£1m bid to save church

Jan 5 2009 by Emma Davison, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

‘This was our opportunity to create a place that would bring the church into the heart of the community’

GILL Knowles is a woman on a £1m mission.

Over the past five years the 50-year-old from Huddersfield has worked tirelessly to raise money to save her much-loved church from closure.

So far she has raised a staggering £280,000 through grants and fundraising events and is determined to keep going until she reaches her £1m goal.

Gill has been attending Hunslet Baptist Church in Leeds since she was a little girl.

The church was built in 1837 in response to the sudden growth of Hunslet as Leeds developed into a major industrial city.

It was originally a ‘preaching station’ – a meeting place where reading and writing was taught. The church also undertook outreach work and was the centre of the community.

But in recent years, numbers using the church dwindled and, in a poor state of repair, it came under threat of closure.

Gill and the church’s management team knew that something had to be done to save it. In 2004 a feasibility study showed that there was a real need in the area for nursery provision and conference and meeting facilities.