Funds given to the Bard's church
Posted: 02 Nov 2006 @ 00:00
SHAKESPEARE'S parish church is one of more than 150 Grade-I and
Grade-II* listed English parish churches and other church buildings offered a
total of £17.5 million in the latest awards from English Heritage and the
Heritage Lottery Fund.
Holy Trinity in Stratford-upon-Avon has been offered a total of £34,000
towards the repairs that are needed for the cracked tower and to investigate
the spire for damage.
"Shakespeare was baptised here as well as buried here. He would have known
the tower. He was a lay rector, and would have had some responsibility for the
church's upkeep," the Rector, the Revd Martin Gorick, said on Tuesday.
The grants are part of the £25 million a year that the funding bodies make
available for listed church buildings through their Repair Grants for Places of
Worship scheme. The scheme began in 2002 and was due to end this year, but has
been extended until 2007 at the same annual rate, a spokeswoman for English
Heritage said.
The largest grant this year for a top-listed church building went to St
Barnabas's, Pimlico, London. It was offered a £25,000 first-stage grant after a
storm damaged the spire a year ago, and up to £601,000 for the full repair
programme.
The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) has received a
grant of £15,800 to enable it to contact all faith groups with historic or
listed buildings.
Catherine Cullis of SPAB said that nearly all respondents indicated that
they would be interested in having a training course to help them keep their
churches in good repair.
Norwich Cathedral had feared that it would have to turn off its
floodlighting to save money after English Heritage, in its separate grant
scheme for cathedrals, cut its annual awards by £1 million. But the city
council said this week that it would pay for the electricity bill for the
lights.
www.english-heritage.org.uk