The University of Bristol has been fighting its electronic file-system for a few days. Something broke last week, and it’s taken them a little while to put the file store back up. In the meantime, I have no access to my working documents.

I’ve used the time to prepare a presentation that I’ll be giving next Monday in what remains of the Centre for Deaf Studies.

Preparing the presentation reminded me of how far we’ve come in only a few weeks, particularly with regards to our knowledge of the St Saviour’s building, and its use.

What’s been really interesting is to see the separation of spaces between the ‘upstairs’ which clearly fulfilled a public role, and remained under the control of the Anglican church establishment and the Association’s board of trustees… and the ‘downstairs’, which was clearly a much more Deaf controlled space.

Here’s the plan of the building. Imagine going in through the doors in Lumley street, and being faced with stairs up to the left, and down to the right.

“… A descending flight of steps at the general entrance… brings us to the lecture-hall beneath the church. At its north end is a spacious platform, and on the walls on either hand are portraits in oil… principally executed by deaf artists. The room is well furnished with gymnastic apparatus. Here lectures, meetings, tea-parties, gymnastic displays, bazaars, and, usually, the Thursday evening service are held.”

This ‘downstairs’ space was effectively London’s first permanently sited Deaf club, and will be an enormous part of the story that we tell about the church.