St Mary’s Church Glemsford has announced today that it has received a grant of £250,000 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to help fund essential repair work to its historic building. This adds to a smaller grant already generously donated by the Rochester Bridge Trust.
St Mary’s Church is a Grade 1 listed stone and flint building dating mainly from 1350 to 1539 and is of significant historic importance. Sadly, the southwest wall is now showing severe and dangerous cracking caused by nearby tree roots, exacerbated by the dry weather over the last few years. Failure to address these cracks will result in the collapse of the wall and the loss of this historic building as an important community asset for the village. Iron embedded in the stonework in Victorian times has also started to rust and crack the stone and needs to be replaced with stainless steel. This new funding from the Heritage Fund will help to address these issues.
The building is currently used not only for Church services but as a venue for many different events such as concerts, school events and a Christmas tree festival. These are well supported by local people whether members of the Church congregation or not. The Church grounds are a place where wildlife is encouraged to flourish and benches in the grounds encourage visitors to sit quietly for contemplation or simply to enjoy the views.
Ensuring that the building is structurally secure and safe will ensure that the community can continue to use the Church both as a place of worship, a social space and a place of peace and comfort for those that need it.
The events team at St Mary’s endeavour to provide an interesting and varied programme of activities during the year and encourage all members of the local community to support the events and get involved. Details are published on local publications and social media sites.
Andrew Powell, Churchwarden of St Mary’s said: “We are thrilled to have received this generous support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Thanks to National Lottery players, vital repair and conservation work to our historic building will ensure that we can continue to serve our village community for many years to come”.