The History of
Lea Road
Community Church
Three different buildings, three different names but over 100 years of worshipping God and serving the people of Penn Fields
There has been a church on the corner of Lea Road and Claremont Road since 1905, and in all those years, the mission is the same - one of worship hand in hand with service, of welcoming all and reaching out to those in need. Nothing remains of the original Lea Road Congregational Chapel or the beautiful sanctuary which was added in 1932.
However, the story of Lea Road does not lie in architecture, stained glass or precious items. It is the story of the courage, faith and service of the many generations of Christians who have worshipped and witnessed there.
The Church arose from the vision and resolve of worshippers at a very prosperous Congregational Church in Queen Street in the centre of Wolverhampton. Remarkably, they founded two missions in deprived areas of the town and eight chapels in the suburbs and outlying area.
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At that time, Penn Fields was being developed for the housing of local workers. The plot of land on the corner of Lea Road and Claremont Road was purchased by the members of Queen Street Church for £653, they then set about raising funds to build a chapel and school room on the site. Within three years their target had been achieved.
In 1905 the foundation stone was laid by Alderman Baldwin Bantock, a man of strong Christian beliefs and a great sense of civic duty. Bantock was twice Mayor of Wolverhampton and was deeply involved in the opening of the chapel and became the first Superintendent of the Sunday School. He was also a great benefactor to the people of the town, leaving his home and land, Bantock Park and House as amenities for all the community.
When the church was complete, thirty-three of the Queen Street members volunteered to leave their mother church and become the founding members at Lea Road. They were tireless in their efforts. Very soon the church had a large Sunday School, Boys and Girls Brigades, a Young People’s Guild, a football team and a branch of the temperance organisation, the Band of Hope. As it grew, the activities also grew to include a Dorcas sewing group, a lending library and a Men’s Early Morning School, teaching men and boys with little or no education to read and write before they went to work.
With the outbreak of the First World War many of the young men had to leave to fight and the Dorcas Sewing Group became a Red Cross Working Party.
During the economic depression that followed the war, it became necessary to extend the outreach of the church. A daily club called the Good Companions provided food and warmth for the hungry and unemployed of the area. In gratitude, some of the men in the club decided to set about trying to improve the grounds. They also laid two tennis courts which were to provide happy recreation for many generations.
The Church and Sunday School had grown so rapidly that it was soon necessary to extend the building. There were few affluent members and raising the £6,000 necessary to fulfil the dream was extremely hard work. They wanted to build a new place for worship, freeing the existing building for other church and community activities. There was a scheme where people could buy a brick, they cost sixpence (5p) so it took some time! It was 1932 before the new Sanctuary could be officially opened.
When war broke out again in 1939, large air raid shelters were dug out in the church grounds and for a while the church became home to the girls of Bingley Street School. It was a hard time and the church family was once again depleted. The necessary blackout made it impossible to use the building in the evenings in winter. One of the few bombs dropped on the area narrowly missed the church, landing just beyond the tennis courts.
In the strong tradition of service for others, women of the church joined in working to help prisoners of war. With the coming of peace, they were also involved in sending food parcels to those facing starvation in post-war Germany and in welcoming displaced persons and refugees.
Gradual changes in the neighbourhood began in the late-1950s and immigrants from the West Indies and India were settling in the area. The church tried to give a welcome these newcomers. Sadly, many of them had faced rejection in other places when they came to settle in the town. They soon became much loved members of our church family, and some continue to enliven and enrich our church life even to this day.
At the dawn of the sixties, as part of the outreach into the community the church opened the doors to all the young people in the area. The Saints Youth Club grew rapidly and was hugely successful. It went on to open five evenings a week and later with the rise of youth unemployment, daytime education courses were added giving youngsters training in vocational and social skills.
In the late sixties a lunch club for the elderly housebound was started which went on to become the first Age Concern Day Centre in the town. The church also hosted a playgroup to welcome children with learning difficulties and their mothers and supported the setting up of the Wolverhampton Mencap Group. A monthly simple soup lunch in support of Oxfam started at that time and has continued over the years.
The name of the church changed in 1972 when the members voted to join the United Reformed Church, uniting Congregationalists and Presbyterians. The union was later joined by the Church of God.
Hard use over the years meant that by the end of the 1980s the buildings were deteriorating and were proving too expensive to maintain by a congregation who were aging and reducing in number. If the church was to continue its work, an enormous leap of faith was needed, and after much prayer and deliberation, it was decided that this would need to involve the demolition of the old church and the building of a sanctuary within a modern community centre. This was achieved by an innovative partnership between the church, a housing association and the local authority.
Though in 1994 it was sad to watch the demolition of the greatly loved old building, two years later members were able to attend the opening of the new church, community centre and workshop that we continue to use today.
There has been a continuous thread of worship and Bible study throughout the years including during the nomadic time of rebuilding. The new era has seen the church become host to several other churches from different countries and Christian traditions. Needs were changing during the period when the building of the Church and Community Centre was taking place. A new era of serving the needs of the area had begun.
There continues to be an inclusive welcome and the new building has already become home to many different community groups. These have included a lunch club for Afro-Caribbean elders, a gardening project, courses in practical skills, girls' club, women’s group, Credit Union, a welcome place for a new generation of refugees and migrants and a Drop-In Centre for members of the East European Roma community.
Always focused on faith in action, in 2004, the members of the church voted for a second change of name, deciding that the church would be known from then on as Lea Road Community Church [URC].
In early 2022, on the tail-end of the COVID-19 pandemic, Lea Road Community Church (LRCC), with money granted to them from the National Lottery, began a community project named Together In Penn Fields (TIPF). Within its first year, TIPF not only brought back programmes similar to those LRCC has been running for years, along with many of the people who attended those groups, but began new groups and partnered with new organisations to bring in even more people, thus continuing this church's legacy of being a place of welcome and support in the Penn Fields neighbourhood.
Thus the story continues……..
*A more detailed history of the church at Lea Road is lodged in Wolverhampton City Archives*