80 acre ex-private school near Sheffield bought for £3m by 'delighted' Nigerian religious group
The group claims to have over one million members
A Nigerian religious group which is one of the world's biggest churches paid over £3m to purchase a former private school on the Sheffield border, after the school fell into administration last year.
Documents posted to Companies House have revealed that the Deeper Christian Life Ministry (DCLM), a Lagos-based group which claims to be the third largest Christian church in the world, paid £3,163,000 for Mount St Mary’s College in July.
DCLM was founded in 1973 as a bible study group by William Folorunso Kumuyi, who was last year invited to the inauguration of US President Donald Trump.
The group claims to have over one million members, and operates thousands of churches across the world.
It comes after Mount St Mary’s College, along with its associated prep school, Barlborough Hall School, closed down in July last year, with the sites then listed for sale in January by Hilco Global.
According to Hilco, DCLM intends to “preserve the site’s unique heritage whilst bringing the estate back into active use for education, community and charitable purposes”.
Located close to Sheffield, the Derbyshire-based Mount St Mary’s College site spans around 80.69 acres, with 19,080 sq m of floor space within its properties. The site also contains a Grade II listed Memorial Chapel.
According to Nigerian magazine Ecomium, the ministry is worth over N350bn (£200m). The group operates a 30,000 seater cathedral in Gbagada, Lagos, as its headquarters.
Details from the Charity Commission show that the ministry’s UK arm had a total income of £6.2m in the financial year ending 31 December 2025.
The latest Companies House accounts for the group’s UK arm, made up for the year ended 31 December 2024, show that it held reserves at the year-end of around £19m. The net book value of the group’s tangible assets was recorded as around £12m.
A statement in the filing added: “The board is determined to see that more local assemblies are established within the United Kingdom. There are plans to acquire more buildings for local assemblies.”
In a statement issued alongside the announcement of the purchase in July, Pastor Paul Akowe at Deeper Christian Life Ministry said: “We are delighted to have acquired Mount St Mary’s and are honoured to become custodians of such an important historic estate.
“We look forward to working with the local community and preserving the site’s rich heritage whilst developing plans that will enable it to flourish once again for future generations.”
Attending the inauguration of President Donald Trump last year, DCLM founder, Mr Kumuyi, gave his strong backing to the incoming leader.
Speaking in an interview with Fox News, he described the inauguration as a "victory for democracy”, adding: “I align with everything that went on, and also the inaugural speech of Donald Trump, what he hopes to achieve and what he wants to do.”
In the latest report posted to Companies House, administrators behind Mount St Mary’s said they were now “actively progressing the sale of Barlborough Hall School, with the sales price expected to be “in the region of £1m”. They added that this was in addition to £798,811 received for the site’s agricultural land.