Building Christ Church: 2007 onwards

Building Christ Church: 2007 onwards

New Halls and Vicarage

From 2007, Christ Church began working with Southwark Diocese on a scheme that provide a new, modern vicarage and a new purpose-built hall to serve the Church’s mission to children and young people more effectively. This would involve selling part of the vicarage site for property development and also the Parish Halls and Caretakers house. In many ways, this forms the completion of the vision that was originally set out in the church meeting back in January 1974 (see Building Christ Church: 1968 to 1975).

Opposition by local politicians to this redevelopment recalled the original opposition by Henry Drummond to the original building of the church back in 1857 (see The Start of Christ Church, New Malden).  This (together with resistance from other quarters), delayed the project considerably. However, by 2015 it was finally underway.

The old vicarage which had stood for 141 years from 1874 was finally demolished in August 2015.

Photo showing the demolition of the old Vicarage in progress

Demolition of the Vestry Hall (49 years) and the Holly Room/Church Office (34 years) followed in October.

Photo showing the demolition of the Vestry Hall and Holly Room in progress, a pile of rubble in the foreground as the back wall remains
Photo looking down on the building site after clearance of the rubble and work is about to start to lay the foundations for the New Hall

The new vicarage was built to Grade One environmental standards...

Photo showing builders at work on building the new Vicarage; although at an early stage, the layout of the ground floor rooms is evident

...and was completed for the Kuhrt family to move into in September 2016.

Photo showing the completed Vicarage, looking west with the church in the background on the left, the east wall window visible

Building of the new hall continued into early 2017. 

Photo inside the New Hall during its building, looking up to the roof in the process of construction
Photo of the New Hall now virtually complete whilst the car park is still obviously part of a building site, a stack of palletes visible in the foreground to the left

The new hall was opened in July 2017, a fitting milestone for our Sesquicentennial year.

Photo of the completed New Hall, now in use, two cars parked in the car park and the church office lights on

The photos below show the interior of the new halls, including rooms used for Children's (the Scramblers and Climbers rooms are shown here) and Youth work.

Photo of the interior of the New Halls as you enter from the lounge, the main feature of interest being the old north wall and windows visible on the right, with the door to the vestry further along
Photo of the new Scrambler's room looking towards the Climber's Room, with small blue tables and small red chairs on the right, yellow painted walls and 'Scramblers' painted on the far wallyellow painted walls
Photo showing the new Climber's room with tables in place, lime green painted walls and 'Climbers' painted on the far wall
Photo of the new Youth Room furnished with two sofas and comfy chairs, TV screen and speakers mounted on the wall

The New Entrance

Following completion of the new halls, and with the front of the church and its entrance due for refurbishment, we launched an appeal to the members of Christ Church to raise £50,000.  The front entrance, together with its paving and flower beds, had grown rather tatty since it was built in 1981, and there was a particular need to improve its accessibility for people using wheelchairs. 

The eventual sum raised by the Appeal was £50,300. Work on the entrance refurbishment completed during October 2018. 

Photo showing the new entrance and flower beds
Photo of the new entrance with the old side entrance to the church in view
Close up view of the new entrance

The new entrance was officially opened by Sheila Short (wife of John Short) on Sunday 18th November 2018. 

Sheila Short cuts the red tape to officially open the new entrance, Stephen Kuhrt to the side armed with microphone

A new bench was dedicated in memory of John Short.

Photo of the bench dedicated to John Short viewed from an angle
View of the bench dedicated to John Short from the front
Close up of the plaque on the bench dedicated to John Short, which reads 'In loving memory of Canon John Short, Faithful Vicar of Christ Church New Malden, 1976 - 1990
Building CCNM 1991-2006


Stephen Kuhrt

Life at CCNM 2007-present

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