For the first of our 2026 Spotlight visits, we head to the West Midlands District Council for a visit to Smethwick Spiritualist Church.
In this visit, Head of Communications Kyle speaks with two of the resilient, determined team and learns all about the challenges they have faced and the inspiring journey they have been on to get this church back from the brink of closure and disrepair.
It seems only fitting to be visiting Smethwick Spiritualist Church on a gloriously sunny day.
The main church hall, flanked by its gorgeous, signature stained glass windows, is a positive symphony of light and colour, bathed in the afternoon glow that spills in.
It hasn’t been all that long since I last came here, only a couple of years, and yet the transformation is palpable from the minute you walk in. Music is playing. The doors are wide open.
And everywhere you look there is warm, welcoming hues and brightness.
It feels very much like a church that has been completely renewed.
From intricate sunflower decals tucked away in corners, all-new sparkling flooring through to the completely repurposed facilities such as modern toilet facilities, the hard work and effort that Smethwick’s committee and support team have put in here over the past couple of years positively sings.
But whilst Smethwick todays appears light, welcoming and more than fit for purpose, its relatively recent history tells a more fragile story. The building’s transformation has been neither quick nor easy. Instead, it has been a long journey marked by closure, delays, unexpected discoveries and emotional strain — a journey that, at times, threatened the very existence of the church.
For President Melanie Thompson, the seriousness of the situation only became clear when she attended an emergency general meeting.
“I was quite shocked,” she says, “because I was unaware that it had gone into support.”
Smethwick had long been a part of Melanie ‘Mel’s’ Spiritualist journey, but she had previously stepped away after becoming unhappy with how the church was being run at the time. She speaks of how she felt the congregants and members were being disregarded.
Melanie Thompson (pictured, left), President of Smethwick Spiritualist Church and Tracy Bramhall (pictured, right), Secretary and Safeguarding Officer, stand proudly in their rejuvenated, welcoming church.
“People weren’t being listened to,” she says. “It felt like the church wasn’t for the members, and definitely not for the Union.”
By the time Melanie returned, Smethwick was already struggling, which was only exacerbated by the arrival of the pandemic.
“When I came in, we then faced obviously lockdown,” she explains. “So we literally just caught up with everything the previous committees and everything had done previous to that.”
What they uncovered was overwhelming.
“No bills had been paid,” Melanie says. “It was horrendous to be quite honest with you.”
The church closed its doors completely as inspections and assessments began. It quickly became clear that the problems ran deeper than anyone had realised.
“There was just one problem after another,” Melanie says.
Following the challenges of lockdown and the pandemic, Smethwick gradually re-opened, and began charting its long, difficult journey to renewal.
“We said ‘hey, we’re gonna make this work’, but it felt at the time like there was just too much,” Melanie admits. “You couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak.”
“It was horrendous to be quite honest with you… there was just one problem after another.”
She speaks warmly of the help offered by the Union’s Support Officers, Nancy Boot and Robert Dangerfield, and a kindly helper named Adrian who had helped other nearby churches.
“We met Adrian, and I know he’s done work for Stourbridge, so he was known to people.
“And he did go far beyond his measure of duty. He did help us a lot.”
As exploratory work progressed, serious safety issues emerged. The electrics, in particular, became a major obstacle and a potential hazard in waiting.
“Adrian called me in and he’s looked at me and he said, ‘I’ve got bad news,’” Melanie recalls. “‘I can’t sign the church off. If I put this electric on, it blows up. I’m gonna set the church on fire.’”
The cause was eventually traced back to a previously installed roof.
“The guy who had done the roof… he’d obviously bodged it,” Melanie says.
As a result, the reopening was halted once again.
“That delayed the reopening,” she says. “Again.”
For months, progress stalled while the issues were addressed properly.
“I liaised with him for about three months,” Melanie explains. “And we were completely shut for it. There was a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.”
It’s clear as Melanie recounts this stressful and difficult time just how much pressure she and her small team were under.
Smethwick’s stunning stained-glass windows (pictured above) are a signature feature of the church. Maintaining and preserving them has been a real priority for the team.
It’s easy, sitting in the near finished church, to bathe in the happy ending, but it’s once again a testimony to how much our churches tireless committees and their helpers put on themselves. It’s impossible not to feel moved by Smethwick’s determination and fortitude.
Throughout the process, support from the Spiritualists’ National Union proved vital. Melanie speaks highly of Andy Foley, the Union’s Property Manager, who worked extensively with the committee to help them get the support and direction that was needed.
“Andy was amazing,” Melanie says. “The Union, again, was amazing.”
She also speaks openly about how she feels the full breadth of support and funding available from the SNU is sometimes not known to all churches.
“I had no knowledge of all the other help,” she admits.
“I just thought the Union were there making sure everything was being run correctly. I never knew anything about funding.”
“I just thought the Union were there making sure everything was being run correctly. I never knew anything about funding.”
A grant of over £60,000 from the Union was pivotal in getting Smethwick back on its feet, fully safety compliant and looking as fantastic as it does today.
It enabled essential work to continue, ensuring that repairs were carried out safely and to standard, rather than rushed or compromised.
As if the challenges and journey were not pressure enough for Melanie, outside of the support from Nancy, Robert, Adrian and Andy, back on the ground at Smethwick, she was struggling to find assistance.
“Sadly, none of my committee at the time was ready to help,” she explains.
But thankfully help came from attendees to their Circle.
“So a couple of my girls from Circle, they rolled their sleeves up to help, and we all mucked in.”
From the Mediums’ Room (pictured, left) to the kitchen and new toilet facilities (pictured, right), almost every key space and area at Smethwick has had a gorgeous, modern makeover.
Perhaps most admirably of all, despite all the setbacks and challenges, for Melanie and her helpers, simply plastering over the cracks was not going to be enough.
Rather than simply reopening the doors, they made a conscious decision to actively change how the church felt.
“We all thought, well, rather than it just be ‘Plain Jane’ so to speak, we came together with the idea of the sunflowers, and making the whole place that bit more warm and more inviting.”
The interior was refreshed, dark and unwelcoming areas were rethought, and long-standing issues with comfort were finally addressed.
“We could never heat the church,” says Tracy Bramhall, Secretary and Safeguarding Officer. “So we could never use, in my eyes, our church hall appropriately.”
Now, the difference is clear.
“It’s bright, it’s airy,” Tracy says. “It’s not dark and scary like people wouldn’t come in before.”
While much of the building required improvement, the renovation was not about erasing the church’s identity. Those stained-glass windows I mentioned — a defining feature of Smethwick — were carefully maintained.
“They’re a signature of the church,” Melanie says, proudly.
And for Tracy, preserving that history was essential, and spread out into other areas of the building, its history and heritage, too.
“You don’t get rid of things like that,” she says. “That’s where we started.”
At the time of the visit, back rooms had been knocked through to make into a larger office and even a ‘museum’ space, to put all off the archives, records and rich history of the church out on display for generations to come.
“We’re going to try and find a way to incorporate all of that,” Tracy says. “In our ‘history room’, or whatever we end up calling it.”
“We’re going to set it up in that room that we’ve now got, in some cabinets or something.
“We’ve found old coins, photos, memorabilia, old books.”
“Things like the constitutions, and the old books, it’s just nice for people to see,” Melanie adds.
It’s a perfect fusing of both the forward-thinking attitude of Smethwick’s renewal and renovation, coupled with a looking back at what has come before.
“That’s the point of it,” Melanie adds. “To say, well, this is where the church once was.
And this is where the church is now.”
Looking around, there is vitality and clean, new finishes wherever you look. In the rear community room at the back, where we are sat talking, all of the tables and chairs have been replaced with brighter, newer and more modern offerings.
But amazingly, all of this revamping did not stop within the walls of the church. Attention has also turned to the rear garden, which had long been underused.
“We’re just trying to keep the front tidy now and get that up to speed,” Tracy explains.
But perhaps more ambitiously, the rear space behind the church, which was once heavily overgrown and practically inaccessible, has been completely cleared. Plans are already underway to develop the space further, including a memorial space for an important supporter of Smethwick, who was integral to the fight for its revival right up until she passed to Spirit.
“…it can be something that, over the years, you can walk out and remember people by… for everyone who has helped.”
“The first medium I ever saw work was Pauline Thornton,” Melanie explains. “And she absolutely amazed me.”
“And she fought too, alongside me to get this church back to where it used to be and more.”
“We’re gonna do hopefully the garden in honour of her,” Tracy says, “in honour of Pauline, which will be Pauline’s Garden.”
A particularly touching tribute is the idea of create a memorial wall for those members and attendees, like Pauline, who have been such an important part of Smethwick’s journey.
“I mentioned to Mel, ‘why don’t we make it as a memorial wall’?, Tracey adds.
“So we can have little plaques from previous members, and it can be something that, over the years, you can walk out and remember people by.”
“Karen, one of our members, has got us a good deal on some memorial plates or little candle lights, and they’re really nice. We are looking at getting those personalised so people can pray for people and remember people.”
Melanie explains that inclusivity remains central to the vision.
“Not everybody could afford a plot,” she says. “So it might be a nice idea that they can just come and even if they just want to stand out there, or put something like a simple plant or similar out there.”
“I want to do that not just for Pauline, because she as very important and she did do an awful lot of good work for this church, but for everyone who has helped.”
“It’s just that nice way of remembering what they did do.”
For both ladies, the transformation of the building mirrors a wider belief about Spiritualism itself — that spaces must reflect the comfort and hope they aim to provide. It’s a sobering reflection not just SNU churches, but places of worship as a whole.
“You can’t promote something that people are looking at and thinking that it looks like a bunker,” Tracy says.
Melanie puts it simply; bums in seats matters.
“If you haven’t got your congregation or your members,” she says, “you have no church. You have no service.”
For Melanie, it expands out to providing a fuller knowledge and understanding of exactly what Spiritualism is, beyond just the staples.
“It’s about people gaining that fuller knowledge of what it is all about,” she explains.
“More than even the Seven Principles or the belief system.”
She explains how she believes adaptability and being able to find new ways to communicate and evolve are a key part of speaking to the young in today’s climate.
“We never force anything on people,” she adds. “Because to me, I think if you are regimental, or tell people that they have to learn this, or know that, then they’re gonna lose interest.
“You’re going to lose your congregation doing that.”
Since reopening, the impact has been noticeable, and has even pulled in a demographic that some churches notoriously struggle to attract.
“We have had a lot of younger ones lately,” Melanie says.
“We never force anything on people… Because to me, I think if you are regimental, or tell people that they have to learn this, or know that, then they’re gonna lose interest.”
Tracy adds, “They’ve come in with their families, and then the following week they’ve brought some of their friends.”
It’s impossible to not be moved and impressed in equal measure by what the hard-working team at Smethwick have achieved.
What’s perhaps most impressive though, even beyond the fortitude of these wonderful volunteers and their commitment to bring the church back from the brink, is how careful they have trod the balance between respecting what has come before whilst simultaneously making the building a space fit not just for now, but the future.
Smethwick stands today as a warm, inviting, inclusive and characterful church. The plans the team have outlined for their ‘history room’, memorial garden and wall and the delicate, careful maintenance of some of the churches signature features show it is in excellent, respectful hands.
And despite the challenges, the hurdles, the exhaustion and responsibility, both women remain focused on what comes next.
“It’s a full-time job,” Melanie says. “It really is a full-time job.”
But she knows why it matters.
“It’s worth it,” she says, “when you look and you think we can get it ready for the next generation.”
There is little doubt they have done precisely that.
Smethwick Spiritualist Church did not simply reopen after renovation.
It endured a long, difficult journey – and emerged renewed, resilient, and ready for the future.
by Kyle Pedley, SNU Head of Communications
first published Friday 9th January 2026.
photos © Kyle Pedley @ SNU.
If you would like your Church, Centre or District to be considered for an upcoming Spotlight visit and article, please drop us an email on communications.events@snu.org.uk, outlining your interest and reasons for a visit.
The Spotlight series is intended to showcase, highlight and champion good practice and notable achievements at church or district level.