Church to become a funeral home

Eastwood Funeral Partnership is moving from its current office in Main Street to the ground floor of the church on the corner of Broomhill Road.

The new funeral home – which cost £100,000 – took two years to complete and will open up on November 2.

It will have a lobby, reception, a family room and two chapels of rest.

The company moved office to provide a more spacious premises with improved facilities, and the added benefit of off-street parking.

Joanne Hutsby, a funeral director and a partner in the company, said the Main Street office was no longer big enough to deal with the demand from relatives looking to arrange funerals, or coming in to buy other products that the firm did not offer when they first moved into the town.

She said the firm was ‘proud’ to bring an iconic building back into use.

She said: “This is by far the largest project that we have ever undertaken as a business and it is amazing to think that after so much work we will finally be opening the doors.

“We are very proud to have brought one of Kimberley’s iconic buildings back into use. It is a wonderful building and allows us to offer our families a modern, comfortable and quiet place to visit to arrange a funeral or spend time with their loved ones.”

Just yards from Kimberley Cemetery, the three-storey church’s first floor is currently used as living quarters, while its second floor is empty.

The office will open under the name of Gillotts Funeral Partnership as part of a rebranding exercise across all of the partnership’s four funeral homes.

The Eastwood Funeral Partnership also operates the Eastwood and District Funeral Service in Nottingham Road, Eastwood, and two branches of Gillotts Funeral Service, in Derby Road, Stapleford and Abbott Street, Heanor.

In its heyday, the church seated a congregation of 700 but it closed for worship in 1980, since when it has been used as the premises for a printing firm and a glazing company.