I am letting you know and all your readers of your website, that Manor Road United Reformed Church on Lordship Road N16 will be closing its church building in the near future.
We are not sure when our doors will close for good, possibly a year to two years time.
The Synod of the United Reformed Church will have to put all the processes in motion, to see about selling the building to a new owner.
It is very sad that a church that has had important significance in this designated area of Stoke Newington will eventually be closing its doors for good.
There has been a church in this designated area since the 17th Century. In these times, the Church was called the Stoke Newington Presbyterian Church. The second amalgamation of the church was opened in November of 1970 and played a significant part as a United Reformed Church and community centre in this designated area for just over 52 years.
My Father Fitzgerald Howard was a church officer in the church over 50 years as well as being a caretaker of the also connected estate flats ( Geneva Court Flats on Manor Road). He retired from the flats in the early 1990s. He passed away from Covid on February 3rd 2021. We also lost our very long attending Pulpit Secretary in the church, Doris Purkiss to cancer the following year.
For some many decades, Manor Road Church lost connection to its community and had also been struggling to receive a new minister/ church leader.
The effects of Covid made church life even more difficult, especially with a very old demographic age in the church.
At church services in the last months, we could only receive 3 or 4 members in our congregation. The congregation was left with no choice in eventually ending church services.
Our Pentecostal church group on Sundays are continuously using our church, until The time can arrive for them to be located at Rectory Road URC ( also in Stoke Newington) when the church eventually closes its doors for good.
Our church plans to have a very last celebratory church service On June 17th at 2.pm.
Unfortunately, we already have our invited list of guests who can be invited to this event.
But if you are somebody who has used the church building in the past, maybe there could be spaces of more invitees to this event.
We can only invite 100 people to this event.
If you would particularly like to be at this event, you can let me know by email, and there may be a ( short notice possibility) that we may be able to get you on the invite list. What we are particularly asking for are memories of Manor Road URC, which we can use in our church service for this event.
The local community’s memories of Manor Road URC would be greatly appreciated here.
So if anyone would like to come to this celebratory service On the 17th June or would like to send their memory stories of Manor Road URC past, let me know by emailing me at: rogerhoward555@gmail.com.
I will reply back to you all, as soon as I possibly can.
Thank You Very Much.
God Bless You All.
Roger Howard.
Son of Fitzgerald Howard and Manor Road URC- previous Church Pianist.
StokeNewington.Info 