£15.5 million for England’s historic places of worship

English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has announced more than £15.5 million to support urgent repair work to 150 Grade I and II listed places of worship across England. The grants were awarded under the organisations’ joint Repair Grants for Places of Worship scheme.

The majority of recipients this year are Anglican churches, but there are also buildings belonging to other denominations and faiths. These range from the impressive New West End synagogue in London to St John’s Methodist Church in St Austell, Cornwall.

All the buildings have rich histories. St Mildred, Whippingham on the Isle of Wight, was used by Queen Victoria when she was at Osborne House and contains a special royal pew. It will receive £208,000 for repairs to the tower, roof and the interior, including the royal pew. The Victorian United Reformed Church at Saltaire in Yorkshire, at the heart of the model village built by Sir Titus Salt for his mill workers, will receive £152,000 for roof repairs and restoration of his mausoleum. All these grants will be a massive boost to fundraising efforts to allow crucial and expensive repair work to take place, supporting local initiatives that can be particularly difficult for small communities.

Dr Simon Thurley, Chief Executive of English Heritage, said “From the rural parish churches of Norfolk to the splendour of the New West End Synagogue in London’s Bayswater, England’s places of worship face some serious challenges. These grants will fund urgent repairs so that these wonderful buildings which are so central to this country’s heritage and identity can remain in use.”

Carole Souter, Chief Executive of HLF, said: “These wonderful buildings are often central to community life and play an important role in people's everyday lives, but maintaining them is always a challenge. This substantial investment will help fund the vital repairs necessary to secure their long-term futures.”

Rabbi Geoffrey Shisler from the New West End Synagogue, Bayswater, London said: “We are extremely grateful to receive this grant. It is not just important to our Jewish community, but important for the whole of England to have historic buildings, like our magnificent synagogue, that we can be proud of. We are open to the public every day and have hundreds of visitors every week from all over England and abroad.”

Diana Evans, English Heritage’s Head of Places of Worship, said: “Each of these buildings, like the thousands of Places of Worship throughout the country, has huge local and national significance. English Heritage greatly admires the faithful work done by volunteers to care for them, keeping them in use for worship and countless other activities that sustain the buildings and enhance community life.”

Since 2002, £107.7 million of grants have been awarded to almost 1,200 Grade I and II historic places of worship through the partnership scheme, which is the largest single source of funds to help congregations to care for historic churches, chapels, synagogues and other historic places of worship. Even so, the scheme remains heavily oversubscribed, with twice as many applications each year as can be funded.

English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund have jointly supported places of worship for more than 10 years and both organisations recognise the importance of enabling much-needed repairs to take place. This year the total amount available under the scheme is £25 million. £7.5 million of this will go to Grade II places of worship in May.