Hi, my name is Paul and my family bought a Church!

The history & our aim:

We have set up this GoFundMe to help raise some much-needed funds to bring this lovely building, The Church, back to life 8 years after a devastating fire. Built around 1889, this was part of the Gothic Revival Era and was built as a centre piece, along with the Victorian Jarrow Park, to showcase the boom town of Jarrow at that time.

In the first phase, we want to rebuild this building to retain it for future generations along with all its current and future history. In order to maintain this building for another 100 years (or more) and help to pay towards its rebuild, we then aim to repurpose the building once it’s complete into a unique bistro/cafe business all created inside this former church building with subtle modern hints of how it used to look.

This second and final stage will be more than a business to us; it's a heartfelt project built by a local family, not backed by big investors or unlimited funds.

The reality:

Even after 7 months of clearing it out and helping make it safer, we have faced many unexpected costs. For example; the rear gable, that includes the large arch at the back of the Church which we originally thought was structurally sound, unfortunately has to be demolished and reconstructed. This along with several other unforeseen costs are proving to be heart sinking for our vision. This past week we have revisited our costs and ideas and as we don’t give up easily, we are now hoping the generosity of everyone interested in this project will help us build some much-needed funds to help towards the expensive cost of the first phase; the rebuild.

Including its purchase and works to date, the costs from our own savings are into 6 figures. So with the kind help from yourself aswell as some limited funds from a possible remortgage we are hoping to raise enough to complete this rebuild. We will continue searching for potential funding but it is seeming more unlikely as our search goes on (if anyone can help us with this though, please do contact us as we’d love to explore further avenues).

From the beginning, our goal has been to save this from being demolished and turned into modern flats that would not fit the area, this was previously given the go ahead from a previous owner. So we bought it so no one else could do this and we want to honour the history of the building while creating something modern, new and welcoming for everyone. Every penny raised will go directly into materials and expertise needed in restoring and renovating it.

At the same time, we will be using as much of the original church as possible from the walls currently standing, down to recycling & reusing old timbers and some original items back into the refurbished building and into fixtures and furniture.

If we can rebuild this to a whole building again the 2nd phase will be to hopefully apply for a loan on the building which can then pay towards the actual fit out for the bistro business. The funds we hope to raise though with your kind help will only be used for phase 1; the rebuild. This is so we can actually get to phase 2 and continue to retain and maintain the building by hopefully creating an amazing space for the community and visitors to enjoy.

The dream (and what we really hope we can pull off):

We’re committed to giving back too. Once we're up and running, and if we do make a profit, a portion of our profits will go directly to a few charities to whom we share our passion with. We have also already begun to bring people together where local people have kindly given us their time volunteering (or just stopped to chat and share their stories of the church) and because of that, have already socialised and made connections to people they never would have before. We’ve heard so many stories so far from people with connections to the church; heart-warming and happy memories that live in people’s minds. We want to bring a place to the area where those memories can be shared, cherished and even captured within The Church and hopefully, they can live on for generations to come.

That’s the whole point. To bring together the community in a place which more often than not feels miles apart.

This isn’t just about food and drink either. We’re passionate about creating a space where local communities can come together. All too often communities feel disconnected from each other with a lack of safe and welcoming spaces to go. We want to change that. That means offering low-cost or funded community groups aswell as hosting informative and exciting events whilst providing a warm, inclusive environment for everyone — especially now when times are tougher than ever. In other words "Somewhere Different"

We want The Church to have the community feel that it undoubtedly had 100 years ago, but now in a modern way, a place to meet up, chat and learn from each other.

Why we are setting up a GoFundMe:

So many of you — from local tradespeople to friendly passers-by and supporters commenting on social media — have encouraged us to start this page. We’re deeply grateful for the support and the belief you’ve already shown. If you’d like to volunteer then we would be immensely grateful, as we are for everyone who has volunteered so far.

Our target is around 50k, this is the amount we are short of the total rebuild cost we need. This is estimated from research and professional advice to help pay for the total rebuild of the church including, but not limited to: roof, steel structures, windows and new floors etc. We will be setting smaller targets as we go to try and reach as much as possible.

We also completely understand that not everyone is in a position to donate, and we’ll never push — but if you do want to be part of helping us bring this ruined Church building to life and create a new history for it, we and the wider community would be incredibly thankful.

Paul & family

For our full story so far visit our social media pages:

Facebook: “The Church”

Instagram: “thechurch.jarrow”

Please be aware that often GoFundMe adds an additional tip for their services. This can be set to any amount if you’d prefer-simply move the slider which is just below the donation amount box to your desired amount.