Building record TR 25 SW 395 - International Miners Mission

The International Miners' Mission was founded in 1906 by Richard Glynn Vivian, a wealthy industrialist and brother of Lord Swansea. He was both inspired and assisted by Herbert Voke, initially his valet but later his private secretary and spiritual counsellor, and Colonel James Philips, the superintendent of the Union Street Mission in Brighton. The mission at Aylesham was opened in 1928 and soon proved to be a popular religious and social focal point for the new mining community. The mission hall was built with money originally intended to be used to finance a new mission in Russia, a venture which was abandoned when the new Communist regime banned Christianity. The Mission closed following the shutting of Snowdon Colliery in 1987, a rule of organisation being that it could not serve communities that did not have working mines.