The Woodside Green Christian Centre is a charitable trust renowned for its work with children in the west-Croydon area, its new £1.7million home providing an excellent example of how imagination can use the versatility of natural roofing slate.
The church lies at the heart of the centre and is surrounded by meeting rooms, apartments, offices and operational areas. Above them, the various roofs provide a slatescape that showcases what can be done with roofing slate.
A shallow-pitch (22.5º), multi-valley roof tops the apartment block and an octagonal roof with a similar pitch sits above the main entrance foyer.
But the conical roof on the church is simply breathtaking. With a diameter of 19m, a pitch of 25º and an arc of 270°, it’s covered with hook-fixed roofing slates laid in a diminishing-course pattern.
The remaining segment of the circle thrusts out of the cone, soaring upward to form the church’s tower, the glazing in its ‘cut’ faces allowing light to flood into the church below.
Behind this, the tower’s roof takes the shape of an inverted kite with a central ridge forming a spine that runs from the tip of the tower down to the rear of the church.
• Project: A new Christian centre consisting of a church, apartments and community centre
• Client: Woodside Green Christian Centre, Croydon
• Architect: Martin Hewitt / Turner and Hoskins Architects, Edenbridge
• Contractor: Jordan Developments, Beckenham
• Roofing: Bracknell Roofing, Crowborough
• Type: Church, apartments and community centre
• Category: Newbuild
• Element: Roofs
• Product: SSQ Ultra Riverstone® Grey roofing slate (400mm x 250mm)
• Supplier: Bracknell Roofing, Crowborough
• Scope: c.20,000 slates
View Riverstone Ultra grade Product Entry