Kirche im Norden!

My grandfather was a canon in the Anglican church, so I jumped at the chance of buying this sadly neglected pearl of a building. It was in a terrible state, no water, no heating, no love. It had stood empty for 25 years. Built in the Jazz Age of the Roaring 1920s, I somehow can't see J. Gatsby having parties at the Church in the North. Mission houses like this did, however, serve an important function for impoverished rural workers once the mill had closed in 1892. A place to gather and be transported to a world beyond this one. It would have been a portal for the imagination to escape from what must have been a threadbare existence filled with drudgery. In some ways, in spite of our comparative wealth, the Church in the North stiff serves that very same function. Only for us it is a step back in time, away from the constant white noise of an intrusive digital world. I think my grandfather would have approved. I hope you do too.