Our history…
Wycliffe Baptist Church was built in 1881. The Kings Room, including the pulpit and baptistry still boasts its original structure. Originally pews lined the Kings Room main area and balcony whereas now we have chairs downstairs. This grand room was built to seat 400 people. Linked to it are the Wycliffe Room, and kitchen, and the Upper and Lower Back Halls, which were added in later years. In the early 2000, a large extension was made to create a community space which we now call The Warehouse. This includes a sports hall, meeting room and kitchen.
The building itself has been extended over time – as our congregation has grown. And over time we have become so much more than a Church.
Our church building is situated at a major cross-roads called Cemetery Junction, to the east of Reading town centre. It is a community with a rich ethnic diversity. It is surrounded by two areas of housing first developed at the end of the 1800s; Newtown to the north and Redlands to the south. More recently there have been large apartment blocks, like Cross Way Point, built along the Kings Road and new developments of houses and apartments north of the Kennet River, like Kennet Walk. In the nearby locality are the campuses of Reading University, Thames Valley University, and the Royal Berkshire Hospital. These areas house about 32,000 people.