Historic Churches 2023

BCD SPECIAL REPORT ON H ISTOR I C CHURCHE S 30th ANNUAL ED ITION 5 over a church: people attending the bank holiday church fete placed bets on their estimates of his height over the top of the church tower. CHARITABLE TRUSTS If a parish or congregation cannot raise the money they need from their own resources then a natural next step, as part of the fundraising strategy, is to apply to external funders. Many of these are philanthropic trusts and foundations, such as the National Churches Trust. Its origins are actually in the Incorporated Church Building Society (ICBS) which was founded in 1818, when Anglican churches needed to expand to cope with growing populations in the new industrial cities and competition from other denominations, such as the Methodists and Roman Catholics. Although the ICBS provided funding to churches, somewhat ironically, it also jeopardised pew rents, a source of income for some churches, by funding the provision of free pews. Then in 1953, the Historic Churches Preservation Trust, the immediate predecessor to our current charity, was set up. Then, as now, the state of repair of many parish churches was a cause for concern. This was then due in part to the economic depression of the 1930s and the almost total cessation of maintenance and repair during the second world war. In 2007 a new charity, the National Churches Trust, was set up. As well as funding repairs, it had a wider brief to support and promote church buildings. Today, the National Churches Trust is key among the many philanthropic funders of churches. Since 1953, it has provided grants and loans of over £130 million at today’s prices and helped churches all over the UK, from all the major denominations. Other national funders include the Garfield Weston Foundation, The Pilgrim Trust, The Dulverton Trust and The Wolfson Foundation. These are supplemented by a large number with a more local focus, including, in England, county church trusts, many of which have links with the National Churches Trust. The website Funds for Historic Buildings, which is maintained by the Architectural Heritage Fund, gives details of these and most other sources of funding throughout the UK. The plethora of these funders means that a church may have to make many individual applications before it finds those both willing, and able to pay. This is a process that involves much form filling and can last for far too long. CENTRAL GOVERNMENT FUNDING On top of these voluntary and charitable contributions comes government support and funding from the national heritage bodies. Unlike some European countries, in the UK there is no statutory funding of churches by the state. In Germany, for example, unless they opt out, all citizens pay a ‘church tax’, with some of this being used to pay for church buildings. In France, all Roman Catholic church buildings built before 1905 belong to the state. This means, that despite being officially a secular country, in France local councils can and in many cases do fund the repair of church buildings, unlike in the UK where the legality of this is still contested. That is not to say that there is no state support for church buildings in the UK. Just that it can wax and wane. Some government funding for listed buildings is channelled through the statutory heritage bodies in England, Scotland and Wales (Historic England, Historic Environment Scotland and Cadw respectively), and through the Department for Communities in Northern Ireland. Other funding measures for places of worship have been delivered across the UK through measures such as VAT relief. In England the first such support came from 1977 to 1983 when thanks to the efforts of the MP Patrick Cormack (now Lord Cormack) some £8 million was made available for church repairs by the Department of the Environment via the Historic Buildings Council. This was partly prompted by the closure of Christ Church in Lancaster Gate due to a lack of repair funds. Today all that remains of that church is the spire, which can be seen from Hyde Park. From 1987 to 2013 English Heritage took over this responsibility and disbursed around £470 million for repairs to places in worship in England. Between 2002 and 2003 18 per cent of their grant expenditure was to places of worship, compared to 24 per cent to secular buildings and monuments. Historic England succeeded English Heritage from 2013 as the statutory body responsible and continues to this day to be a strong advocate for church buildings, and helped to secure the almost £50 million of post Covid recovery support from the Government’s Heritage Stimulus Fund (HSF). £3.6 million of this was distributed by the National Churches Trust, with the Churches Conservation Trust, the Friends of Friendless Churches, the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales and the Church of England using HSF funding to help their churches. Places of worship helped by this funding range from humble meeting houses and chapels to grand minster churches. The Friends Meeting House in Kendal, Cumbria, a Grade II* listed building, received a £446,500 grant to fund urgent repairs to its roof. St Mary’s in Marshchapel, Lincolnshire, a spectacularly beautiful Grade I listed church, received a grant of £36,000 to Fund raising at St Mary’s Church Horncastle (Photo: Push Creativity Ltd and National Churches Trust)