Walters & Cohen won this invited design competition and was appointed by St Michael’s Church in 2008.
The church is a Grade II listed building dating from 1848, built of local Bargate (Frimley) stone and constructed in a traditional manner. The building showed signs of deterioration, and the key consideration of the proposal was to ensure the long-term survival of the church’s original external and internal building fabric.
The challenge on this very sensitive site was to add a new church hall that works adjacent to the original church within the historic churchyard. The intention was that this hall could be rented out for community use, as well as functioning as an extension to the church. Our designs for the new hall are fully accessible and flexible, such that the hall can open up fully to the church (to increase the church's capacity for major events), be partially opened, or fully closed off. We also allowed for the hall to be sub-divided to allow three groups to meet simultaneously.
