Kirche

refuge
for the dispossessed
kirche

One Street #7

A distinctive building near the foot of my One Street, the Deutsche Evangelica Kirche is now the Delius Arts and Cultural Centre . A legacy of the sizable German community in the city, Frederick Delius' parents were founder members of the congregation.

In 1933 it was the site of a notable event in anti-fascist movement. Dietrich Bonhoeffer came here to join a conference of German clergy in Britain in making and signing the Bradford Declaration. The Declaration was a protest against the Nazification of the Church. The event is commemorated on a plaque erected on the church, one of only two memorial plaques on this particular One Street.

The story of how more recently the congregation elected to give over the space to arts and culture, rather than sell it, is related here.

Part of the history that makes Bradford a City of Sanctuary.

Woody Guthrie: All You Fascists Bound To Lose.