St Boniface Church and Centre

About the Centre l Hiring the Centre l Who was St Boniface?

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St Boniface Church is a gothic style church, built in 1904. It has been extended with a large hall at the back with modern facilities which is available for hire. The Church and Centre have good access for people with disabilities. The Parish Office is situated within the church.

See our new History page for some interesting background information about our churches.

The Centre

Until 1987, St Boniface Church was served by an almost derelict wooden hall on the site of what is now the church Car Park. The Centre, comprising a large hall, various meeting rooms, parish office, kitchen and ancillary accommodation, was added to the rear of St Boniface Church in 1987 after a major, parish wide, fund raising project. The Centre was built as an act of faith and in response to the challenge of rapid geographical growth of the parish due to massive development in Millers Dale and Valley Park. These developments located the parish church, which had previously been on the edge of its main catchment area, squarely in the centre of the community. The combined church and halls complex was named The St Boniface Centre, in anticipation that it would become the focal point of parish life. The considerable cost of about £1/3 million was funded mainly by donations from within the parish. In 2002 the Car Park was upgraded with a tarmac surface at a cost of about £61,000. During the Church’s centenary year, the frontage was enhanced.

From the very beginning, the Centre became a valued and popular venue for a wide range of church and community activities, and that continues unabated today. In fact, the Centre's rooms are used mainly for ìcommunityî rather than church use. This gives the community a high quality and much sought after facility and in turn provides the church with a valuable source of revenue. The innovative design of the Centre enables the main hall to be incorporated into the church for very large services simply by folding back two large, ìconcertina styleî partition doors which extend for the entire width of the church.

The Centre is run and managed entirely by a team of volunteers assisted by professional cleaners. The team endeavours to provide a professional standard of service. There are many regular users of the Centre facilities, some of whom have used the facilities since the Centre was opened. Users include Pre-school play groups; classes for ballet, tap, dance, speech and drama, yoga, parent craft; meetings of RSPB, Hardy Plants, Gardeners, University of the 3rd Age, Madding Crowd, Women's Institutes; regular National Blood Service donor sessions. The Centre has also proved a popular location for hire for Children's Parties, Funeral Wakes, Wedding Receptions, and Baptism Parties. Catering for Wakes and Baptism Parties can be provided at very reasonable rates.

Hiring the Centre

If you would like to hire part of the Centre, whether for a one-off event or on a regular basis, please contact the Parish Office (situated in the Centre) on 023 8026 5977. Office hours are Monday to Thursday 9am to 3pm, Friday 9.00am to 12.00 noon. Standard rates are very competitive and currently range from just £6.60 per hour for the smallest rooms up to £17.60 for the hall. The current minimum charge is one hour’s hiring rate. The kitchen is available to hirers for a small extra charge per hiring session. A 20% discount is available for regular daily and weekly users, baptism and wedding parties, wakes, and church-related groups.

For more details please click here

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Who was St Boniface?

The birth of Wynfrith:
Boniface was born in Crediton, Devon, in about AD 680. A tradition says that Boniface’s father was a Saxon thegn (lord) and his mother was British. They named their son Wynfrith, which means ‘Friend of Peace’ to show the two peoples had come together.

The monk:
Boniface went to study at the Benedictine monastery at Nursling near Southampton. He eventually was offered the role of Abbot, but he felt called to be a missionary, and in 716 set sail to convert the heathen tribes in Frisia (now Friesland in The Netherlands).

The missionary:
Although his first mission was not a success, his subsequent work in Frisia and Hesse gained him the reputation of being an outstanding missionary and administrator. It was at this time that the Pope gave him the name of Bonifacius (Boniface) meaning ‘maker of good’.

The Bishop:
In 722, Pope Gregory 2 made him Bishop of all Germany east of the Rhine, and Boniface embarked on thirty years of missionary work in Hesse and Thuringia. He boldly tackled superstition, including the felling of Thor’s sacred Oak at Geismar by his own hand in front of hostile tribesmen, and laid the foundation of a flourishing new Church.

The Archbishop:
In 738, he was made Archbishop, and crowned Pepin King of all the Franks at Soissons in 751 – an act which ensured the alliance between the Frankish crown and the Papacy, which was to be the foundation of Charlemagne’s Holy Roman Empire fifty years later.

His martyrdom:
At the age of seventy, he set out again to tame the wild tribes of Frisia. On 5th June 754/5, he and his companions were surprised at dawn by a band of heathen warriors near Dokkum. Boniface was struck down by a sword which pierced the holy book he raised to shield his head. His body was taken to Fulda for burial in accordance with his wishes.

First Christmas tree?
Boniface chopped down the Oak of Thor at Geismar in a stage-managed confrontation with the old gods and the local heathen tribes. Boniface as a new symbol claimed a fir tree growing in the roots of the Oak, ‘this humble tree’s wood is used to build your homes: let Christ be at the centre of your households. Its leaves remain evergreen in the darkest days; let Christ be your constant light. Its boughs reach out to embrace and its top points to heaven; let Christ be your Comfort and your Guide’. The tree became a sign of Christ in the world for the German peoples, and nowadays it is a universal reminder of Christmas.

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