New Church  Design & Development Sub-committee

Our main contributions so far have been discussions about the requirements of the New Church facility, exploring other church sites that could possibly give us some ideas for the way ahead and, following the Sisters’ generous offer, considering what artefacts in the Sacred Heart church we might be able to move into the New Church.

We were very grateful to all those groups and individuals who replied to the Parish survey.

Once we had correlated the vital information it had given us we were able to report to The Main Committee on the requirements for the Church and Centre both now and in the foreseeable future. We are not sure that we will be able to meet all of the individual requirements we were asked for but we are sure that we can reach a suitable compromise.

Members of the committee have spent time  fact-finding. Visiting churches, church halls and centres in Bishops Waltham, Hythe and Christchurch. We have looked at areas from: kitchens to confessionals, tiles and carpets to comfortable toilets, and heating and lighting to bricks and wood. Indeed we searched every nook and cranny, even the lagging and pipe work, on your behalf.

We have many good ideas and, best of all, we found Columba Cook’s design of St Joseph’s Church Christchurch inspiring.

Our efforts have also been employed in looking at your requests for items to be relocated from the Sacred Heart Church into the New Church and we have submitted a preliminary list to the Main Committee.

There are various theological, liturgical and practical reasons why some of those articles requested would not be suitable for the New Church but we are confident that the heritage the Sacred Heart Church has given to the Parish will not be forgotten. It is not too late for you to give us your suggestions for that list and we would be delighted to hear your views. You can contact us via the presbytery

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