The Bishop of St Asaph joined the congregation of St Bartholomew’s Church in Sealand on Sunday (22 October) to celebrate the re-ordering of the building as a community space.

The beautiful 156-year-old building remains a place of worship but has been modernised with improved heating and lighting, a kitchen, a cafe and toilets.

Plans for the £300,000 transformation began in 2000 and started with the need to install a toilet but developed over the years to ensure the church was flexible enough to welcome people in for food, warmth and support.

The Secretary of St Bartholomew’s Church, Jan Smith, said: “Since starting the project more than 20 years ago, several imaginative fund-raising events have been held at the church. These include an art exhibition and sale called ‘Bart Art’, a Model Railway exhibition, Plant Sales, Scalextric events, Craft Fairs.  In 2014, we began an annual Heritage Exhibition, involving local schools. These events brought over 2,000 people into the building each year, but others needed to share the vision if we were to achieve our goal.

“In 2018, the Welsh Government’s “Peoples and Places”  fund awarded us a grant of just under £120,000.  This came at exactly the right time – confirmation and an answer to our prayers. The final phase of the project began in October 2019 and, despite the pandemic, was completed in a year. The large vision was at last realized, and the building is now used to help the whole community.”

St Bartholomew’s Church is part of the Borderlands Mission Area, a group of churches which serve communities around Deeside, Buckley and parts of Flintshire. Borderlands Mission Area is part of the Diocese of St Asaph, one of the six dioceses in the Church in Wales, an autonomous Province of the worldwide Anglican Communion.