St John's Church is an

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

Sparkhill Sparkhill is an inner-city area of Birmingham, England, situated between Springfield, Birmingham, Springfield, Hall Green and Sparkbrook. Historic counties of England, Historically part of Worcestershire, Sparkhill once existed as a Yardley ...

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

. St John's is a welcoming multi-ethnic church situated in the heart of Birmingham's Balti Belt, it is one of England's most ethnically and religiously diverse parishes. The main Sunday service is held at 10.30am, the first Sunday of the month being an All Age Service followed by a shared meal for those who wish to stay. The church is a member of the South Asian Forum of the Evangelical Alliance and the New Wine Network of churches. The Church hosts the Armenian Church in Birmingham and a

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

-speaking congregation. It is the home of the charity 'Narthex Sparkhill' www.narthex.org.uk which received the Queen's Award for Voluntary Service in 2016. It was constructed in 1888 which makes it one year older than Birmingham city. It sits exactly at the top of the Hill known as Sparkhill. It is a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

. "St John's Church is a remarkable Victorian building with an interior of vast proportions for its age... The church was built in 1888 by Birmingham architects

Martin & Chamberlain John Henry Chamberlain, William Martin, and Frederick Martin were architects in Victorian Birmingham, England. Their names are attributed singly or pairs to many red brick and terracotta buildings, particularly 41 of the forty-odd Birmingham b ...

. This firm was more famous for school buildings than churches, and most notably the Birmingham School of Art, one of the finest buildings in the city centre. St John's church is perhaps as bold an architectural statement, in its own way...The architectural style of the exterior is the Victorian version of Early English Gothic, but with c19 engineering advances displaying no further similarities to the medieval in its interior arrangement." (English Heritage report 2009) In 1990 with the closure of Emmanuel Church, Sparkbrook part of that parish was incorporated within this parish.

References

Churches completed in 1888 19th-century Church of England church buildings

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