£1m bid to save church

Jan 5 2009 by Emma Davison, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

Her team had consulted with a number of architects, but found that the company’s specialist ecclesiastic and heritage architect Stuart Beaumont shared the same vision they had for the church.

Stuart has been involved in a number of ecclesiastical projects across Yorkshire and sits on Wakefield Diocesan Advisory Committee. He is also an inspecting architect for 15 churches across Kirklees.

With its classic grade II listed Georgian facade, the church looked out of place next to the modern buildings surrounding it.

Stuart’s job was to reinvent the building for the 21st century while retaining the imposing character of the original structure.

A radical redesign of the space was needed, so Stuart started with the main worship space of the church.

Here most of the pews were earmarked for removal and replaced with individual seats to make the space more flexible and enable it to be used by both the congregation and conferences.

Stuart explains: “There is a strong association between churches and pews and people expect to see them in old churches.

“However, if you go back in time, churches were originally open spaces for meeting, not just for preaching and worship.

“The removal of the pews at Hunslet allows the church to become a focus for the local community once again.