16 years in the planning and delivery, has transformed the facility into a bright, airy and fully accessible space with a lift providing access to offices and meeting spaces on the first floor. The project has cost in excess of £750,000, with money being raised through a number of charitable grants, including input from both denominations, local fund-raising efforts and gifts and legacies from within its own fellowship.

The Right Honourable Ellie Reeves M.P. performed the ceremony, along with representatives of the London Borough of Lewisham, the professional team and builders, current users of the spaces and members of the Church. She said:

“it was wonderful to be at the grand re-opening of the Grove Centre House. The Grove Centre has been at the heart of Sydenham for more than 50 years and I know it’ll continue to serve our community for many years to come”.

The Church’s ambition is to ensure that its facilities serve its local community by enabling a wide range of activities.

The project involved achieving planning permission on a listed site within a conservation area and raising sufficient funds to deliver the project. A past minister suggested relocating our Baptist owned Manse to a location much closer, releasing a significant sum of money to begin our efforts. To enable this required the Sharing Agreement, between the URC and the BU, to be rewritten to acknowledge the additional contribution into the URC owned building. Having achieved this the Church set about further fundraising, both from within the fellowship and from external donor/charitable bodies. While we seemed to be forever chasing rising building costs the congregation agreed to move forward in faith that the additional funds would be forthcoming, without resorting to a loan.

It is with joy and thanks that we have now completed the project and see the benefits to our community already coming to fruition.

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