Ronald Moore was inducted on 14th February 1948 and the service was attended by a large number of clergy.
PCC meetings under his chairmanship often lasted three hours.
He realised from the outset that more clergy and new building were needed and told the bishop in 1950. In March 1949 a housing committee was looking for building land for a house and new church hoping to build both for £2,000. Work started on St. John’s House (in Highfield Lane) in 1951. By 1953 the congregation had outgrown the church building (see the photo and article on page 12) and the PCC was looking at how the building could be enlarged. An architect was then consulted and in November 1953 various options were presented for consideration.
Finally it was decided that the high altar should be brought closer to the congregation, making the communion service much more visible and creating a Ladychapel in what had been the chancel.
In September the churchwardens formally moved the adoption of the plan and the employment of Blacking as architect and the local firm of C.E. Gaunt as contractors.
The total cost of the building and refurbishment was around £22,000. During the rebuilding the main church services were held in St Chad’s Hall on Avenue Road. As holes appeared in the nave walls and the organ was dismantled the church was “pulled inside out” according to the words of Canon Moore.
The building was finished in time for the centenary in 1957, now having two extra aisles faced in roughly the same stone as the original structure but with plain square-headed windows and a modernised and redecorated interior.
Other important achievements during Canon Moore’s incumbency were the building of the new Church School in Cranborne Road, the subsequent use of the old school building, newly refurbished as the Eagle Club, and the creation from scratch of the Church House and adjacent hall on Willowgarth Road in the heart of the Dunston Estate – this achieved with the energetic and infectious enthusiasm of his curate, Fr Raymond Hubble.
Canon Moore left Newbold to become Vicar of Melbourne in South Derbyshire.