St John's Waterloo nearing completion

Florence Eshalomi MP and Giles Goddard opened the 5th Lambeth Local History Fair on Saturday 3rd September, the first public event at the soon-to-be renewed St Johns Waterloo church.

St John’s Waterloo, one of London’s landmark churches and cultural venues and a beacon of hope for the homeless, is nearing the completion of it's major £5 million restoration.

In detail, the restoration project, entitled “ReIGNITE”, involved:

• creating space for St John’s charity arm, The Bridge at Waterloo, to run Waterloo Well – its new programme of employment training, resilience, wellbeing, and therapy projects

• creating new offices and state-of-the-art rehearsal facilities for world-renown academy orchestra Southbank Sinfonia's alumni,

• creating three new meeting, rehearsal and training rooms, a studio space, two counselling/practice rooms, a community kitchen, and showers for times when the church runs as a homelessness shelter

• opening St John’s entrance with a new foyer

• improving acoustics and lighting to provide state of the art performance facilities

• restoring the very significant murals by Hans Feibusch and making them even more of a focal point

• creating a new baptistry and prayer space near the entrance

• installing a new lift to give full access to the crypt

• making the atmospheric, brick-arched Long Room in the crypt into a spectacular space for events, exhibitions, performances, and private hire

• providing new lavatories and a store for the churchyard gardeners.