We are now the owners of the former Bible Christian Chapel, known as St Peter’s Street. This became possible when a generous benefactor made a substantial loan to enable us to buy it. We heard in November they have decided to gift £200,000 of that loan, leaving on  £46,000 for us to repay. You can support the studios,  through this link.

The Plan

The Chapel became vacant in 2022 and is in need of some refurbishment. After consultation with members and the community and in line with the St Ives Neighbourhood Plan, our project for the building is to house 9-11 arts and craft workers with spaces at affordable rental rates and access to business support. 

The project is in its final development phase. Two grants from The Architectural Heritage Fund and one from The Pilgrim Trust has been crucial to us getting the project off the ground. We are now at the point where we have detailed drawings to submit for Listed Building Consent (the planning approval required for a listed building). Our architects, Studio Skein from Plymouth have been excellent, with a real understanding of what we want to achieve and we are now ready to present the plans to the public for want to achieve and we are now ready to present the plans to the public for comment. Please come and see the plans yourselves if you can.

The best time will be on Monday January 12th 2026 between 10am and 7pm in the chapel when the architects will be present. The building will be open from 2pm to 4pm on Sunday 28th December 2025, Tuesday 30th December, Sunday 4th January and from 12noon to 2pm on Friday 2nd January, Friday 9th January and Friday 16th January 2026. You are very welcome.

You can see the full application through this link   Click Search for a Planning Application. then, our application number is PA25/09084. If you’d like to comment on our plan please follow the instructions on that website.

Project Progress

When it comes to finance we have three things to achieve. One is to find capital funding for builders to turn the plans into reality – about £500,000. We have worked hard on applications and business plans to three potential grant funders. Whilst none of these has yet ‘landed’, we know there is a lot of competition for grants and remain confident of success if we persevere. The second element is money to cover the costs of running the building in the meantime (insurance, power, maintenance etc) – an estimated £4,000 per annum. You may recall that we were able to buy the building through an interest-free loan of £246,000 from an anonymous local benefactor. It was a wonderful surprise in November when the benefactor decided to write off £200,000 of the loan, leaving only £46,000 for us to repay. Our fund-raising strategy is to continue to apply for major capital funding grants, to raise smaller sums for ongoing expenses and match funding through donations, events, open days and meantime building uses, and to launch a Crowdfunder. We are working on the Crowdfunder now, so watch out for it in the New Year!

Also in the New Year we will have postcards and greetings cards ready for sale. These will feature renowned St Ives artist Bryan Pearce’s delightful painting of the chapel. The artist’s estate has generously given permission for us to use the image: we are sure you will love it when you see it! We are already using the image on our promotional bookmark.

What would we do without our fantastic volunteers, who staff regular open days and events, design publicity, distribute it, help with admin tasks, keep the chapel clean, deal with ongoing maintenance tasks and come up with great ideas. Our volunteers have opened the chapel regularly for visitors, at least twice a week, throughout 2025. We find that people love the chapel and are keen to see it thrive with a new use.

In the meantime the building isn’t lying empty and unused. ‘Pandemonium Projects’ is a start-up business collecting peelings from local restaurants and turning them into natural dyes for clothing. It is so good to have given them a place to start in our School Room. We have held several local history talks in the chapel with the speaker in the pulpit area and the audience in the balcony. We were very pleased that worked well as we want to continue to give opportunities for wider public access in that way when the chapel has been converted. Volunteers had suggested we stage an exhibition in the chapel during the September Festival featuring Downlong crafts past, present and future. We were able to open that through the whole 15 days of the festival – quite an achievement. To round off the year members of St Ives Arts Club ‘Wordsurfers’ performed a marvellous reading of Dickens’ Christmas Carol in the chapel as a fundraiser for us – great fun. That’s not all, but enough to give you a sense that there is plenty of life in the building while we work towards our goal.

The Building
The former Bible Christian Church on St Peter’s Street is a Grade 2 listed building.  It was originally known as Chapel Street and was a Wesleyan chapel – one of two in the main St Ives town serving the upper richer and lower poorer areas of the port. But it was not successful and sold to the Bible Christian congregation in 1858.

The Bible Christians came into being in the town in 1829 and used various lofts for meetings while they tried to obtain land to build a chapel. It was the purchase of the St Peter’s Street Chapel from the Wesleyans in 1858 which brought that search to an end.

The Bible Christians enlarged it during the rest of the 19th century, but over the years fortunes fluctuated with wealth in money and numbers and the Chapel eventually came into the full Methodist fold – still known as the Bible Christian or St Peters Street locally.

We have been fortunate to speak to Steve Trevorrow, who worked on the roof in 1983. The tiles used are Delabole slate and he explained exactly how they were put on. This information has allowed us to aim to only replace tiles if need be. The work to the roof is mainly timber replacement and an insulating fix. We should be able to work on the roof from inside the building.

It is a testament to the strength of Delabole slate and to the craft of the workers who installed the roof that it has worn so well.

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