WHAT WORK IS REQUIRED?

In 2001 English Heritage produced a report which estimated that over £2,000,000 was needed to repair the church and restore it to a reasonable structural condition, a figure which is expected to double with inflation, further deterioration and the discovery of hidden problems to £4,000,000 by the time the work is finished. This forecast included grants, but any money saved in this way is required for the important - indeed essential - work of developing the interior of the church with modern facilities of the kind expected in the early 21st century in a major public building in the middle of a busy market town.

English Heritage has proposed a phased plan of restoration and repairs consisting of seven main stages covering all parts of the outside of the church - the Tower, the South Transept, the Chancel and Vestry, the North Transept, the west end of the Nave and Aisles and the high-level roofs - coupled with improvements to the drainage around the church and access for the disabled, and a five-year programme for monitoring the cracks in the gable walls. A major problem is the height of the gutters above the ground east of the Tower, where a way has to be found to clean them regularly without scaffolding - possibly by means of a paved area at the base of the walls on which a wheeled hydraulic platform could stand.

The substantial sums of money required are in the main due to the large areas of stonework, roof slating and glass involved - in volume the church is the equivalent of four or five average size parish churches (hence its title "The King of Holderness"). Its height and position exposes it to the full force of the elements from all directions and, apart from the restoration of the Nave ceiling and west window in 1987 - 88, no major structural work has been done since the extensive restoration by George Edmund Street between 1868 and 1876.

Small scale repairs are no longer able to keep pace with the steadily accelerating rate of deterioration. Stone is crumbling, in particular much of it fine carved mediaeval work around the gable windows and door archways. Slates are slipping, water is leaking through the leadwork on the Tower and North Aisle roofs and the glass in the Transept windows is becoming loose and needs re-leading.

Andrew Anderson
Church Architect

UPDATE - January 2006

We are pleased to report that the latest application for English Heritage funding has met with some success and although details have still to be finalised, the extent of this funding will be influenced by the degree of success we can achieve by our local efforts.

The committee is regularly discussing ways and means of raising money and below, you will see a programme of events planned for the next few months. Should anyone have bright ideas to this end, any member of the committee would be pleased to hear from him/her.

The vandalising of windows in the South transept has caused outrage to many and although restoration funds are not used for their repair, the occurrence should harden the resolve of the community to support efforts to protect and restore our unique and glorious building. The temporary covers are to be removed very soon to complete the repairs.