Thanksgiving service to take place as part of Letchworth Church’s 90th anniversary

The first permanent section of the church is finished in 1924. (Image: Archant)

A wedding thanksgiving service is taking place at St Paul’s Church at 3pm on Sunday, with anyone who was married at the Pixmore Way church encouraged to come along.

St Paul’s, which has the largest First World War memorial in Hertfordshire, was built in 1924 and began life as the daughter church of All Saints’ in Willian, before becoming a parish church with its own vicar in 1963.

Peter Harkness, who has given talks on the church’s history as part of the birthday celebrations, said: “It was sited on high ground to be a landmark ‘Victory Church and Perpetual Memorial’ and to serve the fast-growing community in the Pixmore area of Letchworth.

“It soon attracted, and continues to attract, a thriving membership.

The 90th birthday service with Paul Hayes, Bishop of Hertford. Credit: Vanessa Kay (Image: Copyright Vanessa Kay Photography 2014)

“Two extensions were needed in the 1930s and, in more recent years, new meeting rooms, a vicarage, offices and a car park.”

“Today the people of St Paul’s continue to be a worshipping and praying community, devoted to serving the people of the garden city.

“All who enter St Paul’s today can see a magnificent lighthouse made by many church members, using scraps of material taken from items which have been precious to their owners in their lifetime.

“Not only does this stand as a metaphor for the Christian life of sharing and sacrifice, it also relates to the original vision of St Paul’s being built ‘to be a landmark which cannot be hid’.

“May it long flourish to serve the people of the town.”