A Brief History of Grove Baptist Church

Grove Baptist Church on the Beersbridge Road in Belfast was founded on Saturday 6th November 1915. Even before that there was a group of believers who met up in Willowfield Unionist Drill Hall thirteen months before the church was built.

The approximate cost of erecting and furnishing the building came to £800. This must have been quite a financial burden, especially as there were only 70 members at the time. Of course, we need to remember that wages in those days were incredibly low.

When they were laying the foundations for the church, it was a difficult job to do because of the swampy nature of the site. This site had been chosen to be a centre for outreach in a working class area and soon outreach meetings were started in various halls around the area (e.g. Tamar Street).

A few years after the church was opened the members decided to embark on extending the church by building a wooden building containing a Minor Hall, “babies’ room”, vestry and toilet facilities. However, in later years the “babies’ room” was turned into the kitchen. They eventually replaced the rear premises of the church by building the present Pastor Jardine Memorial Hall, which was opened in 1962 at a cost of £8000.

After the Jardine hall was completed, the members again decided to embark on a major reconstruction of the church building costing £18,000. The church was reopened on Saturday 18th May 1967. Improvements to the site continued, beginning with the addition of the Wilson Hall, then the purchase of a site in Clara Street (on which our portacabin building now sits).

The church building was again updated in 2001 when a major interior refurbishment was carried out. Recently, the church purchased a strip of land between our Clara Street portacabin and the main church building.  The building used by the previous owner (Logans) has been converted into the Shaw Hall for use by the youth departments within Grove.

Article by Ryan Adair