In April 2019 fire severely damaged St John the Evangelist, a former parish church in Blackburn town centre. Now plans are afoot to reopen this distinctive building.
This former church is actually the oldest building in our town centre, having been built around the time of the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century. Now a new revolution is to take place for St John’s with an eyewatering amount of nearly £9M to be spent on bringing this building back to its former glory. Our local council has given a green light to the project going ahead, with Barnfield Construction as their chosen building contractor. Let’s hope they can keep their heads while all around are losing theirs.
The finished St John’s hopes to bring cyber and digital technology facilities to their building, making it a technological hub. It wants to build links to the Blackburn Skills Centre, which is coming to the town and the National Cyber Force development which is due to open at Samlesbury Enterprise Zone on the outskirts of the town.
One of many issues being debated is whether this building should be refurbished in the first place, especially over such a large amount of money being spent. There are plenty of empty buildings in Blackburn town centre which could be brought back into use at a fraction of the cost. These include our town hall tower block, along with former CAPITA headquarters, Castleway House.
What places the former St John’s church ahead of other worthy buildings in the town centre is its long historical connection with Blackburn. This Grade 2 listed building has been serving our community for centuries in one capacity or another. From an aesthetic point of view, it is also streets ahead, as well as from a historical and cultural point of view, in front of most of those other empty buildings which need bringing back from the dead.
Only the Exchange could be classed as another aesthetically pleasing to the eye restoration project. Refurbishments to this building are plodding along bit by bit. We also have Blackburn Museum nestling between St John’s church and the Exchange. Here is another very pleasing to the eye building which has served the people of Blackburn well. First as our public library and now our museum. It will be great to see these three neighbouring buildings back to their former glory and serving our community once again.