CovSoc founder member, Paul Maddocks, tells us about a CovSoc visit to St. John the Divine Church in Willenhall. Paul writes……
The Coventry Society visit to St. John the Devine church was like a trip back in time for me. I grow up in the new Coventry estate of Willenhall, from 1958. This was mainly because my auntie, uncle and cousins had moved there in 1955. When we used to visit, we enjoyed the open spaces, trees and fields, plus the amazing Willenhall shopping precinct – a smaller version of the city centre precinct.
So we moved to Willenhall and the precinct had, what seem like three of everything: three butches, three green grocer, two supermarkets, plus a post office, a chemist, a library, a hardware shop, a chip shop, a cafe, a toy shop, and an off licence. Nearby was a youth club, a working men’s club, a public house and for the human spirit a new church – St. John’s.
St. John the Divine Church has always been the centre for weddings, christenings and burials. Both my parents’ funerals were held there. I was in the Church lads brigade for a while, some of my friends were in the boxing club and the Church Hall was used for many functions from parties to children’s play groups. It was even used to give out butter when the EU had a butter mountain and needed to give it out to the old and poor. Some people were not happy when the local paper came and took photograph of the queue as some old people still felt the stigma of being seen taking charity.
I got to know Reverend, later to be Canon, Stuart Hudson from 1967 till his death in 1990. He participated in the local community and helped with other good causes. He also got involved a little in local politics, mainly in a community supportive way.
Please see photograph above of Rev. Stuart Hudson and behind him is Robert the Church Verger who was Verger all the time that Stuart Hudson was Vicar at Willenhall. In this old photograph you can see so church chairs at the back. Although the church has new chairs, these old chairs are still there in the same place as a reminder of what the first chairs looked like.
The church is one of three churches Sir Basil Spence built in the city on a small budget. The churches were built using “no fines” concrete. The walls were cast on site using a form of concrete that had very little sand – hence “no fines”!
This type of shuttering-based cast building was developed by Wimpey Builders, who were building the new houses, flats and other buildings on the estates. These churches were built between 1954 and 1957, alongside the construction of the new Coventry Cathedral.
The three churches were designed to serve the new housing estates on the outskirts of the city – Tile Hill, Wood End and Willenhall.
Basil Spence’s designs with similar carefully considered layouts: a re-enforced concrete bell-tower, church hall and a vicarage. Each church was designed to the same plan – a 27.43m (90 foot) long nave with a shallow pitched roof and lightweight ‘no-fines’ concrete walls, finished in pebble dash.
The Church is not all concrete: there are some nice features like the windows on the south – east side to let in light across the high alter.
The use of no-fine concrete seems to have been more successful for churches than for houses and has stood the test of time much better. The no-fines houses were found to be damp and cold. The Church is currently receiving advice on how to make it more sustainable, especially with regard to heat loss. As the Church is Grade II listed, there may have to be some negotiation with the Planners about the solutions.
One of the things that has changed is that the wall behind the alter was always plain. In the year 2000 a nice piece of artwork was made by Christine Browne MA out of sheets of Perspex as a panel that “depicts the Life of St John the Divine and of the Parish”.
The Coventry Society visited St John the Divine church in Willenhall on Wednesday 27th August as part of the society’s ongoing interest in Coventry churches and especially post-war buildings and this ticked both boxes.
Our visit was courtesy of Rev. Matthew Bull the current Vicar at the Church.