Essential work - Clerestory and doom painting

The PCC has agreed that we should proceed with the repair of the clerestory, together with the cleaning and refurbishment of the Doom Painting as a priority. We cannot avoid doing these two things, as both are beginning to crumble away. While we have erected the scaffolding to do these two essential things, we think it sensible to clean the first two bays of the ceiling, and the stone columns between these two bays. This cleaning job will cost an extra £30k, but using the scaffolding while it is up will save us £22k in the long run. The total cost of this work is £136,000.

We have the necessary faculty to do this work, but, being realistic, the most likely start date for this work would be the second half of 2019. We have to make sure our contractors are available, we must consult the church diary, and of course we must make sure we have the money.
So that’s the first bit of work.

Redevelopment work - three stages

Then there is the Redevelopment work, which is divided into three Stages.

• Stage 1 is the replacement of the pews with benches and chairs. At the same time, we will renovate the floor, replacing wood blocks where necessary and giving it a good clean. In this Stage also is the provision of four book trolleys, some electrical work and stone cleaning. The two Eyre stones will be moved to the Lady Chapel and will be repositioned on the wall on the North side of the altar. Stage 1 will cost £225,000.
• Stage 2 is the provision of the new altar and the dais on which it stands (£57,400).
• Stage 3 is the acquisition of the new font, and the redeployment of the old font (£23,400).

But those will not be done until after Stage 1 is complete.

So the essential work described earlier will be £136,000, and Stage 1 of Redevelopment will be £225,000. A total of £361,000. We should add a contingency of 10% to this figure, to cover unforeseen eventualities, making the total expenditure on this phase of work £397,000.

So how are we going to pay for that?

So far we have raised £60,000, and spent about £29,000, so we have £31,000 net. The income has come from events like the Flower Festival earlier this year, concerts, a Barn Dance, the Autumn Fayre, and a number of other fund-raising events. And of course we have already had some generous contributions from the congregation. The expenditure has been on fees of architects and conservators, publicity and marketing.

The PCC have already agreed that church funds should be used to repair the clerestory (£55,900). The Events that we have planned over the next two years should bring in another £50,000.

So the sums look like this for this part of the plan: