Christmas cheer for cathedrals: Nearly 1m pounds offered in funding – but additional help needed

Posted by Kendall Harmon

This week will be one of the busiest of the year for Church of England cathedrals as they prepare to welcome more than 100,000 people to their Christmas services. And this week 17 Church of England cathedrals have also learned that they will receive grants to help ensure they stay dry, safe and secure for the future. The grants add up to £952,000 and cover 21 key projects of repair, conservation and enhancement to the magnificent cathedrals under the Church of England's stewardship.

A sum of £645,000 will be awarded from the Cathedral Fabric Repair Fund, a partnership between the Wolfson Foundation, the Pilgrim Trust and the Cathedrals Fabric Commission for England (CFCE), all organisations with long records of supporting England's historic church buildings and their contents. Over the past three years the Fund has awarded more than £1.8 million for essential and urgent works to keep cathedrals weatherproof and watertight, including major re-roofing and stonework repairs at cathedrals such as Lincoln, Norwich and Durham.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Stewardship • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK

2 Comments
Posted December 18, 2012 at 3:16 pm [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. MichaelA wrote:

The first chickens are coming home to roost for the CofE and for the UK government, but there is a whole flock still to come.

These cathedrals and many beautiful smaller churches are part of the tourist fabric of Great Britain, which depends heavily on income from millions of visitors each year.  If the CofE can’t maintain them (and increasingly it cannot do so), then the UK Government can try to foster private subscription, but sooner or later it will have to use TAX DOLLARS to do so.

The Government really has no choice because tourism is an essential industry for Britain, and old churches and cathedrals are an essential part of the British experience.  Even atheists like them, for that reason.

The best way to avoid spending public money on maintaing churches is to put parishioners in them.  And the groups who are far and away the best at putting parishioners in churches are the orthodox evangelicals and anglo-catholics.

So a SMART British government will stop antagonising the evangelicals and anglo-catholics, and start being very nice to them.  If it doesn’t, then it will pay (literally)!

December 18, 9:08 pm | [comment link]
2. Robert Atkins wrote:

Coincidence no doubt, but nice to see the Three Choirs cathedrals got the three highest grants…

December 19, 2:23 am | [comment link]
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