St John’s Church

Overview:

In the 19th century, a lot of the land in Radlett was owned by four landowners. Sir Robert Phillimore gifted several green spaces which were made available for the public. After he died in 1919 his wife Lady Lucy Phillimore continued to give to the area which included woodland, a recreation ground and a children’s play area.

The existing site on Gills Hill Lane, on which St John’s church and hall stands, was given by Lady Phillimore in 1951 to Radlett Parochial Church Council for “ecclesiastical and charitable purpose”. In 1953 the church was built in memory of Archbishop William Temple. The new church would serve the growing community including returning service personnel and their families following the Second World War. The hall was added in the 1980s.

Both the church and the hall have exceeded their life expectancy and were becoming unfit for purpose. However, when the parish celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2014, they were challenged to think forward a further 50 years. It was recognised that St John’s church and hall would not last that long.

To better serve the church and the needs of the wider Radlett community a proposal was accepted to develop the site. The newly built development would include a modern, state-of-the-art church, kitchen and hall from which a children’s nursery would run every day. They planned to use the main worship space not only for services, but also for hosting community groups, social events and other gatherings. To improve access to housing in the area, work on the site also included the development of six new-build affordable dwellings consisting of three three-bedroom houses and three two-bedroom apartments all built within the perimeter of the church.

TSG Building Services, a large building and refurbishment contractor in the area, were awarded the Design and Construction Works on the project. As one of their main roofing contractors, R P McWilliams & Co Ltd worked with TSG on the project.

Roof Material:

On this project, the structure of the church has developed from a modest one-storey building to a tall structure providing a visual, guiding point in the area. The affordable homes offer much-needed housing for the area. Conditions on this project stated that any materials used in the construction of external surfaces of the development had to be submitted and approved in writing by the local planning authority.

Flex-R’s RubberBond FleeceBack 3mm EPDM was the ideal choice for this project because the large roll sizes could easily cover the main section of the flat roof whilst needing fewer seams. In the words of the contractor “We like to work with a high quality membrane that can guarantee us a high level of quality and finish on every project. We’ve found that the RubberBond FleeceBack EPDM can deliver this, and it is our preferred membrane for flat roof projects.”

Due to the large size of the rolls, the roof could be covered and waterproofed in a much quicker timescale compared to many other systems, allowing inside work to start more quickly. The flexibility of EPDM membrane also enabled it to seamlessly transfer to the smaller flat roof sections over the storeroom areas and between the apartment buildings. To ensure thermal performance standards were met on the project as well as adequate falls for drainage, Flex-R produced a tapered insulation scheme.

 

Workmanship:

The roof areas on the church, houses and apartments feature pitched roofs laid with tiles to match similar buildings in the area. There are also three flat roof areas of varying sizes:

1. A large flat roof area sits above the main hall, kitchen and entrance to these areas. This area includes a green roof.
2. A smaller flat roof lies in a gully between the pitched roof areas on the two apartment buildings.
3. Small flat roof areas sit above the storage rooms connected to the church.

The large flat roof area covering the main church buildings incorporates standard and two large circular rooflights. The contractors were very satisfied with the speed they achieved in completing these, and the simplicity of the material to make a potentially awkward detail watertight. Once installed, the roof was finished with a green roof supplied by Wallbarn.

The total flat roof area measured approximately 200m² in size with a 120m² green roof area. Five installers worked on the site and they are all Flex-R Specialist Registered Installers (SRI). Work was undertaken in phases, starting in May 2023 and finishing in October 2023.