It's St James' day today, and when I was saying Morning Prayer I started thinking about the church I had to close some fourteen years ago, wondering about the people, how many of the mainly elderly remnant of a once large thriving community are still alive. I know of three, there may be more. We struggled to keep it open, but the building itself was too large and unsustainable for fifteen people to finance and maintain. Our initiative to develop the interior for community use as well as worship foundered when euro-funding streams were diverted to less prosperous regions.
In the third quarter of the nineteenth century before Tredegarville became a town centre residential area with artisan and middle class housing areas, it had been occupied by the early waves of poor migrants, living in squatter settlements. St John's City Parish Church started to work with mothers and children, living in appalling social conditions, built a mission church which also served as a social centre and school. On the back of wealth generated by the development of Cardiff docks as a coal exporting port, and the steel works in nearby Tremorfa, houses were built, a proper school building and a big Gothic church with a spire that would seat over five hundred. It was very well attended until after the second world war, when middle class and artisan populations moved further out to green field suburban housing estates.
By the 1970s, congregational decline set in irreversibly, and in 2006 the decision was taken to close the church. Its bell was taken out and hung in another church tower. The organ was unsaleable apart from for its scrap metal value. Pews were sold off for their scrap wood value, a fine reredos full of saints was removed and re-installed in a Port Talbot church, where it fitted rather better, but the plain reredos it replaced, was dumped in St James' tower porch, too large to be taken into the church itself. The tin tabernacle church hall which had been the original mission hut was demolished and the space freed was added to Tredegarville Church school playground adjacent.
Clearing the church, of other items to make it ready for sale was left to me as Vicar, as thankless a task as house clearing after the death of a distant relative. So many tired old broken books to be got rid of un-managed archive materials, war memorial plaques, sacred vessels, brass candlesticks and other ecclesial furnishings. The font was translated to the porch of the church school, where it still sits. Until I retired, I conducted services in the church school hall. Communion on Sunday afternoon for the faithful few remaining, and an informal Family Service next day, called 'God on Mondays' which attracted several dozen parents and children in term time. Neither survived my retirement. I was unimpressed by the support practical or pastoral we received from the diocese. This was the loss of a landmark city centre church, an experience of bereavement, but nobody wanted to know.
After a lengthy gap, the building was sold to a property developer, with a conversion plan for fourteen apartments. The work started, but stopped, as a result of the banking crisis, promises of development loans were withdrawn. Fourteen years on from then, I have no idea if interior work has resumed or whether everything is still on hold. The same happened in many Valleys towns during the era 'when Coal was King'. Surplus wealth led to many ambitious prestige church construction projects which haven't stood the test of time. At least nowadays, for the time being, we think more of the church in terms of people gathering, rather than grand edifices to identify with. Everywhere in Europe and the UK church congregations a faithful remnants of once great numbers. For the past four months when gathering was impossible, the remnant itself was scattered, and stayed linked up and relating to each other via internet prayers.
Many more people than regular worshippers have taken an interest in on-line services these past few months. Is this the start of something new? Will it be reflected in a return to worship in such buildings as can be maintained and safely opened for prayer? We shall see.
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