Canterbury United Methodist Church
Canterbury United Methodist Church (formerly Irondale Methodist Church and Union Hill Methodist Church) is a large Methodist church located at 350 Overbrook Road in Mountain Brook. Its weekly services are broadcast on WAPI-AM.
Irondale Methodist was chartered in 1867 near the Irondale Furnace. The congregation relocated to a new building on land donated by Pleasant Watkins on present-day Hollywood Boulevard in 1873. The Union Hill Cemetery adjoined the church. The building, which also served as the Union Hill School, was remodeled during the development of Mountain Brook as a suburban community, and was renamed "Canterbury" for the seat of the Church of England as part of the overall English Tudor theme of the development. In 1930 the church commissioned a design for a new sanctuary from Denham & Denham architects, but the project was set aside during the Great Depression.
The congregation of Union Hill Methodist merged with Mountain Brook Methodist Church in Crestline on October 10, 1948. The former Union Hill building was demolished in the 1950s for construction of U.S. Highway 280. The combined congregation began meeting on the site of the former Bearden Dairy on Overbrook Road on October 12, 1952 and the current sanctuary building, designed by Fred Renneker of Shaw & Renneker, was completed in 1961 for a budget of around $800,000.
Canterbury Methodist is the sponsor of Boy Scout Troop 82.
Pastors
- Bud Precise
- Mikah Hudson, 2005-2010
- Dale Cohen, 2015-2017
References
- Smith, Catherine Pittman (2014) Mountain Brook. Images of America series. Arcadia Publishing ISBN 1439648190
- Garrison, Greg (November 20, 2017) "Pastor at Doug Jones' church steps down." The Birmingham News