By Francesca Peacock
Churches are striking buildings wherever you come across them, from residential neighbourhoods to the middle of the countryside, their spires piercing the sky, large stained-glass windows adding splashes of colour. But would you want to live in one?
As church attendance declines, buildings are being deconsecrated and sold, with some turned in to remarkable homes, adding a kitchen in the old nave, or a bedroom suspended beneath the soaring ceilings. In one of the two properties within the Chapel at the College of St Mark and St John — a romanesque-style church built in 1841 on London’s Fulham Road and redeveloped after deconsecration in 2017 — there is even a swimming pool, gym, and sauna in the basement; a place to relax within the old building’s vaults.
Such transformations are not always easy, however. Philippa Thorp, founder of Thorp Design and the architect who converted St Mark and St John, is open about the difficulties. Churches are “pretty unforgiving spaces” architecturally, she says, hardly designed with comfort in mind. And yet the two properties she has created have a resolutely liveable feel.
Even just trying to construct the bare bones of a house with stairs, levels and floors was “a challenge” she says: “You have these whopping great spaces where the windows traverse through all levels.” The windows became one of the striking central features of St Mark’s — the core of the house is a staircase running from top to bottom, giving rooms around the building’s perimeter access to light.
A few miles to the east is another church conversion, a red-brick chapel in Canary Wharf, on the market for £750,000. While not as architecturally bold as the St Mark and St John conversion, here the grand windows and arched ceilings make for a striking contrast with a modern kitchen and interior. These types of church conversions appeal to buyers for their “wow factor”, says Dan Fox from Savills, Islington.
Having sold properties in former churches across London he points to the “sense of scale” that marks them out as something of an antidote to a world of low-ceilinged new builds or cramped flats: their unusual proportions give them an excess of space. With the right planning permission, he says, “they can be cleverly adapted to create grand living spaces with high ceilings, bright interiors, and plenty of character”.
And these grand spaces need not be the usual contemporary palaces of glass and steel. In a converted church in Tufnell Park, now on the market for £1.85mn, the owners have decorated in a way that responds sympathetically to the building’s Victorian heritage.
Beyond the capital is this family home in Somerset, (above and main picture, top) a former church with warm-toned stone walls and soaring windows, on sale for £1.75mn. Built in 1846 on the site of a dilapidated Saxon church, the building was then deconsecrated in the 1950s and taken on by the current owners who began converting it in 1985, adding bedrooms upstairs and an open-plan living area in the former nave, vestry, and chancel.
A 15-minute drive away in Bruton is At the Chapel, a restaurant and hotel in an 18th-century Congregational church. If you’re unsure whether living within hallowed walls is for you, it’s a chance to give it a try on a weekend away.
Photography: Savills; Thorp
