A beautiful church, not welcoming to wheelchair users, despite an excellent lift
3
3
Date of visit: October 2022
I am a disabled person. I have experience of challenges around: accessing toilets and moving around.
I use or have experience of: disabled toilet
Overall Rating
Average
Although this church is open to everyone during the daytime and there is provision for wheelchair access, it proved very difficult to get inside due to the rudeness and obstructiveness of the administrative staff. Not a happy experience.
Disabled Access In and Around
Bad
The church is open to the public for viewing and for prayer all day. The doors at the front of the church are kept unlocked and anyone can enter the church. As the doors at the front are reached by a flight of steps, good provision has been made for step-free access at a side door on the north side of the church. This side door leads to an excellent and sturdy lift, which gives access to both the main body of the church and the crypt below. This is all good. But excellent provision of infrastructure is severely undermined by the administrative staff of the church. The outer side door is kept locked. When my carer entered the church, via the main doors at the front, to ask for the door to be unlocked for his wheelchair-user friend (me), the administrator he spoke to was extraordinarily rude and obstructive, and even challenged him as to why we would want to enter the church. As the church is freely open to everyone, this challenge was completely out of place. Further trouble arose when, having taken the lift, I arrived at the level of the nave. The doors to the nave were locked. We had to summon the rude administrator, who opened the doors with very bad grace. Her bad attitude, her rudeness and obstructiveness, really spoilt our visit to what is in fact a very beautiful church.
Parking & Transport
Good
The nearest step-free station is Highbury and Islington (half a mile away), but this station is step-free for London Overground ONLY, and not for the Victoria Line tube service. Check whether the lifts are working before you travel, as they are notoriously unreliable. Caledonian Road Station is further away (1.3 miles) and is step-free from train to street, which is brilliant for wheelchair users. Many buses stop very near the church, Upper St is very bus-rich.
Accessible Toilets
0I spotted a toilet door with a wheelchair symbol on it, near the lift, but I didn't enter the toilet, so I can't report on it, except to say that there appears to be an accessible toilet available.
Staff
0I've already commented sufficiently above on the rude and obstructive member of staff we encountered, who entirely spoilt what would otherwise have been a relaxed and cheerful visit to a beautiful church. Zero stars.
Additional Information
The church was bombed during the war. Only the tower and west front are original, built in 1754, designed by Lancelot Dowbiggin. The rest of the church was rebuilt after the war to an extremely elegant and simple design, strikingly beautiful, and well worth a visit.
