Plans to demolish Abbey Wood church
A plan to demolish a church hall on Mcleod Road in Abbey Wood has been submitted. The plan would see homes built on site.
A previous plan to demolish the adjacent church was approved in 2012. The current building is humble yet exudes a charm.
Here’s the planned replacement church. There’s not much in the way of visual renders:
The current grounds have not been well looked after for quite some time to the detriment of the local area. A brick wall has been been damaged (presumably by a car) around 2011 and never repaired and grassed areas outside the church and hall are used for parking creating muddy patches and puddles.
Yet the building’s retain a lot of character.
The excellent Edith’s streets states of the church: “The site in McLeod Road was leased from the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society and the freehold acquired in 1944. The church was opened in July 1934 in what is now the Church Hall”
The church’s website states: “The Women’s Meeting (then called the Sisterhood and now known as ‘Network’) started in 1912 and met in various houses in McLeod Road and Greening Street. Their records show they were often able to contribute £5 to the Building Fund from proceeds of their snowball teas, etc”
The site also states that in the 1930s trams passing were loud and so during service times trams slowed speeds so as not to intrude with a London Transport staff member outside to ensure this happened!
The current plan for houses looks like this which would face onto McLeod Road:
The houses will be market sale and not “affordable” or social/intermediate.
If the church grounds were restored and looked after by local volunteers, as has happened in many other areas, this could be a community resource. One of the benefits of Brexit might be that it results in such a dramatic house price slump in London that all such ugly and soulless schemes as the replacement here, would never be built. Who does the church belong to?
Another part of Abbey Woods History going to disapear ..Wasnt just a church it was a Youth Club as well .I went to lots of meetings there ….Obviously none of the locals dont want to make use of it so some developer on them grounds will earn a small fortune and bury another part of the character of old Abbey Wood….