On April 19 a reception was held in the Houses of Parliament hosted by Deputy Speaker Nigel Evans MP to celebrate the remarkable achievement of the Patrimony Committee of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales in obtaining no less than £6.6 million from the Government’s Cultural Recovery Fund for the repair of outstanding Catholic churches. The Patrimony Committee is chaired by the Most Rev George Stack, Archbishop Emeritus of Cardiff. Its Vice Chair is the formidable Sophie Andreae CBE, whose early career was spent at SAVE Britain’s Heritage.
The reception launched the publication of Living Stones, an admirable booklet celebrating the success of the grants scheme. It is beautifully produced with a large number of excellent photographs. An Anglican peer with heritage interests, not known amongst his friends for sympathy towards Catholicism, wrote after the reception: “I have just finished looking at Living Stones, which I picked up yesterday. It seems to me exemplary. Well done!”
Historically Catholic churches have been very slightly hesitant about seeking government funds from a Protestant state. In the years leading up to 2017 this hesitance was certainly overcome by both Fr Marcus Holden at St Augustine’s, Ramsgate, and by the Institute of Christ the King at SS Peter, Paul and St Philomena, New Brighton on the Wirral; they were both extremely successful in obtaining funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), now the National Heritage Lottery Fund (NHLF). Various other Catholic churches succeeded in obtaining similar funding from the dedicated HLF’s Grants for Places of Worship (GPOW) scheme, which prior to closure disbursed some £30 million per annum for repairs to listed places of worship.
In 2017 the GPOW scheme was closed down. Subsequently all applications to the NHLF from Catholic and other churches have to compete with secular applications from museums or tourist attractions, and also demonstrate substantial community engagement and outreach, and provision of activities; the latter is difficult for Catholic churches under Canon Law since space within churches is sacred and cannot, because of the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, be used for secular purposes. Anglican churches on the other hand do not have these limitations and secular use is now widespread. Since 2017 very few Catholic churches have made successful applications to the NHLF with some, even for Grade I listed churches, being turned down at the initial “expression of interest” stage.
Covid-19 descended on this country in March 2020. Like all churches, Catholic churches were badly hit by the pandemic as they had to be shut for public worship and their incomes plummeted.
In July 2020 the Government announced the Cultural Recovery Fund to give support to cultural organisations and heritage sites open to the public to tackle the crisis they faced as a result of Covid-19 and, as part of this, Historic England launched its Grants for Programmes of Major Works. Funding was made available for 80 per cent of the eligible costs of urgent repairs to Grade I and Grade ll* buildings which had to close during lockdown. The timescale for applications and for completion of projects was remarkably tight but in round I some 29 Catholic projects at 27 churches were approved for funding with £3.14 million awarded. In the summer of 2021 a second round was announced. A further 18 grants totalling £3.49 million to Catholic churches were approved.
It is worth listing the successful churches with their grants to give some idea of the chronological and geographical breadth of the scheme (overleaf).
AWN Pugin designed five of these churches, followed by JA Hansom with four. Ayles-ford’s Carmelite Shrine, St Mary, Great Yarmouth, St Ignatius, Preston, St John the Baptist Cathedral, Norwich and Our Lady and St Mary Magdalene, Tavistock, all received more than £300,000. The earliest church to receive funds was St Mary, Crick- lade and the most recent to be built the Carm-elite Shrine at Aylesford. Most of the funds have been spent on necessary structural repairs to the churches but in some cases they have helped to install electrical and fire-detection systems as well as dealing with drainage problems threatening historic fabric.
The problem for those Catholic churches which are not able to benefit from existing programmes remains. The NHLF has recently announced a 10-year strategy which indicates that there may be more funding for church buildings and for heritage at risk. Only time will tell whether Catholic churches of great heritage importance and beauty, but limited ability to deliver extensive community outreach and engagement owing to lack of capacity or location, such as All Saints, Wardour (see last issue), will receive essential support.
It is time that the NHLF recognised that beautiful churches provide places of tranquility and reflection. Access to such places is probably as important in terms of wellbeing as the provision of heritage “activities”.
Barton-upon-Irwell, All Saints Friary, EW Pugin, 1863-68, £86,726
Lancaster, St Peter’s Cathedral, EG Paley, 1857, £14,189
Liverpool, St Patrick, John Slater, 1821-7, £63,777
Liverpool, St Philip Neri, PS Gilby, 1920, £25,606
Macclesfield, St Alban, AWN Pugin, 1841, £177,314
Manchester, The Holy Name of Jesus, JA Hansom, 1869-71, £289,922
Preston, St Ignatius, JJ Scoles, 1833, £428,884
Preston, St Walburge, JA Hansom, 1850-54, £298,631
Rochdale, St John the Baptist, Henry Oswald Hill, 1925, £237,216
Salford, Cathedral of St John the Evangelist Weightman & Hadfield, 1844-49, £86,474
North East of England and Yorkshire
Alnwick, St Paul, Salvin, 1845-46, £107,574
Ampleforth, St Laurence Abbey Church, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, 1925-61, £271,677
Bradford, St Cuthbert, WH and JE Marten, 1890-92, £248,034
Hexham, St Mary, Fr Michael Singleton, 1828-30, £22,604
Leeds, St Anne’s Cathedral, Eastwood & Greenslade, 1901-04, £61,630
Newcastle, St Mary’s Cathedral, AWN Pugin, 1842-44, £51,262
Newcastle, St Michael, Dunn, Hansom & Dunn, 1889-91, £23,925
Pontefract, St Joseph, Architect unknown, 1799-1833, £125,338
Ripon, St Wilfrid, JA Hansom, 1860-62, £114,583
Birmingham, St Chad’s Cathedral, AWN Pugin, 1839-41, £64,904
Harvington Hall, Architect unknown, medieval, £118,501
Nottingham, St Barnabas’s Cathedral, AWN Pugin, 1841-44, £104,472
Shrewsbury, Cathedral of Our Lady Help of Christians and St Peter of Alcantara, EW Pugin, 1853-6, £156,282
Gorleston, St Peter, Eric Gill, 1938-39, £136,524
Great Yarmouth, St Mary, JJ Scoles, 1848-50, £454,291
Lynford, Our Lady of Consolation and St Stephen , Henry Clutton, 1877-78, £108,345
Norwich, Cathedral of St John the Baptist , George Gilbert Scott, Junior & John Oldrid Scott, 1894-1910, £311,650
Aylesford, Shrine of Our Lady , of Mount Carmel & St Simon Stock, Adrian Gilbert Scott, 1958-65, £386,823
Isle of Wight, St Thomas of Canterbury, Newport, Architect unknown, 1791
£54,530
Isle of Wight, Quarr Abbey of Our Lady, Ryde, Dom Paul Bellot, 1908-10, £259,453
Ramsgate, Shrine of St Augustine, AWN Pugin, 1845-50, £260,620
London, Cathedral of the Most Precious Blood, JF Bentley, 1895-1903, £298,308
South West of England
Bournemouth, The Annunciation, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, 1906-07, £207,322
Cricklade, St Mary, Architect unknown, medieval, £32,309
Launceston, St Cuthbert Mayne, Arthur Langdon, 1911, £221,899
Lyme Regis, St Michael and St George, HE Goodridge, 1837, £175,475
Torquay, Our Lady Help of Christians and St Denis, JA Hansom, 1865-81, £77,798
Tavistock, Our Lady and St Mary Magdalene, Henry Clutton, 1865-67, £386,564
Woodchester, The Annunciation, Charles F Hansom, 1846-49, £89,550
<em>Copies of Living Stones are available on request through emailing patrimony@cbcew.org.uk.</em>
