When our heating broke down two years ago, we were faced with a difficult situation. We had two old gas heaters in our worship area, they had never worked well, the people near them were too hot and it was cold on the other side of the church.

We had two choices, either we closed or we found a solution, neither choice would be easy.

After much prayer and deliberation, we decided that this was actually an opportunity to improve our building in lots of ways. We had an energy survey and following that, we met with a consultant to discuss options for heating our building efficiently and effectively. We then began a huge project for a small church!

The congregation of 30 gave generously, the Methodist Circuit and the District supported us, we were awarded grants from the Nottingham Historic Churches Trust and the Congregational and General Trust.

We decided that we were going to make our building as ‘green’ as possible, we fitted solar panels and a battery storage system and infrared heaters, heating the people - not the air. We then had the cavity walls and the roof insulated. At this point, we removed gas from the building. We were really pleased when we were told that our church was the nearest to net zero of any within the Nottingham and Derby District. We were already an Eco Church and we had a Bronze award, with some work on the garden, with help from Rainbows, Brownies and Guides, and regular environmental input into our worship, we are now a Silver Eco Church, very close to Gold!

We still haven’t finished! Over the summer we will be having new flooring in the Garden Room and corridor and we will be decorating so that by September our church will be in really good shape!

Take a look at our church and community activities - you may be surprised how busy we are!

As Methodists, we are inclusive, everyone is welcome, we share our faith in practical ways and we seek justice for all.