Why do we need an extension?
Our aim is to make the church a fit building to serve the needs of the local community in the 21st century. This goes much further than simply using it for services. We already have a tradition of hosting large-scale musical events, public lectures, and use for local elections. Many musical groups and choirs use it for rehearsals and recordings, for which under normal conditions there are regular weekly bookings. SS Philip and James School is linked to the church and under normal circumstances make regular use of it for services and other school events. The school itself does not have a space large enough to accommodate the whole school. There are rather few bookable spaces in this part of North Oxford other than St Margaret’s Institute suitable for small or medium-sized groups or meetings. The Institute is already fully booked for most of the time and has to turn away bookings. It does not have a space anywhere near as large as the nave of the church. Our sister church, St Giles, operates St Giles’ Parish Rooms, and so it will be possible to set up a shared booking system between the two churches, the Institute, and St Giles’ Parish Rooms so that a range of rooms of different sizes can be offered to those who need space, offering considerable flexibility if one particular space is unavailable when needed.
Currently, St Margaret’s has two vestries both of which are small and cluttered, and the Baptistery, which is a very solemn panelled room. We do not have a well lit modern meeting room suitable for groups of 10 to 20 people. We have carefully considered whether the Baptistery could be improved as a meeting room, but we think that to do so, even if we were given permission to do so, which is doubtful, it would do irreparable damage to the original panelling. We would still not have enough rooms for the parallel Sunday schools, and the feel of the room is ponderous and arguably somewhat unwelcoming for non-liturgical purposes.
The existing provision of toilets in the church is minimal. There is one extremely small one fitted into a spiral staircase in the porch, and one other at the back of the church which is not easy to reach from the seating in the nave. There is a clear need for more toilets, including a disabled toilet. Recent improvements to the landscaping to the south side door of the church have enabled disabled level access to the interior, and our plans will ensure level access throughout the area of the church, including the toilets.
The existing kitchen is very small, has no oven or built-in hob, has only a single sink, and is inadequate for normal catering. It does not meet current food handling requirements. Events at which food is provided take place many times every year.
The heating and lighting of the church are old and inadequate. We plan to upgrade both of these to make the church a comfortable and welcoming space for events of all kinds.
We have spent some three years with our architect considering different ways of achieving these ends. We have drawn up plans for a room in a balcony above the Baptistery at the west end of the nave, or to create a glassed-off room in either the north or the south aisle or the Lady Chapel. We have rejected these plans for various reasons: our technical advice has been that it is not possible or practicable to make a soundproof glass partition within the nave because of the height of the building and the mechanical problem of supporting a large sheet of glass with a door in it without the glass shifting or leaking. It is almost impossible to achieve effective soundproofing with apartition of this kind. All modifications to a church have to be approved by the diocese, and we have been working closely with them. They have indicated that they would be unlikely to approve glass screening of this kind. Aesthetically, we think that even if these changes were practical, which they are not, they would have an adverse impact on the Victorian aesthetic of the church, which we are anxious to preserve. We have sought to make all changes sympathetic to the Victorian character and materials of the church.