The vision planted at HTC in 1776 continues to grow nearly 250 years on.
Inspired by the ministry begun at HTC by William Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect, we’re looking to the future as we are making plans to renovate and renew our church building so it can become ready for the future. This project is called Revitalise 250.
What God began at HTC through William Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect is not finished. We pray, as they did, that what we do will, by God’s grace, echo across London, the UK, and beyond.
LIMITED EDITION PRINT AND FRAME
As we head towards our Revitalise 250 building project beginning next year, and 250 years of the church’s existence in 2026, we want to encourage you to invest in the future by purchasing this limited edition, illustrative map of Clapham entitled ‘Our Local London: Then and Now’ by local artist Louisa Mulvaney.
Louisa has drawn the past and present Clapham clothed in turquoise to make your room pop. The map features key locations of the past as well as many modern-day hotspots.
Each copy has been individually hand screen printed in South London, numbered and hand signed by the artist. There are only 250 prints available!
We need your help
It will cost £5.4 million of pledged donations or loans to enable the Revitalise 250 vision to become a reality. Contract regulations stipulate we must be able to fully fund a project before we can begin building works.
So far, we have wonderfully raised £4.1m. This is mainly from the generosity of our own church family (this money has either been given or pledged), but also from other external donors and £375k in grant funding. We are now looking to get to our fundraising target by the end of June 2024. This means that we are looking to get the remaining £1.3m from additional grants, loans and further congregational giving.
We would love everyone to give to generously, proportionately and cheerfully to Revitalise 250! Thank you for considering this.
Our Vision:
See below, the architect’s renders and floorplans of what HTC will look like when Revitalise 250 is complete.
A new open plan main worship space provides the flexibility that our wide-ranging services and activities require, whilst respecting the heritage of our near 250 year old building.
A re-imagined and renamed ‘lady chapel’ that was removed from the building in the 1990s returns. The Equiano Chapel will provide a space removed from the main church to be quiet, and reflect.
A new creche space will be created by digging down into the basement, providing excellent state-of-the-art facilities for the youngest members of our church.
A new, welcoming and spacious entrance will move to the West end of the building, making it easy for people on Clapham Common to come in and see what’s going on.
Where we started
Watch a video message from Jago from 2020 about the need for a revitalisation of our building, read what some of our congregation members think about Revitalise 250 (hover over each persons image) and find out more about our needs (expand each section).
Our needs are:
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Our main entrance is currently dark, uninviting and it often becomes a bottleneck on a Sunday to people getting in and out of the building. The secondary south entrance (the Wilberforce Centre) is currently poor, and there are no welcoming fellowship areas in the church. We need to advertise our alive and active community.
We have planned a more visible and welcoming entry to celebrate that Jesus welcomes all. We are going to open up and make better use of the space in both the main entrance and the secondary south entrance. The latter will provide easy access to a second meet and greet space on Sundays with tea and coffee facilities. These changes will greatly improve the flow of people, buggies and wheelchairs into and out of the building. -
At the moment, the ground floor worship and community space is inflexible, limiting our building’s usefulness. We cannot currently meet the changing needs of our congregation and community. Our refurbishment includes chairs to seat up to 428 on the ground floor of the church, compared to an existing capacity of around 350 on the current pews. Stackable chairs will enable full flexibility to cater for varied formats of services on Sundays and events and courses for the church and the community throughout the week. The elimination of the pew steps will accommodate wheelchair users and moving the pulpit slightly will open up better views of the worship space.
The original pews in the balconies that William Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect will have sat on will be kept due to their historical significance. The current choir pews will also stay where they are, but unfixed to create flexibility of worship in the chancel. -
Our Revitalise 250 project is not just about addressing the needs of our church family and wider community, but creating opportunities. One of those opportunities we have is to communicate through our physical building the incredible story of the impact that Holy Trinity Clapham has had on the world. Our building is historically significant and it represents a remarkable heritage, but in its current state it is not fit for telling either the story of the past or the story of the present.
The work we are planning to do will repair and restore our building so that we can communicate our past story as we look to the future. We need to communicate the significance of the church in the history of this nation and the Christian faith to visitors, congregation and users alike. -
By God’s grace, our children’s ministries have outgrown our space! This means we’re currently having to send groups of children and youth to our church offices, across a busy road, on a Sunday so we can cater for them. This is far from ideal.
We are planning to create more meeting rooms, with more space that will meet the needs of our current children’s and youth groups whilst allowing for them to grow. -
To ensure that we have the capacity for the ministries we want to run and the people in our space, we are extending the footprint of our building.
This means at the rear of our church we shall be bringing the existing walls out, and digging down on the south side to create space for the meeting rooms. On the north side of the church we shall be installing a new kitchen so we can significantly increase our catering capacity, all the while making sure that our building is more accessible for everyone. -
It’s important that our church grounds continue to be a location for the church and the local community to connect, so we have been drawing up plans for creating a Wilberforce garden in a section of the grounds. This garden would draw attention to the work of Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect in bringing about the abolition of the slave trade, but also the continued existence today of modern-day slavery, to visitors, our church family and users alike.
Our Heritage
Learn about William Wilberforce
Watch the extract from Jesus the Game Changer to learn about William Wilberforce and see an interview with Rector Jago Wynne.
Read all about Holy Trinity Clapham
‘An inspiring past and an exciting future…’ Click here or below to read a short history of HTC, the people and the building.
Our Giving Committee
We have a skilled and passionate giving committee here to help you.
Our aim is to enable all who have a heart to give.
Michelle
Lodge
Michelle has been a member of HTC for 11 years and is involved in the children’s ministry both mid-week and on Sundays. She is especially excited to see how the remodelled building will allow greater outreach to children and families. Michelle is married to Rory and has two young children and has 20 years’ experience in investment banking.
Jonathan Hellewell
Jonathan has been part of the church family at HTC for the last 8 years and has a young family. He has been involved in the Revitalise 250 project from the beginning as is really keen to see the building grow and change so that it can effectively serve the church and, especially, accommodate better the growing need for children’s work. He wants to see the church in Clapham flourish, reaching people and families who don’t yet know Jesus. He is a civil servant working on policy in Whitehall.
Alison
Inglis-Jones
Alison joined HTC eleven years ago when Jago led a group of people from HTB to join a graft. She has lived in Clapham for thirty years and is married with two adult sons. Alison sits on the boards of six charities, both local and national. She is passionate about the church building and is keen to work with funders and the community to enable Revitalise 250, in order that the building can offer new and exciting opportunities for the church and the wider community in Clapham.
Steph
Mackenzie
Steph joined HTC in 2019 and liked it so much that she joined the staff team as well, carrying out the role of Church Coordinator. Steph leads Alpha groups and mentors Youth at HTC and can’t wait to see HTC bear more fruit for Jesus through the realisation of this project. Steph trained as a management consultant and has experience in project management, leadership team performance and corporate events planning.
Caroline
Greer
Caroline has been worshipping at HTC for 8 years, after a very special encounter with the Holy Spirit led her back to a church that she had walked past years before, after arriving in London after university. She describes her life as Christ centred and there’s nowhere she’d rather be on a Sunday than in HTC! A professional fundraiser for over a decade, she has worked with a large number of the leading UK charities, with a long stint as Director of Fundraising for Premier Christian Radio. She is an avid linguist, traveler and loves spending time with family/friends back home in Northern Ireland.
If you would like to discuss your donation or pledge or have any questions about the Revitalise 250 project more broadly, we would love to hear from you.
By phone: 020 7627 0941
Email: RGC@holytrinityclapham.org
By post: RGC (Revitalise 250 Giving Committee), Trinity House Clapham, 31-33 Bromell’s Road, Clapham, London, SW4 0BN