Published: 22/10/2021
Updated: 21/10/2021
We are overjoyed to announce that the Friends of Friendless Churches has been awarded £1.54m from the Culture Recovery Fund programme for major repairs! The grant will cover 80% of eligible costs, so we need to find the final 20% (£374,521.99) from elsewhere. All the works need to be complete by 30 June 2022.
This money will go towards the repair of eight churches in England. Read on for details of the successful projects.
Our most sincere thanks to Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport and Historic England.
#HereForCulture
This Grade I listed church will benefit from new roofs, new drainage, masonry repairs, and enhanced tower access, which will enable future maintenance to be undertaken easily.
The project at St Mary’s, Fordham includes repairs to the bellcote, the roof timbers, installation of new rainwater goods and repair and redecoration of the interior.
St Lawrence’s only came into our care in late 2020, after laying empty for more than a decade. This funding will allow us to address the structural movement, overhaul the drainage, mend the roofs, and repair the interior.
The gorgeous little chapel at Milland was one of our earliest and most dramatic rescues. Now, it’s time to return to renew the ceilings internally, mend the leaky drains and re-render the porches.
The church at Mundon is built on the edge of a salt-marsh. It’s been sinking and swaying and twisting for decades. Using the data collected from our structural monitoring and thanks to this grant, we can now underpin the south-side of the building, overhaul drainage and conserve the wall paintings.
St Helen’s came into our care in August 2021. It’s a fine, Grade I listed church of 1460. Here, the grant will go towards stabilising the movement to the west of the building and repairing the internal plasterwork.
Image (c) Adrian Powter
St Giles’ is a very recent vesting with FoFC, and it is in poor condition. Suffering structural movement, it’s been on the Heritage at Risk register for many years. We will use the grant to mend the roofs, overhaul the drains, address the structural issues, and undertake internal plaster repairs.
We are delighted that this little chapel on the side of the road outside Waddesdon Manor, will benefit from this grant. We plan to re-roof the entire building, lay new drainage, and replace cement pebble-dash render with a more sympathethic lime mix.
