Today, the building has a Grade II* Listing, which puts it in the top 5% of buildings of architectural note in the country.

Recent History

Externally, very little has changed over the years, but there have been some major structural changes inside the church. In the mid 1970s, there was a proposal to knock down the building and replace it with a modern, multi-purpose community centre. Because of the architectural merits of the building, this proposal was strongly opposed, but an alternative proposal, to make extensive internal modifications, was accepted. A young architect called Raymond Hall drew up radical plans to convert St Matthews into a multi-purpose building providing youth and community facilities, offices, meeting rooms and exhibition areas on several new floors constructed within the main body of the church. The St Matthews congregation would in future share its space with several other community users.

The first two phases of the conversion were carried out between 1977 and 1983 at a cost of £1.5m, which was provided by the government’s urban aid programme.  A Steering Committee accountable to the Parochial Church Council was replaced in 1977 by a new charity, The St Matthews Meeting Place Trust. This group drove the redevelopment of the site and had input from 54 representatives >>