HPC Open Door

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Hornsey Parish Church is delighted to be submitting a planning application which has WELCOME and OPENNESS at its heart.

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Our church building is probably the single most important tool for our mission as a parish church, modelling what we as Christians believe about hospitality and acceptance, and represents our desire to reach out without judgement.

Whilst our building serves us well in achieving this, we have identified ways that its design and layout limits our ambitions, and so we are making a planning application for a building project that we hope will rectify some of these challenges. For a number of years we have been seeking to fulfil a vision to achieve these aims, under the title of HPC 60/60 which was launched in 2019 to celebrate the church building’s 6oth anniversary, looking forward to being the parish church at the heart of the community of Hornsey for at least another 60.

During the pandemic especially, we spent a lot of time finessing our welcome, openness and accessibility, and this project represents the lessons learnt and the dreams and hopes that have formed within our church to achieve our missional goals.

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If you’d like to receive updates about the HPC 60|60 project by email, please send us your contact details - by email to me fr.bruce@hornseyparishchurch.org  or by letter to HPC 60|60, Hornsey Parish Church, 140 Cranley Gardens, London, N10 3AH.

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Happy reading!

Father Bruce Batstone

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In our parish of Hornsey our commitment to make our church welcome to all and to nurture God's creation is leading us to take action. We started by commissioning an access report from the Centre for Accessible Environments and we have used that alongside recommendations from our Inclusion Group, parishioners and our Loving Creation ecological group to put our words and speech into action.

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Actions on a bigger scale, to the physical fabric of the church and its environs have been what our Development Group has been considering. Our architect has been drawing up sensitive plans with designs that remove the barriers to entering and using the church spaces, whilst nurturing God's natural world in a way not considered when the church was first built.

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Beginning with the porch at the front of church, a more accessible inviting and ecological entrance will be created. A new pedestrian entrance will be created directly opposite the porch, flanked with bike racks and flowerbeds. A gentle slope will lead one into the porch. There will still be space for church vehicles to pull up for special services, but the tarmac will be replaced by porous surfaces to act as a water soak in times of heavy rain, and will help prevent flooding down the hill.

Inside the porch we hope there will be self-opening glass doors, allowing for easy wheelchair access while keeping out draughts. There will be wheelchair spaces within the pews and handrails up to the Lady Chapel.

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We want to achieve level access to the garden from a new door beside the organ cupboard. Here the community can gather outside for quiet socializing and contemplation, enjoying the peace of our previously hard to reach garden. The memorial garden will be extended to include seating and will include a memorial to those lost to covid.

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A third, later phase of the development, would provide large accessible loos leading off the nave will and a relocated vestry will provide a counselling room.

 

An exhibition of our plans will be available in the church from Sunday January 28th. The church is open most days. Please drop by.