The Buckhurst Hill Baptist Church is gearing up to mark its 100th year this week.

The church in Palmerston Road was founded for local Baptists, who were homeless and were resorting to meeting in homes to pray together.

The current Minister Rev Simon Smith said: "This church gave them a chance to get together and pray as a community for the first time, it was very important to local baptists to have somewhere to call home."

It was also the site of an unusual service in 1947, when a young German Prisoner of war was baptised in a ceremony conducted in his native tongue.

The service which was covered by the Guardian at the time - in its previous incarnation as the Gazette- made the front page.

The report of 21-year- old Alfred Musalf's Baptism reads: "Guttural German voices sounded in the little church near the bottom of Palmerston Road for the first time in its history as Alfred and his four friends sang one of their native anthems."

"And again, when the candidate with sorrow in his voice for the millions of men and women cold and hungry in the fatherland asked through the halting and ungrammatical English of his friend that 'bitterness and hate might not take over Europe'."

From a humble beginning of just 18 members, the congregation has bloomed to well over 150 members and is still growing.

To fit all the faithful into the building a series of ambitious building projects have taken place since the 1960's and continued, one per decade, since.

These include the erection of a new hall and the opening up of older chamber rooms to create smaller meeting rooms.

The future looks bright for the church, with plans to introduce non-religious community programmes- including a debt advice service.

Rev Smith said the church has come a long way in 100 years.

He said: “We have a pre-school and mother and toddlers groups, groups for the elderly and the young, we really do feel at the heart of the community.

“We really want to welcome everyone, regardless of their denomination into the church, everyone can join our groups. We’ve come a long way since the beginning and we’re hoping to work alongside other churches to help and serve the people of Buckhurst Hill as much as we can.”

On Saturday 13 June the church will be open from 10am for a retrospective on its history and a day of festivities, including a hog roast, flower festival and games and activities for people of all ages.

For more information visit www.bhbc.org.uk