ANNUAL SPONSORED bike rides are a regular way to raise money for ancient churches, but in Exeter diocese they are going one better to raise awareness of the Devon Historic Churches Trust.

To publicise this weekend’s pushbike ride (and in hilly Devon it requires much stamina), the Archdeacon of Barnstaple, the Ven. David Gunn-Johnson, and the Revd Roderick Withnell, Team Rector of 11 parishes, have taken to their motorbikes to spend four days visiting 33 historic churches “and others that we come across on the way”.

Their mission is to remind the wider public of the value most of them put on these churches, and how much the buildings need support. “We can’t just go on asking the faithful congregations,” Mr Withnell told me before they set off. “It is time we spread the net wider.”

Last year’s bike ride raised £43,000, which sounds a good sum, but goes nowhere when set against the costs of renovating medieval churches of which “Devon has more than its fair share,” said Mr Withnell. The repairs to the tower of just one of his churches, St Mary’s, Chumleigh cost £50,000.

So he and the Archdeacon have been raising as much public awareness of their own ride, and that of the pushbikes (in which Mr Withnell will be team leader), as they can.