£370k lottery funding will help repair 900-year-old Kirkby Lonsdale church
St Mary’s Church in Kirkby Lonsdale has received initial support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund for the repair and reordering of the building.
Made possible thanks to National Lottery players, the project aims to provide a sustainable future for the 900-year-old building through a repair, reordering and heritage interpretation programme.
Development funding of £370,446 has been awarded by the Heritage Fund to help St Mary’s Church progress their plans to apply for a full National Lottery grant of £4,629,508 at a later date.
Parts of St Mary’s date back over 900 years and there are many significant historical features and oral histories which it is planned to interpret better and bring to a wider audience so that they can be appreciated and valued by all.
Without this funding from the Heritage Fund, St Mary’s would be at risk of closure, with the heritage lost forever.
The objective of the project is to safeguard the future of St Mary’s ‘for all, for all time’.
St Mary’s is a Grade I listed building, one of only five ‘Major Churches’ in Cumbria, and on the Heritage at Risk Register at the highest level.
It is the most important, and largest, building in Kirkby Lonsdale.
The proposals include the repair of the tower, replacement of the roof and the reordering the interior to provide a flexible, vibrant, multi-use space further meeting the needs of locals and visitors.
It is planned to improve the heritage interpretation, run guided tours of the church and tower, establish a bell ringing school, expand the St Mary’s events business, provide the first Changing Places toilet in town, trial a café and build in environmental features such as solar panels wherever possible.
Additional income streams will give the church a financially resilient future.
More information about the project is on the St Mary’s Future website at https://stmarysfuture.kl.church and this will be regularly updated as the project progresses.
Peter Gregson, project lead at St Mary’s Church, said: “We are absolutely delighted, and very grateful, to have received this initial support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Thanks to National Lottery players we can now develop our plans to repair and restore this wonderful building, tell its stories and realise our ambition of keeping it open ‘for all, for all time.’”
Helen Featherstone, director, England, North at The National Lottery Heritage Fund, said: “We’re thrilled to support St Mary’s Church with this initial grant to work towards repairing and restoring the striking, centuries-old Grade I listed building.
“Thanks to National Lottery players, this development phase will help progress plans to safeguard the church’s important heritage for future generations.”
St Mary’s Church, in the centre of Kirkby Lonsdale, has been at the physical and metaphorical, heart of the community for more than 900 years.
In addition to regular church services, St Mary’s hosts a wide variety of events, concerts, plays, talks and music performances throughout the year and is one of the town’s key visitor attractions.
It is hoped the new work will make the church an even more community-focused space.