Getting Started
So how did all this begin? Val, our over-worked and much-valued Treasurer, takes up the story. The endangered west front Back in 2017, the Church Of England ordered a routine Quinquennial (5 yearly) survey to be completed and specialist architects were appointed to complete that for us. The news was not good: lead sheeting had slipped and let in water (we have lots of that in the Fens) and the roof timbers had rotted. The drains were not adequate for the job and allowed more damp to get in. There were cracks in the masonry and parts of the west face were deemed to be unsafe. An estimate for £500,000 landed on the Treasurer's desk. The nightmare had begun. Fast forward to 2018, further visits by the architects found this beautiful ancient monument on the At Risk Register for buildings. The only option was an application to the Heritage Lottery Fund as there was no way that the congregation (small but select) could raise that kind of money. Procrastination was the order of the day