Lillington Free Church Hall (geograph 2352709)

Lillington Free Church is a

free church A free church is a Christian denomination that is intrinsically separate from government (as opposed to a state church). A free church does not define government policy, and a free church does not accept church theology or policy definitions from ...

, located in

Lillington Lillington may refer to: Places England * Lillington, Dorset, a hamlet in Dorset * Lillington, Warwickshire, a suburb of Leamington Spa, Warwickshire * Lillington Gardens, a housing estate in Pimlico, London Elsewhere * Lillington, North Carolina ...

Leamington Spa Royal Leamington Spa, commonly known as Leamington Spa or simply Leamington (), is a spa town and civil parish in Warwickshire, England. Originally a small village called Leamington Priors, it grew into a spa town in the 18th century following ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. As of February 2019 the current Minister is Rev James Church who is assisted in running the church by ordained elders elected by the church members. As well as traditional Sunday worship weekly events include

sunday school A Sunday school is an educational institution, usually (but not always) Christian in character. Other religions including Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism have also organised Sunday schools in their temples and mosques, particularly in the West. Su ...

Rainbows A rainbow is a meteorological phenomenon that is caused by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a spectrum of light appearing in the sky. It takes the form of a multicoloured circular arc. Rainbows cau ...

, Brownies,

Girl Guides Girl Guides (known as Girl Scouts in the United States and some other countries) is a worldwide movement, originally and largely still designed for girls and women only. The movement began in 1909 when girls requested to join the then-grassroot ...

table tennis Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...

, coffee mornings and

toddler A toddler is a child approximately 12 to 36 months old, though definitions vary. The toddler years are a time of great cognitive, emotional and social development. The word is derived from "to toddle", which means to walk unsteadily, like a child ...

cafe A coffeehouse, coffee shop, or café is an establishment that primarily serves coffee of various types, notably espresso, latte, and cappuccino. Some coffeehouses may serve cold drinks, such as iced coffee and iced tea, as well as other non-caf ...

. Like all other Free Churches it has a certain degree of

autonomy In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy, from , ''autonomos'', from αὐτο- ''auto-'' "self" and νόμος ''nomos'', "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's ...

, although it and its Minister ultimately answer to the national

General Assembly A general assembly or general meeting is a meeting of all the members of an organization or shareholders of a company. Specific examples of general assembly include: Churches * General Assembly (presbyterian church), the highest court of presby ...

. The quarterly church magazine is named ''The Link''.

History

20th century

The history of the church began in 1948 when the main

denominations in the nearby town of

, the

Baptists Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only ( believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compe ...

, Methodists and

Congregationalists Congregational churches (also Congregationalist churches or Congregationalism) are Protestant churches in the Calvinist tradition practising congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its ...

, realised the need to provide meeting places for the number outside of the town proper. The Congregationalists were given the responsibility of Lillington and quickly purchased a site of 1,550

square yards In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90-degree angles, π/2 radian angles, or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle with two equal-length adj ...

on Cubbington Road for £150. Whilst funds were being raised to construct a suitable building on that site the Free Church met at a nearby

Women's Institute The Women's Institute (WI) is a community-based organisation for women in the United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand. The movement was founded in Stoney Creek, Ontario, Canada, by Erland and Janet Lee with Adelaide Hoodless being th ...

building, the first time being 6 January 1952.Mee, William: ''Lillington Free Church - The First 25 years'', page 14. Lillington Free Church, 1977

Planning permission Planning permission or developmental approval refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. It is usually given in the form of a building perm ...

was granted in 1953 for a £3,000, 180 person capacity church on the Cubbington Road site. Foundations stones were laid on 27 June 1953 and the church was officially opened for worship on 30 January 1954 with a service led by its first minister the Reverend D.Gibbons.Mee, William: ''Lillington Free Church - The First 25 years'', page 23. Lillington Free Church, 1977 As well as the main worship area there was a

foyer A lobby is a room in a building used for entry from the outside. Sometimes referred to as a foyer, reception area or an entrance hall, it is often a large room or complex of rooms (in a theatre, opera house, concert hall, showroom, cinema, etc. ...

cloakroom A cloakroom, or sometimes coatroom, is a room for people to hang their coats, cloaks or other outerwear when they enter a building. Cloakrooms are typically found inside large buildings, such as gymnasiums, schools, churches or meeting halls. ...

and

toilets A toilet is a piece of sanitary hardware that collects human urine and feces, and sometimes toilet paper, usually for disposal. Flush toilets use water, while dry or non-flush toilets do not. They can be designed for a sitting position popul ...

at the front and a

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquiall ...

and

kitchen A kitchen is a room or part of a room used for cooking and food preparation in a dwelling or in a commercial establishment. A modern middle-class residential kitchen is typically equipped with a stove, a sink with hot and cold running water, a ...

at the rear. By 1959 it was already becoming clear that the existing building was too small for activities, especially the

, so a new building committee was set up. Further land adjacent to the site was purchased for £200 and by 1963 plans were put in for a much larger new church. The first sod was cut for these schemes on 10 April 1965 with expected costs of £28,000. Whilst the presence of an old

gravel pit A gravel pit is an open-pit mine for the extraction of gravel. Gravel pits often lie in river valleys where the water table is high, so they may naturally fill with water to form ponds or lakes. Old, abandoned gravel pits are normally used eithe ...

initially hampered work the first service at the new church took place on 3 September 1966. It contained

, main hall and

and was much taller than the old church. The 1954 church at that point took on the role of a

church hall A church hall or parish hall is a room or building associated with a church, generally for community and charitable use.

with the

being removed and the kitchen extended. On 21 June 1972 the

Congregational Church in England and Wales The Congregational Union of England and Wales brought together churches in England and Wales in the Congregational tradition between 1831 and 1966. The Congregational churches emerged from the Puritan movement, each church operating independently ...

who had opened the church and the

Presbyterian Church of England The Presbyterian Church of England was a late-19th century and 20th century Presbyterian denomination in England. The church's origins lay in the 1876 merger of the English congregations of the chiefly Scottish United Presbyterian Church with vario ...

were combined to create the

United Reformed Church The United Reformed Church (URC) is a Protestant Christian church in the United Kingdom. As of 2022 it has approximately 40,000 members in 1,284 congregations with 334 stipendiary ministers. Origins and history The United Reformed Church resulte ...

. Although technically a URC the one in Lillington still maintains the name Free Church. That year also saw the foundation of the Lillington Free Church

Table Tennis Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...

Club. Two of the most successful graduates of the club are

Commonwealth Games The Commonwealth Games, often referred to as the Friendly Games or simply the Comm Games, are a quadrennial international multi-sport event among athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The event was first held in 1930, and, with the exce ...

medal winner Kelly Sibley and World Dwarf Games silver medalist Alex O'Driscoll. By the early 1970s the 1954 hall, which was being used by the

Boy Scouts Boy Scouts may refer to: * Boy Scout, a participant in the Boy Scout Movement. * Scouting, also known as the Boy Scout Movement. * An organisation in the Scouting Movement, although many of these organizations also have female members. There are ...

and

amongst other things, was again too small for purpose. On 23 March 1974 a large extension was opened to the rear consisting of a

games room A recreation room (also known as a rec room, rumpus room, play room, playroom, games room, or ruckus room) is a room used for a variety of purposes, such as parties, games and other everyday or casual activities. The term ''recreation room'' is c ...

coffee bar A coffeehouse, coffee shop, or café is an establishment that primarily serves coffee of various types, notably espresso, latte, and cappuccino. Some coffeehouses may serve cold drinks, such as iced coffee and iced tea, as well as other non-ca ...

, stage area, a small committee room and new toilets.

21st century

In September 2017

planning permission Planning permission or developmental approval refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. It is usually given in the form of a building perm ...

was granted for the demolition of both churches and the erection of a new church. Orbit Homes completed the work and as payment the Free Church is giving land to Orbit, on which they have permission to build 25 homes, a percentage of which will be

affordable housing Affordable housing is housing which is deemed affordable to those with a household income at or below the median as rated by the national government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability index. Most of the literature on affo ...

.Leamington Courier article on the development
/ref> The final service in the 1966 church was held on 26 November 2017. The introduction to the service was given by the current minister whilst the main service was led by Reverend John Carrier, minister in 1966. The church was demolished in March 2018 and the older church was kept whilst the new one was being built. The first Sunday service was held in the new church on 20 January 2019, with the official opening taking place on 9 March that year. It comfortably holds 80 people and includes a

, main hall with stage,

, an office for the

reverend The Reverend is an style (manner of address), honorific style most often placed before the names of Christian clergy and Minister of religion, ministers. There are sometimes differences in the way the style is used in different countries and c ...

, and a creche/committee room.

Public transport Public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) is a system of transport for passengers by group travel systems available for use by the general public unlike private transport, typical ...

to the church is via the

Stagecoach A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are draw ...

bus route 67.

References

External links

The Church websiteListen to Lillington Free Church's Services on SoundcloudUnited Reform Church national website
{{coord, 52.3045, -1.5205, display=title, region:GB_scale:2000 Churches completed in 1954 Churches completed in 1966 Churches completed in 2019 Churches in Warwickshire Buildings and structures in Leamington Spa 20th-century churches in the United Kingdom