Killyleagh’s new Parish Centre is opened
Bishop Harold has opened Killyleagh’s new £500,000 Parish Centre, marking the end of a long journey and the beginning of another era in the life of the parish.
The Bishop dedicated St John’s Parish Centre at a service in the church on Sunday 21 January and afterwards unveiled a plaque in the foyer as part of the opening ceremony.
The Parish Centre is a two–storey building with a large hall upstairs and two meeting rooms downstairs along with kitchen and toilet facilities and audio–visual equipment throughout. It has been built with outreach to the community and the growth of the parish firmly in mind.
The centre sits at the church gates on the site of the original hall which was built in 1869 as a Sunday School. The process to replace it began in 2001 but was held up by legal issues and lengthy negotiations for an extra piece of land. The old structure was finally demolished in 2016 and the new foundations went down in 2017.
The Rector, Revd Colin Darling, paid tribute to the Building Committee who worked tirelessly on the project. “For a parish this size we were blessed with a wealth of experience in an accomplished building surveyor, an engineer and two glebe wardens who’ve just rolled up their sleeves and got on with it.
Constrained by the footprint of the site, the centre was designed to get as much accommodation as possible without making any of the rooms too small. Colin has a vison that one of the meeting rooms will become a relaxed space for teenagers, whilst the second doubles as a robing room but has potential for many other uses.
Hanging in the staircase window is a stained glass panel based on the winning design by Cristiano Fernandez, a P3 pupil from Killyleagh Integrated Primary School. The panel depicts prayer and was donated by the members of the Parish Prayer Group.
In a small gesture of appreciation for their new facilities, the parish has twinned all of its toilets with the developing world through the charity www.toilettwinning.org
The main hall has potential, not only for social events, but to host Sunday School, informal evening services and possibly the Family Service. It has already been used by the Confirmation Class and this week will be used for a new midweek teaching course.
Colin said: “We’re so thankful for the facilities we have now and we’re looking forward to using them as much as possible. People in the community have given to us through many years of fundraising and we want to offer this space back to them.”
See some photos here.