During our September Trustee meeting, we were delighted to award 12 grants coming to a total of £280,000 from our Preservation and Conservation programme. Below we share a little about each grant and its purpose.
Saving Grade II listed buildings, 2-4 Market Place, found in the heart of the Caistor Conservation Area, the Caistor & District Community Trust is trying to bring new uses for historic buildings in Caistor. Our grant of £10,000 will go towards the next stage of capital restoration and preservation costs.
Bourn Windmill may be one of oldest surviving windmills in the UK – it definitely contains the oldest known mill post – at 140+ years old. Our grant of £5,000 will go to Cambridge Past, Present & Future to help save the windmill sails and have them reinstalled.
The Charter Window at St Bartholomew’s Hospital is a beautiful stained-glass window which shares the story of Henry VIII gifting the hospital to the City of London. After 50 years without significant repairs, we are pleased to grant £15,000 to St Bartholomew’s Heritage to preserve this piece.
A grant of £40,000 has been awarded to The Ridge SCIO to go towards the urgent repairs of historic Scottish Burgh ‘Close’ buildings in the town of Dunbar. These buildings date back to the medieval townscape and many young apprentices will trained to provide the stonemasonry skills required to restore them.
Greyfriars, (c) Heritage Trust of Lincolnshire.
Medbourne Village Hall is a popular, Grade II listed building in the heart of the Leicestershire countryside. Our grant of £10,000 will go towards preserving its pretty cast iron windows as part of a wider project to improve the building’s facilities for 21st century use.
Bringing Blandford Forum Corn Exchange back to life will be a gamechanger for the local community. A Grade I listed building, the BFCE has many uses, but the building is no longer fit for purpose and its most historically significant spaces are inaccessible. Our grant of £20,000 will go to Blandford Forum Town Council to help with this capital project.
Helping to repair a leaky roof and broken windows will allow Kenelm Youth Trust to continue their important youth work in the local area. Our grant of £10,000 will go towards the urgent repair of the Guidhall’s roof.
Downe Village Hall was once frequented by Charles Darwin when it was a local reading and meeting room. Now this local community hub is in need of repair to tackle the damp that is penetrating the walls. Our grant of £5,000 will help with these repairs.
Bourn Mill, Cambridge Past, Present & Future, (c) Brian Connellan.
Wentworth Woodhouse is considered one of the country’s finest national treasures and grand stately homes. The Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust is at the beginning of an ambitious regeneration project and our grant of £12,500 will go towards specific development work on the Bedlam wing to help decide its future use.
The Grade II listed cemetery gates at St Andrews Cemetery in Hexham are in need of urgent conservation with original features starting to fall off. Our grant of £7,500 will help Hexham Town Council to carry out these repairs.
A large capital project is underway at Greyfriars in Lincolnshire – a Grade I listed, ancient monument. With escalating costs, the Heritage Trust of Lincolnshire were granted a grant of £25,000 so they could still carry out detailed work to preserve the 800-year-old stonework.
We’re delighted to continue our Strategic Partnership with the National Manuscripts Conservation Trust (NMCT) for another 3 years. NMCT is the only UK charity that focuses solely on manuscript conservation and our previous partnership over the past 10 years has allowed NMCT to leverage a further £650,000 from other funding sources. With manuscript conservation still high in demand, we are pleased our grant of £120,000 over 3 years (£40,000 per year) will allow NMCT to continue preserving significant manuscripts and collections across the UK.
If you’d like to learn more about these grants or any of our grants, you can read more on Recent Grants Awarded.
Feature image of Wentworth Woodhouse (Credit: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)