"Devastating": Chesterfield church forced to close after 200 years

Rose Hill’s United Reformed Church made the decision as a result of ‘serious defects’ to the building’s roof as well as declining congregation numbers rendering the church ‘unsustainable’.

Parishioners have gathered at the building, on Soresby Street, for 200 years with the church formerly being known as Soresby Street Congregational Church and Rose Hill Congregational Church.

Margaret Davies, church secretary, described the closure as devastating. She said: “I feel, to a certain extent, as though we have let people down: for a church to close on my watch is devastating but you have to accept the inevitable sometimes and we literally cannot keep going as things are.”

The 200th anniversary of the church will be celebrated in May with the last services taking place in September. John Lenthall, treasurer of Rose Hill URC, explained that repair issues had initially been highlighted in 2020 after a small section of plaster fell from a beam,

He added: “We’re dealing with a problem that has probably been happening over many decades: with damp at the front and side of the church. The reality is, though, Rose Hill is a large site and even if someone waved a magic wand and the site was repaired we don’t have the number of people to run the site in the long-term. As the years have gone by, we just haven’t grown: it’s unsustainable to keep going and that has driven our decision to disperse.”

The congregation, of around 40, has been unable to attract those to ‘look after the long term future’ of the church but there are three existing URCs in the surrounding communities of Newbold, Holymoorside and Calow.

“It’s a heartbreaking decision", John said, “but when we talk about dispersing we’re not talking about dispersing to the four corners of the world: many of our members will move to other United Reformed Churches in the surrounding areas. We have other churches that our family will be able to attend - some people may decide to go to a different church but the URC is still there for the congregation. Closing Rose Hill doesn’t mean we are giving up - it just means we are going elsewhere. This is not the end: that’s the important part.”