image: Tom Ebdon/Art Centre Penryn
Penryn Methodist Church has played a central role in the life of Penryn for over 130 years. As well as it’s importance to the local congregation, the chapel has been a place for the whole town to gather to mark significant life events, coming together to celebrate christenings and weddings or to pay their respects to family and friends at funerals and memorial services. The building has also been used for concerts and other civic events including the annual Christmas lights switch on which attracts 100’s of people. Many locals residents remember attending sunday school, playgroup, Brownies and other activities in the School Room behind the chapel.
In 2023 the final service was held at the chapel and this important community asset was aquired by non-profit arts organisation Grays Wharf CIC, now Art Centre Penryn. The chapel is being re-imagined as a creative centre with a contemporary art gallery working with the best in local, national and international art.
At this early point in the buildings transition from place of worship to art space, Small Acts have been collecting the thoughts and memories of people who have been connected to the chapel, and for whom it has held an important place in their lives. We are creating a ‘social archive’ of the church through one-to-one oral history interviews, group conversations and written recollections. We are also curating a one-off evening of music and song bringing people together to celebrate and record the unique acoustics of the main worship space.
These elements will form part of the Church Records Gazetteer, alongside a body of images and recordings by Crow Architecture and Robin Tyndale-Biscoe that capture the building’s structure, materials and layout, as well as its acoustic properties.
Church Records aims to preserve the building’s social and material history for future generations, understand and celebrate the building’s local importance to inform its re-development, celebrate the people who have had a connection to the chapel over the years, and create a historical record for future researchers, historians and the wider community.
