Four years since fire at Bethel Church and Zanzibar, Newport

On June 16, 2018, a fire started in the former Zanzibar club on Stow Hill, which quickly spread to the neighbouring Bethel Community Church.

While the emergency services were quickly scrambled to the scene to fight the blaze, the fire had caused a great deal of damage to both buildings, completely gutting them.

In the initial years that followed, the shells of both buildings stood empty, a sad reminder of carnage caused in just a few short hours.

The fire consumed Zanzibar and the Bethel Church

But more recently, there has been cause for optimism.

First, a project to restore Bethel Community Church was given the go-ahead, and following a significant amount of work, that project is entering its final stages.

Today, to mark the anniversary of the fateful fire, the church took to social media, saying: “Four years ago today (the fire) happened. But God is faithful. We should be in our new building before the end of the year.”

An overhead view of how the church is currently looking

With the congregation temporarily calling Havelock Street Presbyterian Church home, Henstaff Construction have been on site, restoring the listed building back to its former glory.

It is hoped that the modern facilities inside what is a historic building will be fully operational by the end of 2022.

Andrew Cleverly, senior pastor at Bethel Community Church said: “We are very excited that we are getting to the final stages of the rebuild. We are now concentrating on choosing the internal furnishings like carpet and chairs etc.

“One of the new developments that we are looking forward to is a coffee shop which will be open to the public and other areas of the new church building which will be for community use, such as IT suite and the auditorium for hire.

“This is going to be a 21st century church within the shell of an 19th century building.”

Along with the coffee shop, the revamped church will include a 400-seater auditorium, with a gallery area, altar stage, and baptismal pool.

What about Zanzibar?

While the striking images of the day were pictures of the church going up in flames – with its roof completely decimated, the origin point of the fire can often go overlooked.

Perhaps a reason for this was its lack of occupation at the time of the fire, but Zanzibar quickly threatened to be consigned to Newport’s history books.

And, without a community behind it willing to put time, energy, and resources into restoration, it has significantly decayed over the last four years.

But, this is also now looking likely to change in the near future.

Just weeks ago, planning permission was granted to demolish the majority of the Zanzibar building, only retaining the Stow Hill frontage.

Behind it, 37 affordable housing apartments will be built in its place.

It comes as part of the scheme brought by housing association Linc Cymru.