St Stephen’s 40th anniversary Flower Festival: 6th-8th September 2019
There has been a church dedicated to St Stephen the Martyr in Wolverhampton Street, Willenhall since 1854. However, in the 1970s dry rot was discovered in the old building. Treating this would have been expensive, with no guarantee that it would not return. So in 1977, the decision was taken to demolish the old building and build a new church attached to the Church Hall. There were very mixed feelings at the final service in the old Church on Easter Sunday 1978.
With support from the community lots of fundraising events took place, as well as the sale of land (the St Stephen’s Gardens flats now stand on the site of the old church) and a loan taken out to pay for the new building. Construction began in the autumn of 1978 and the new Church Centre was Dedicated by the first Bishop of Wolverhampton, the Rt Revd. Barry Rogerson, 40 years ago on Saturday 8th September 1979.
To celebrate this milestone anniversary, we are planning a Festival weekend to be opened by Councillor Diane Coughlan on Friday 6th September at 7:00 p.m. The church will be open to visitors throughout Saturday 7th, when we will be providing refreshments and musical entertainment. The Sunday morning service will be led by Revd Trevor Green, who was Priest in Charge at the time of the rebuilding, and very much the driving force behind the success of the redevelopment.
There will be flower displays relating to all aspects of church life and remembering ‘characters’ over the last 40 years. This will be a family celebration and we look forward to welcoming friends old and new.
