Our history

Pip & Jims started life as two separate churches: St Philip (about half a mile north of where the present church now stands), and St James (about half a mile south). St James was built before the war and served a rather select collection of houses and chalets scattered across the hillsides and valleys of Chatham’s ‘alpine suburb’ (a wooded area south of Chatham). In the 1940s the Bishop of Rochester appointed Gordon Naderer to St James. He was half German and therefore able to conduct services in German for the prisoners of war in the camp on the Hook Meadow held behind our present church building.

After the war, much of this wooded area was built over with the two council estates of Wayfield and Weeds Wood. A Scout Hut on Wayfield was converted to become St Philip’s Church. In 1962, the two churches were combined, with the new building (our present church building) situated between the two council estates.