Treasurer John Beha at the Trinity United Reformed Church

ONE-hundred-and-fourteen years after it was built, a multicultural church in the heart of Camden Town is closing down due to financial problems.

Standing on the corner of Buck Street, the Trinity United Reformed Church (URC) has been home to a diverse congregation of Christians, LGBTQ+ worshippers, Narcotics Anonymous groups, homeless people and a poetry club that once involved poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy.

But on July 30 it will shut its doors for good.

John Beha, the church’s treasurer who used to live in Kentish Town, said he was “extraordinarily sad” that he and his wife Marion have made the “emotionally difficult” decision to close the church.

Mr Beha said: “The numbers [of churchgoers] have declined over the years. It became particularly relevant just before and during lockdown. Gradually the congregation of the church got older. Some people moved away. Some people died.

“After lockdown we started only having one service a month>’

And numbers of people able to fill various roles required compounded the difficulty of maintaining that building.

In addition, Mr Beha said: “We’ve had quite a lot of problems with the roof. All through lockdown we kept having leaks. We got it patched but it would probably cost us £200,000 to have the roof properly done. The walls haven’t properly dried out which has affected the electrics.”

He said they are on a fixed price for gas and electricity at the moment but that will finish at the end of July and their bills would skyrocket.

In February 2021, URC’s former minister Hugh Graham was jailed for targeting children on a dating app and downloading thousands of indecent images of minors. Mr Beha said that although the scandal did not impact URC’s falling numbers, it did mean they were unable to hire a full-time minister.

“We were unlikely to ever get another minister, which puts the whole strain of running the church on to the congregation,” he said.

The Metropolitan Community Church of North London (MCC) has been using URC since 1996. It’s open to LGBTQ+ people who aren’t welcome at other places of worship.

MCC’s senior pastor Peta Evans said: “It’s really sad. It has to be said that the building is falling apart, but we’re very attached to it. Some wonderful things have happened there. It’s been our home.

“We’ve got several places we are looking at so nothing is fixed yet. We really want to stay in Camden but we can’t really afford Camden. URC has been remarkably generous with rent. It’s been more of a partnership than simply being tenants of the building. It was a very close relationship.”

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