A METHODIST church in a York suburb has held its final service.

More than 100 worshippers turned up at St George’s Methodist Church in Millfield Lane, off Tang Hall Lane, for the Carol Service on Sunday evening.

Among the congregation was Joyce Smith, who said she had been going to the church for 77 of its 80 years, since she was a little girl.

She said she had got married there and her son was christened there.

She was sad it was closing but felt it was necessary to look to the future, and - like many others from St George’s - she would now be attending services at Heworth Methodist Church, about a mile away at the other end of Tang Hall Lane.

The Minister, the Reverend Ian Hill, said the church - part of which was converted some years ago into student flats - would be retained by the Methodist circuit, with a decision yet to be taken on how it should be best used in future.

The closure came just over three months after the final service was held at another York Methodist church, Melbourne Terrace Church in Cemetery Road.

Mr Hill has said previously that the congregation at St George’s was a “friendly and loving group of people,” who had worked very hard to keep the church open, but who had agreed almost unanimously earlier this year that “the time had come to draw this chapter to a close.”

He said the church would have celebrated 80 years of service to the community next year, but sustaining it financially and practically had become too great a burden for the relatively small but faithful membership at St George’s.

The Reverend Leslie Newton, Superintendent Minister of the Methodist York Circuit, told the Press earlier this year there was still “strength, enthusiasm and vision for the future” within the church, with nearly 1,000 Methodists meeting together for an event at York Barbican, including nearly 100 children and young people.