The parish church of St John on Lincoln's Ermine estate was built in the early 1960s, opening in October 1963. The church had been planned for a couple of years, but when the first houses on the estate were being built in the 1950s the church as we now know it did not exist.
In 1956, a church hall was built and it became a dual purpose building: a church on Sundays and a community centre for the rest of the week. However, although it was well used, people began to ask for a dedicated church for the estate. The priest at the time, Fr John Hodgkinson, had a vision of a new style of church building and he contacted local architect Sam Scorer. Together, they planned a very radical new look for a church. Raising money for the church was done through many fundraising schemes such as the "buy a brick" project. "Lincoln's church of tomorrow" was how the church was described in the publicity and local residents were intrigued when building work started. This was certainly not going to be a traditional church building at all. The bishop of Lincoln laid the foundation stone and work began. Although the church was built substantially to plan, money did not allow the construction of a planned bell tower or the small chapel at the back of the church.
Many local people helped to get the church ready for the opening day. The people of the estate took the church to their heart and it was packed out for the special consecration service in October 1963. Since then, St John's has been at the heart of the Ermine community, welcoming people into the church and taking many projects out to the community. The church attracts many tourists from this country and from across the world and the church has received a number of local "Tourist Church of the Year" awards.
In 1997, the very special qualities of the church were recognised when it was made a listed building, with one of the highest gradings, grade 2*. The structure was designed by an architect largelyinvisible in architectural history, Sam Scorer, and a structural engineer, Hajnal Konyi. It consists of an impressive hyperbolic paraboloid roof made in reinforced concrete, otherwise recnognised as the shape of a pringle!
Those who travel on the A1 will recognise the shape as identical to another of Scorer's buildings, the former Happy Eater/petrol station at Markham Moor, although this example is the other way up!
If anybody would like to expand to this series please do, I would just ask that you could let Sadexploration know first so he can keep track of the Church numbers and names to avoid duplication.There is also a Church Micro Stats & Information page found via the Bookmark list
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For full information on how you can expand the Church Micro series by sadexploration please read the Place your own Church Micro page before you contact him.
See also the Church Micro Statistics and Home pages for further information about the series.
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