Our Church

St Paul's Church is situated in the New England area of Peterborough. (Go to the bottom of this page & click on Virtual Tour, to see the inside of the building).  It is part of the Christian denomination known as The Church of England and is within the Diocese of Peterborough. The Parish came into existence with the advent of the railways in the Nineteenth Century, although it can no longer be described as a railway parish as the majority of the railway tracks and sidings went in the 70's and 80's.

 

The Parish comprises an inner urban housing estate with a population of 9,000 and growing all the time. It is very multi cultural and in the last few years around the Triangle area there has sprung up several small supermarkets which are mostly Polish/Lithuanian foods; a Lithuanian restaurant; a Portuguese restaurant; various take-away plus Indian, Chinese, Pizza. An established print & photocopy shop, Malcolm and Sue Print shop, are opposite the Vicarage & look after most of the printing we have done. There are several barbers and hairdresser shops; recently a Dessert shop opened too and one buying and selling vinyl records. The Thistlemoor Rd Surgery is huge and people come to it for small operations as well as a chemist on the site. Nearby is a semi professional football club ; Also in the parish are 2 out of town shopping parks (Dunelm; furniture stores; B & Q; Aldi; Curry's; Argos; Matalan and work has already begun on a new industrial & Business Park next to Matalan to be finished at the end of 2022 with 2 drive thru fast food chains also located there.

 

St Paul’s Church is a Victorian building, which was built in 1869 and the architect was James M. Teale aided by Mr F. Denison who later worked on other churches.  In the 1970's a certain amount of re-ordering inside happened when Father Secker was the Priest. There are beautiful glass doors inside from the porch to the interior;  following removal of pews there is space down the side aisles and under the tower and in the sanctuary. All of those areas previously were full of pews. The space  is so helpful to us as it means we can put on concerts and shows; we can show dvd's on a screen; we have room for tables to have lunches or for our T @ 4 times. Look at our virtual tour and see for yourself. We  also have a  virtual tour on the website. A few years ago we were given a wonderful painting, called Fabrication, by a local artist, Julie Reid, who is now an international artist.  We also have small tables and chairs down the side aisle where we sit after the services for coffee & tea. There a number of stained glass windows; Stations of the Cross on two of the walls; a font; a beautiful Lady Chapel area especially when the sun streams in with an Aumbry and also Madonna and Child Statue; the Sanctuary area has beautiful stained glass and has a wonderful wooden screen between the Tower area and the Sanctuary steps & on top of the screen are 3 wooden figures, one of which is Jesus on the Cross.  

The grounds area around the church are kept well and the paddock is partly used as a car park & is used 5 days a week by those using the Zig Zag Nursery who hire our Church Hall as well as our own use esp at weekends and evenings. We are currently investigating the possibility of a toilet being located in the Church building although we have the use of 2 toilets in our Church Hall next door. We are currently raising money for this work.  As a church we currently make an annual donation to over 12 charities chosen by the PCC plus encouraging church members to have a box at home to give towards the work of The Children's Society. Church members also bring food items for the Peterborough Foodbank and every week a large box of food is taken to the local Foodbank for distribution. Currently items are also collected for helping Ukraine and we take these to the Ukraine Church in Peterborough. We have a monthly Prayer Day from 10-3pm in Church and then the PCC Leadership + team meet for prayer the same evening. We have held several courses for those enquiring about the Christian faith and hold them as often as we can.

  

In January 2016 we celebrated the Collation and Induction  of Rev Ron as Vicar of St Paul's benefice. Since 1999 the former Bishop of Peterborough put St Paul's into suspension which meant that it could not have a Vicar. A priest appointed would have the title Priest in Charge instead. In Autumn 2015 the current Bishop (Bishop Donald) encouraged the lifting of the suspension which meant that the priest (i.e. Rev Ron) would be the Vicar.

In 2019 it was St  Paul's 150th Anniversary Year with different events and services during the year as we gave thanks for the Consecration of St Paul's on 28 May 1869.

Due to Covid 2020 and 2021 were a little different!  But, apart from a few occasions, the Church remained open for worship, albeit with everyone wearing face masks and taking the necessary precautions. Even in 2022 we still encourage face masks to be worn and to try and stay as safe as we can.  In June 2022 our part time Childrens and Families Worker  finished  after 6 years with us, as she is training for ordination.

 

Virtual tour of St Paul’s - click on this link and it will bring up a bird's eye view of the interior of the church taken on 9 Dec 2021 when the Viscount organ was installed. 

 

Link kindly provided by Viscount Organs who provided us with our new digital organ and was installed on 9th December 2021 (temporarily until we get our Faculty permission through). The organ is superb and is a Viscount Envoy 359 FV with a 3 tier keyboard and we are thrilled with it.