£6.8 Million To Help Repair England's Places Of Worship

Heritage Lottery Fund and English Heritage Announce £6.87 million of Repair Grants for Grade II Listed Places of Worship

 The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and English Heritage (EH) have today announced a package of grants worth £6.87 million for essential repairs to Grade II listed churches and chapels across England. The grants will help to repair over 70 historic places of worship which have served their ever-changing communities through the centuries.

One recipient is a church serving Reading’s Polish community. The Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic church is to get a grant of £74,000 for structural repairs to the south west tower and spire, the nave’s west gable and the gutters. The largest grant, £251,000, will be given to St Mark’s Church, Lakenham in Norfolk, to renew its leaking roof. Stockton United Reformed Church and St Francis of Assisi church in Bournville, Birmingham are also amongst the buildings to have been supported in this year’s round of funding.

Since 2002 more than £133m in essential repair grants has been awarded to almost 1,500 historic places of worship through the joint Heritage Lottery Fund and English Heritage Repair Grants for Places of Worship scheme, which is the largest single funding source for work of this kind.

 Carole Souter, Chief Executive at HLF, said: “Places of worship of all kinds are at the centre of community life and are extremely important to local people. In addition to their religious significance and the character that they add to towns and villages, these are living buildings which often host a diverse range of activities, from martial arts classes to mother and toddler groups. The joint Heritage Lottery Fund and English Heritage scheme makes a significant difference to the long-term prospects of these crucial buildings.”

Dr Simon Thurley, Chief Executive of English Heritage, said, “England’s churches and chapels are the spiritual, communal and architectural backbone of our villages, towns and cities.  English Heritage, once again this year, is proud to be supporting the repair of these important historic buildings.  We hope our contribution will allow them to remain in use by the communities that enjoy them.”

Reverend Father Jerzy Januszkiewicz of the Sacred Heart of Jesus church said: “I would like to express my sincere gratitude to English Heritage for giving us a grant for the renovation and repair of our church which will save it from demolition.
 
“The costs involved are beyond our resources and it was therefore with great joy that we have received the news of the grant. The church is a focal point in the Polish community and our particular appreciation goes out to English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund for giving us this opportunity to renovate our church.'”

An Ongoing and Urgent Task
 The Church of England currently spends £120m a year on repairs but according to English Heritage research published as part of the Inspired! Campaign which was launched in 2006 the backlog repair bill for all listed places of worship in England is an estimated £925m over the next five years, or £185m a year. Inspired! identified the need for additional investment from Government and the denominations to help congregations look after their buildings.

Find Funded Places of Worship to Visit Online
One of the conditions of the Repair Grants for Places of Worship scheme is that the public should have a right to see those buildings which have benefited from this public money. Prospective visitors can now search on the English Heritage website for details of how to visit places of worship whose repairs have been grant-aided under the scheme. The list can be found at:
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/nav.17628

Examples of how the £6.87m for repairs will be spent:

Stockton United Reformed Church on Yarm Lane is one of best-known local landmarks, as it has the tallest spire in Stockton. The church is 140 years old and only became a United Reformed Church in 1987. Until then, the building had been a Presbyterian church, serving the Scottish community in Stockton – many of whom had re-located to Stockton to take up jobs in Teesside’s booming chemical industries. The grant of £154,000 will be used for urgent high-level masonry repairs to the stone work on the church tower. Additionally, some of the ferrous materials in the spire are rusting and need to be replaced.

St James’ Church in Heckmondwick, West Yorkshire was built in the 1830s using £3,000 from a £1.5m fund voted by Parliament to mark the return of peace to Europe after the downfall of Napoleon. Churches built in the industrial towns of England at this time to give thanks to God are sometimes known as the "Waterloo Churches". The £59,000 grant will repair the rotten roof timbers which are currently propped up with scaffolding.
 
Holy Trinity, Walton Breck, Anfield, Merseyside is part of the regeneration plans surrounding the new stadium for Liverpool FC. Parapet masonry is failing and the interior has dry rot caused by water coming in. Today’s grant of £138,000 will go towards vital repair work on the gutters. This will be part of a larger programme of work which includes the conversion of the church’s huge undercroft into a flexible community resource.

St Francis of Assisi, Bournville, Birmingham, completed in 1925, stands at the heart of Bournville, the village planned by George Cadbury to house workers at the famous chocolate factory. The church’s architect, William Alexander Harvey, was the architect in charge of the planned village from 1894 to1902. The building is now over 80 years old and its roof is at the end of its effective life.  The guttering is also badly rusted and in need of comprehensive repair. This urgent work can now be carried out with the help of a grant of £46,000.

 St Mark’s Church in New Lakenham, Norwich, was built in 1844 and designed by local architect John Brown. Unusually for an Anglican church it has a gallery with boxed pews which were rented out to wealthier parishioners.

The Rood Screen, the work of architect Temple Moore, was constructed in 1910 and is a particularly beautiful example with painted scenes and figures designed by pupils of Giles Gilbert Scott. Since the demolition of the nearby Roman Catholic Church of Christ the King in the 1990s St Mark’s has welcomed the displaced Roman Catholic congregation. The grant of £251,000 will help renew its leaking roof.