Grade II* St John’s underwent a £5.5 million restoration by award-winning architect Eric Parry over 18 months and reopened in October 2022. In these difficult, post-pandemic times, our magnificent historic church is now a place where everyone can come together to grow and to heal.
St John’s vast open nave has been restored and enhanced for worship, concerts and events. The crypt has been transformed into a place where community, arts, wellbeing, employment training and youth initiatives can thrive. Come and see for yourself, St John’s is now one of the most exciting places on the South Bank.
Read about the Archbishop of Canterbury coming to lead a Service of Rededication here.
Read all about the architectural transformation by Eric Parry Architects here.
Will you help? Thanks to the generosity of trusts, foundations and many individuals, we have raised £5.5 million. But finding unexpected asbestos in the roof added to the bill and we still need to raise another £130,000 to cover our costs. By making a donation, you would be helping us achieve our big ambition to be here for everyone who needs us.
There are some great ways to support the project.
Would you like to sponsor a chair for the nave? Or one of the beautiful, specially designed oak chairs that now grace the sanctuary? Or would you help us meet the costs we incurred saving our Hans Feibusch murals by getting them urgently conserved before they flaked onto the floor?
Your gift, no matter how small, will make you part of the story of St John’s for evermore.
There is more about how you can make a donation here.
The £5.5m raised so far has come from the London Borough of Lambeth, the Big Lottery Reaching Communities Fund, The Mayor of London’s Good Growth Fund, Benefact Trust, Heritage of London Trust, Clothworkers’ Foundation, Garfield Weston Trust, The Swire Charitable Trust, The City Bridge Trust, The Bernard Sunley Charitable Foundation, The Rayne Foundation, The Kirsch Foundation, the congregation of St John’s with St Andrew’s and many individual donors. A grant of £30,000 from the London Community Energy Fund has helped to install 80 solar panels on the roof, a vital element of the project and part of St John’s ongoing commitment to climate action.
The overall vision for St John’s Waterloo is one of creating the open door, the welcome, the space for different uses from the informal to the formal, and to enable the capacity for solemnity on the one hand and celebration on the other. The project is wonderful because of the simultaneity and diversity of people involved and because these spaces are able to deliver a sense of tranquility and introspection in a world that is so manic and so stressed, their value is enormous and this is why this project is so important.
With its rich history and its exciting future, this is a rewarding project for all involved. A complex heritage restoration and adaptation project such as this brings with it exceptional challenges and allows us to extend our skills once more to an ecclesiastical scheme.
It has taken us 10 years to get to the point where the restoration project could get underway but it is essential if the church’s inclusive spirit is to continue to serve everyone in need.
St John’s location, right opposite Waterloo Station and just south of Waterloo Bridge, means that thousands of people pass by every day. We wanted everyone to know what was going on while the church was closed and thanks to generous sponsorship by the friendly team at the Lower Marsh office of estate agents MyLondonHome, we were able to put up a series of posters that describe the history of the church and everything we’re now here for.
