We are delighted to be sharing more about our partnership with the Church Buildings Council. Last year, we renewed a three-year grant (2022-2024) of £455,000 to fund their ChurchCare grant programme that focuses on conserving historic church interiors. Below we share why the partnership began and what impact the partnership is making.
The Church Buildings Council helps the Church of England’s 15,700 churches keep their buildings open and accessible to all. They work with churches and dioceses on the care, conservation and development of church buildings. More widely, the Council, together with the Cathedrals Fabric Commission, works with government and the wider heritage sector to develop policy, leverage funding, and sustain the crafts and heritage skills needed to conserve the UK’s remarkable, historic church buildings and cathedrals.
80% of parish churches are listed as buildings of architectural and/or historic interest deserving of special protection. The Council’s aim is to provide churches with advice about caring for their buildings and interiors, and how to carefully manage changes to them. They want to keep heritage in situ and in use – i.e. helping keep the stained-glass windows intact, the bells ringing, and the clocks keeping time. Pride in the parish and its historic interiors can inspire communities, and the historic items can become focal points for them and visitors.
The Church Buildings Council has been one of the Pilgrim Trust’s partners since just after the Second World War. We helped the Council to provide grants to parishes that were damaged post-war and in dire need of repair and conservation. The programme has developed over the years and now focuses on the conservation of historic church interiors, known as ChurchCare grants. ChurchCare grants can help conserve: historic bells and bell frames, books and manuscripts, church plate, churchyard structures, clocks, decorative metalwork, monumental brasses, monuments, organs, paintings and wall paintings, textiles, stained glass and wooden objects.
Knight effigy at St Mary’s Church, Alderton. Credit: James Rudd
In recent years, ChurchCare grants have focused a lot on funding conservation reports, to enable parishes to find out more about what is causing their object to decay. This means that conservation treatments can be much more focused and effective. They have around 50 experts on their conservation committees ready to provide advice. Grantees receive lots of support through the grant process and develop – often their first – fundraising experience in a supportive environment.
A great example of the impact of such support was a ChurchCare grant awarded to Alderton, St Mary for the conservation of a 14th century effigy of a knight. The parish considered the application process ‘an incredible positive experience’, that starting point for ‘the most amazing journey’, which has ‘woken up the community’ and ‘made the whole place come alive’. The support of the Council empowered the parish and helped them to promote interest in the church and its history along with increasing their fundraising efforts.
The Trustees of the Pilgrim Trust are keen for their grants to lever in funding from others, and a grant from the Church Buildings Council can provide other funders with confidence that the parish’s proposals are worth funding. For every £1 of support from the Pilgrim Trust, parishes usually need to raise a further £5 to reach their fundraising target.
Caption: Figures from Kitty Milroy’s wall scheme. Credit: Church Buildings Council.
As mentioned above, ChurchCare grants help conserve a wide range of objects – from stained glass to textiles to metalwork. In 2022, they awarded 92 grants funded by the Pilgrim Trust, coming to a total of £212,232. A beautiful example of the unique objects the Council supports is the conservation of a lavish, early 20th century, monumental wall painting scheme by a local woman artist, Kitty Milroy (as seen in the feature image). Found in the Grade II-listed church of St Mark, Upper Hale in Surrey these beautiful wall paintings were created between 1909 and 1920 by Milroy. Not only is it rare for a female artist to design and paint, single-handedly, an entire mural scheme, but Milroy is interesting because she exemplifies a growing interest in monumental painting and experimental painting techniques that is typical of the period and prevalent during the early 20th century. She was clearly an accomplished artist, yet little is known about her.
In 2018, the wall paintings appeared to be suffering from water damage and deteriorating rapidly. The Council awarded the church a grant for a conservation report to analyse the paintings and determine the best options for treatment in 2019. Armed with this detailed conservation report, the parish was able to apply for a ChurchCare Conservation Grant and was awarded £8,500 towards the cost of conservation treatment in 2019. The grant helped the parish gain further funding and the work was completed in 2021. As part of their community outreach, the parish asked the conservators to give a talk at the church, describing the paintings, their importance, and their treatment. Publicity generated by events like this has meant that visitors have now started to travel to discover this hidden gem and the project has sparked interest in finding other lost schemes by Kitty Milroy.
We’re delighted to be continuing this partnership with the Church Buildings Council and to see how together we can support these beautiful, historic buildings for the public to enjoy. We also look forward to learning more about the Council’s climate work, as they start a new programme giving Churches grants to transition to carbon net-zero buildings and heating.
Explore our other strategic partners. Over the next few months, we’ll be introducing more of our strategic partners and exploring the impact of our joint work.
Lead image: Figures from Kitty Milroy’s wall scheme. Credit: Rickerby & Shekede.