Poole Methodist Church

Poole Methodist Church, known in recent years as "The Spire", stands on Poole High Street in the historic harbour town of Poole in Dorset. A handsome Victorian Gothic church of the late nineteenth century, with a distinctive pointed tower that has long been a landmark in the town centre, it is the principal centre of Methodist worship and community life in Poole. Its story spans more than two centuries of Methodism in the town, from a small chapel of the 1790s to a thriving modern church with a café and community spaces — a transformation that, in its most recent phase, made headlines for the boldness of its new extension.

Methodism came early to Poole. A Methodist chapel existed in the town from 1793, in the first generation after John Wesley's movement spread across England, and it served the growing Methodist community until the present church was built and the old chapel closed. The new Poole Methodist Church was built between 1878 and 1880 by the architect Charles Bell, of Purbeck and Bath stone, and opened to the public in 1880. It is a fine Gothic building, distinguished by its large, pointed north-west tower, and a chapel building was added in 1893. From 1843 until 1985 the church was the head of the Poole Methodist Circuit, the network of Methodist churches across Poole and east Dorset, reflecting its central place in the religious life of the area. During the Second World War, like many church buildings, it was pressed into service as a schoolroom.

In the twenty-first century the church became the focus of Methodism in Poole. In 2005 five Methodist churches in the town combined into a single congregation based at Poole Methodist Church, consolidating the Methodist presence in one place, and the building has also served the wider community in other ways — it was used, for instance, as a polling station for the national referendum of 2011.

The most dramatic chapter in the church's recent history began in 2009, when the building had to be closed for safety reasons after plaster started to fall from its walls. Rather than simply repair the old building, the congregation embarked on an ambitious project to renovate and extend it, making it the centre of Poole's Methodist community. The project, estimated to cost some £4 million, was approved in 2010; its first phase, completed in 2014, introduced a new café, supported by a substantial grant from the Garfield Weston Foundation, and the church's windows were later replaced with double glazing. The new extension was completed in 2016, when the church rebranded itself as "The Spire", taking its new name from the landmark tower. The extension, which replaced a previous Georgian chapel, proved controversial: its bold modern design was even nominated for the Carbuncle Cup, the tongue-in-cheek award for the "ugliest building" of the year, with one critic comparing it to "a pile of site Portakabins". Yet the project achieved its central aim — to give the historic church a new lease of life as a vibrant centre of worship, hospitality and community service in the heart of Poole.

Today The Spire continues as an active Methodist church, combining its Victorian Gothic sanctuary with modern community facilities, a café and meeting spaces, and serving both its congregation and the wider public on the busy High Street. Through all its changes, it remains the home of Methodism in Poole, carrying forward a tradition that reaches back to the 1790s.

The church stands on Poole High Street, in the centre of one of England's most attractive harbour towns, in the conurbation of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole on the Dorset coast. Poole Quay and the great natural harbour of Poole — one of the largest in the world — lie close by, with the historic Old Town and its medieval and Georgian buildings, the Poole Museum, and the celebrated Brownsea Island, the birthplace of the Scout movement, just offshore. The golden beaches of Sandbanks and Bournemouth, the heaths and coast of the Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and the wider Jurassic Coast are all within easy reach.

From a Methodist chapel of 1793, through the building of Charles Bell's Gothic church in 1878–80 with its landmark tower, its long leadership of the Poole Circuit, and its bold twenty-first-century transformation into "The Spire", Poole Methodist Church gathers more than two centuries of Methodism in the town into one building. A Victorian church reborn for the modern age on Poole High Street, it remains the living heart of the Methodist community in Poole — a place of worship, welcome and service in the historic harbour town.