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Once a disused Church, it was bought in 1988 by committed Christians and Socialists Joy and David Mitchell with the intention of creating a Peace Church. When David died suddenly in 1989, Joy continued restorations and campaigning as an anti-war and anti-nuclear activist.
Joy held regular services, speaker meetings and coffee mornings, open to all, and gave shelter to homeless people. Friday meetings evolved into a socialist discussion and reading group covering topics from poetry to Islam, philosophy and the history of thought. Each month she convened a peace vigil. Joy passes away on 11 March 2022 and the Church is now under the stewardship of Helen Rutherford.
Our thanks go to the Berwick Unions Council and Helen Rutherford for allowing us to use the Peace Church.
The Peace Church is a tucked away venue, it is an open plan community hall used by various local groups. This venue is not step-free, there are some shallow lip-steps and no ramp. There are also some narrow parts of the building to navigate.
This venue is quite tucked away and not visible from the street. It can be accessed via a pedestrianised lane through an archway in-between the King’s Head Inn pub and the police station. It does have a small faded white hanging sign visible from the street. The pedestrianised lane through the archway is first cobbled and then flat and concrete, all of the flooring outside is a bit uneven. The time from the road archway entrance to the entrance of the building is 1-2 minutes at a leisurely pace.
The pathway leads to a courtyard and the entrance is through the white wooden double doors on the right. This entrance is not step-free and has 2 shallow stone steps to get inside. Once inside the entranceway, the venue room is through the door to the left. The entranceway is quite narrow, 80cm at the narrowest point.
Room Description: A square hall with high ceilings, a mezzanine floor and colourful large stained glass windows. The walls are mostly white with some dark grey, black and deep red painted sections. The mezzanine floor is not used.
Doorways: The entrance double doors are 114cm wide. The single doorway from the entranceway into the main venue hall is 87cm wide. All doors in this venue are non-automated.
Seating: There are plastic and wooden chairs with backs and no arms. Some of the wooden chairs have padded seats. All of the chairs have hard backs, none are padded.
Temperature: There are radiators but the venue is quite cold.
There are two and they are down a short corridor that is 95cm wide.
Lighting: There are hanging pendants and some strip fluorescent lights as well as natural lights from the windows. Lighting during event?
Flooring: Old wooden floorboards, various shades of brown in different sections, some slightly uneven but smooth.
Sound: Echoey ambient sound from the building, some ambient sound from outside such as birdsong.
Patterns: Generally a neutral colourschemed space. There is a black crisscross pattern over the stained windows. The mezzanine edge has large gold flowers repeated and a red top rim on a cream background.
Smell: Old building scent, woody mixed with the scent of fresh construction. If anything has been freshly painted and you can smell it, please include info here.
Food and Drink: There is no food and drink available at this venue. There are several cafes nearby.
The only entrance and exit is through the main entrance doublendoors via the entranceway. The evacuation meeting point is down the pedestrianised path, through the archway and back onto the street.
Down the alley on 46F Church St, Berwick-upon-Tweed TD15 1DX. Next to St Aidan’s Hall.
Over 100 filmmakers and artists from around the world have formed Some Strings, an ensemble of unreleased filmic gestures rooted in Palestine, where poet and teacher Refaat Alareer was targeted by Israeli strikes along with seven members of his family.
Take the Credits! works from the idea that the final moments of a film — where, conventionally, a point of resolution has been reached, music plays and the credits roll — could become a climactic centre piece to a period of experimentation and collaborative making.
We will run short, drop-in workshops producing texts/scripts, images, objects/props and video that will gradually fill the venue with an installation.
