'Well-respected' minister dies aged 64
Reverend Richard Woodhouse, of North Walsham Congregational Church - Credit: SUPPLIED
A “well-respected” minister based in north Norfolk has died at the age of 64.
The Reverend Richard Woodhouse took up ministry at North Walsham Congregational Church, based on Cromer Road, twice during his lifetime.
Before this position, he served as assistant minister at Cowper Memorial Congregational Church, Dereham, before serving as minister of the church in 1985.
He later gave oversight to Hingham Congregational Church, near Wymondham, and, in September 1993, moved to become the ministry at North Walsham where he served until 2008.
In the May of that year, he accepted a call to become the minister of Kentish Town Congregational Church, London, where he remained until 2013. But he was called once again to North Walsham and returned to serve there for a second time.
His colleagues within the church have described his death as one that has left "a great sense of loss amongst the churches that he served”.
Rev Woodhouse was a regular preacher at many of Norfolk’s Congregational churches and served the wider denomination in a variety of ways. After many of the Congregational churches became part of the United Reformed Church, he remained a staunch Congregationalist and served both the churches and the community in which he lived “with great faithfulness”.
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He died unexpectedly at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital on January 12.
His funeral took place at North Walsham Congregational Church on Wednesday, February 3, conducted by the Rev Chris Damp, minister of Bunyan Meeting House in Bedford. A burial at Scarning churchyard, near Dereham, followed the service.
A memorial service is being planned and will take place once Covid restrictions are lifted.
Donations in his memory can be made to North Walsham Congregational Church via Murrell Cork Funerals, 57a Mundesley Road, North Walsham, NR28 0DB.
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