Project Description

Conversion of North Leigh Methodist Church

North Leigh Methodist Church is a former Methodist Church that has fallen into disuse. It has been empty for a number of years. SWJ Consulting has looked at this building a number of times with 2 or 3 different clients, as there are some challenges with it. The building itself is in a conservation area and is attached to a cottage with limited space surrounding it. It is also located down an ‘informal’ road, which makes deliveries difficult.

We were retained to convert the church into a home. To allow for this, we had to install a new first floor because previously it was an open worship space. In doing so, we had to work around the existing roof structure to get the floor in. That involved an analysis of the existing roof trusses to understand if they could support the additional floor. In the case of those trusses, we strengthened them by installing steel beams in one place to limit the additional load that was being applied to the bottom corner of the trusses, so they weren’t overstressed.

In the main church itself, there was an added complication that there had been previous horizontal spread of the external walls due to undersized roof trusses. The solution to that was to build a new timber floor to provide a diaphragm at the first floor level and then use helibars to fix the external walls to the first floor, and tie the building that way, which then allowed us to remove the historic tie-bars that were at an awkward height and would have precluded the use of the first floor as you’d have been tripping over the tie-bars every time you went to use the bathroom.

If you have a renovation project you would like to speak to us about, it is never too early for us to take a look and give some initial advice on feasibility and your options. We have extensive experience with historic and listed buildings that have been restored or renovated for private dwellings. Give us a call on (Witney) 01993 225085 or (Southampton) 02381 920656 or email mail@swjconsulting.co.uk

Pre-conversion image courtesy of Knight Frank https://content.knightfrank.com/property/oxf012202332/brochures/en/oxf012202332-en-brochure-14aef5fc-1bdc-459b-b548-dd30d77eb6e5-1.pdf