Plans to give a Cockermouth church a new lease of life have been revealed.
Christ Church wants to transform its 1865 Grade II listed building into a more flexible and accessible facility for its congregation and the wider community.
The faith hub will allow the church to continue to develop its work in the community and house its expanding groups and congregations.
It has applied for permission from Allerdale council to make the changes.
The church wants to move the former font outside the building, remove staircases and install a lift, new kitchen and ‘pods’ for flexible uses.
The application said: “New interventions such as the office and flexible use pods, lift and secondary staircase will make the church more accessible and flexible for worshipers and the wider community, and are designed to appear as light touches floating over the existing structure.”
It wants to create an extra ground floor toilet, new storage space and introduce a secondary staircase.
The church has over 60 pairs of volunteers and clients taking part in its Linking Lives initiative, which is continuing to grow and needs office and training space; it is increasing its community activities, as are other organisations like Age UK; its existing fellowship groups are now at full capacity and its Messy Church service now has a 40-strong congregation and needs better facilities to better serve young people.
It added that it wanted to improve comfort levels for worship, community concerts and school use, upgrade the parish office and said the revamp would help it on its journey to net zero, with improvement of insulation, reducing heat loss, compartmentalisation of space, reducing drafts and zoned heating.
Other plans include:
- The font from the former baptistery is to be relocated to the grounds on the north of the site. The removable lid will be taken off but retained for posterity. A new carved stone top will be bedded over the font with a brass commemorative plaque atop describing and dating the reordering.
- The plaques with the Ten Commandments are to be moved to the north side of the Chancel over the door to the vestry.
- The roll of honour/book of remembrance will be moved to the west end of the south side of the Chancel.
The organ will remain where it is and a new raised floor will be created to surround it.
The application added: “Internally the proposed interventions have been kept subservient to the overall internal space, stair, stores and the lift housing are set back under the existing gallery. Where the intervention encroaches on this, namely the new cross wall dividing the narthex and nave, it is glassy, transparent and lightweight, reverting to solid when once again below the line of existing gallery.”
The application is being considered by Allerdale council.
