St Paul's, Old Ford, is a late 19th-century

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 ...

Old Ford Old Ford is an area in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets that is named after the natural ford which provided a crossing of the River Lea. History Administration and boundaries Historically, Old Ford was a cluster of houses and a mill, around ...

, London, England. It 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 in the

Diocese of London The Diocese of London forms part of the Church of England's Province of Canterbury in England. It lies directly north of the Thames, covering and all or part of 17 London boroughs. This corresponds almost exactly to the historic county of ...

History

St Paul's church was built in 1878 in

and adjacent to a primary school with over 650 children on the official school roll. In 1991, the building was closed due to maintenance and safety concerns. The Parochial Church Council (PCC) and the locals were determined to see that the church remained open and, in fact, was improved. The "A New Heart for Bow" project was born. More than £3,000,000 was raised from more than a dozen sources and philanthropies. Matthew Lloyd Architects was appointed to refurbish the building and enable it to serve the wider community as well as the church. Originally designed to seat 600 worshippers, the worship space was reordered, retaining original features and furnishings, to seat approximately 150. A 'building within a building' was inserted in the nave: a four-storey steel frame clad in tulipwood is supported on curving steel columns to sit above the worship space. Dubbed the Ark, this insertion in effect adds two new floors to accommodate flexible community spaces. In the attic, above the Ark, a ‘universal access’ gymnasium has been inserted along with an office and changing rooms. Balfour Beatty served as the main contractor, and work began in March 2003 and ended over a year later, in May 2004. St Paul's is part of the Bow Group of Anglican churches, together with Bow Church (St Mary and Holy Trinity);

St Paul's, Bow Common St Paul's Bow Common is a 20th-century Church (building), church in Bow Common, London, England. It is an Anglican church in the Diocese of London. The church is at the junction of Burdett Road and St Paul's Way in the London Borough of Tower Ham ...

; All Hallows, Bow and St Barnabas Bethnal Green.

References

Pevsner Architectural Guides, London: East vol 5, ed Bridget Cherry, Yale University Press 2005 Architectural Voices: Listening to Old Buildings, David Littlefield and Saskia Lewis, John Wiley Publishers 2007

Diocese of London Old Ford {{London-Anglican-church-stub