The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and English Heritage today (Thursday 17 February) announced grants totalling £1,275,000 to support urgent repair work to 12 Grade I and II listed places of worship across London. The grants were awarded under the organisations’ joint Repair Grants for Places of Worship scheme.

Nationally, since 2002, almost £140 million of grants have been awarded for more than 1,500 projects at Grade I and II historic places of worship through the joint  scheme, which is the largest single source of funds to help congregations to care for historic churches, chapels, synagogues and other historic places of worship.

Despite the challenging economic climate, HLF and English Heritage have been able to maintain the planned level of funding and support for places of worship in the current financial year. The Heritage Lottery Fund has provided an extra £9 million to maintain the £25 million value of the total grants budget for 2010 – 11 (further funds will be offered to Grade II places of worship in March). HLF has also confirmed that it will continue its increased level of support in future years. This means that despite English Heritage having to withdraw most of its contribution for new awards from now on, the scheme can continue in its current form.  There will be no reduction in expert advice English Heritage staff and local support officers give to congregations all over London.

Sue Bowers, Head of the Heritage Lottery Fund in London, said: “Historic places of worship are one of our most treasured cultural assets. They occupy a unique position at the heart of communities up and down the country, and are a focus for so many civil and social activities in addition to their central purpose as a place for prayer and contemplation. Places of worship are one of the most instantly recognisable features of our cultural landscape, and they continue to inspire people to get involved with and learn about their shared history. This is at the very core of what the Heritage Lottery Fund wants to achieve and the reason we have substantially increased our investment to the programme.”

The twelve places of worship in London receiving grants for urgent repairs this year include:

St Gabriel's Church, Warwick Square, City of Westminster – Grade II
St Giles’ Church, Cripplegate, City of London – Grade I
All Saints Greek Orthodox Church, Camden – Grade I
St Mary Magdalene, Paddington, City of Westminster – Grade I
St Augustine, Kilburn, City of Westminster – Grade I
St John the Baptist, Holland Road, Kensington and Chelsea – Grade II
Christ Church, Wanstead, Redbridge – Grade II
St Mary's Church, Bow Road, Tower Hamlets – Grade II
St Peter's Church, Mount Park Road, Ealing – Grade II
St Pauls Church, Clapham, Lambeth – Grade II
All Saints' Church, Edmonton, Enfield – Grade II
St Paul’s Church, Hammersmith, Hammersmith and Fulham – Grade II

Paddy Pugh, Planning Director for London at English Heritage, said: “Thanks to the generosity of the Heritage Lottery Fund, and ultimately therefore of the public, those historic places of worship in direst need still have the vital safety net of the Repair Grants scheme. Without it, many brave but struggling congregations would be faced with watching their beloved churches and chapels falling into ruin. Instead, the combination of Heritage Lottery Fund money and English Heritage advice is seeing these wonderful buildings revived, restored and retained for their communities as places of prayer, celebration and a hub for local services.”

Notes to editors

St Gabriel's Church, Warwick Square, Westminster – Grade II
Grant £319,000
Stonework repairs to the south and east elevation of the tower.
St Gabriel’s was designed by Thomas Cundy II with his son Thomas Cundy III and was consecrated in 1852. It was built for the newly laid out Pimlico by Thomas Cubitt for the Grosvenor Estate. St Gabriels is the third of five churches designed by the Cundys for the Grosvenor Family on their Belgravia and Pimlico estates. The spire was rebuilt and the choir vestry added 1887–88, designed by J.P. St Aubyn.  The galleries around three sides of the nave were removed 1896-7 although the vestiges of the west end gallery remains above the narthex  designed by Baker and Turrill along with the outer north and south aisles, the west end porch and the Lady Chapel. The chancel was reordered and embellished between 1890 – 97 with the altar by J.F. Bentley and the reredos, chancel wall decoration, sedilia, communion rails, sanctuary and chancel paving carried out by James Powell and Co. The organ case of 1893 on the north chancel wall is attributed to Arthur Blomfield.  The chancel east and south windows have glass of 1896 by C.E. Kempe. Stone and mosaic in the south east chapel are by Salvati. The church suffered damage from a flying bomb in 1944.

St Giles’ Church, Cripplegate, City of London – Grade I
Grant £49,000
Stonework repairs to the tower which is now in a very poor condition.
St. Giles-without-Cripplegate is one of the few remaining medieval churches in the City of London. It has been extensively restored after fire damage - in 1545, escaping the Great Fire in 1666, in the Cripplegate Fire of 1897 and again in the Blitz, when it was gutted, only the shell, the arcade in the chancel, the outside walls and the tower surviving, but was restored by Godfrey Allen to the 1545 plans. The stone tower is 15th century. The church is very active during the week with 6-8 services and much musical activity with a close association with the near by Guildhall School of Music.

All Saints Cathedral, Camden (Greek Orthodox) – Grade I
Grant £26,000
Stripping and refinishing of the west colonnade and incorporating necessary structural repairs.
All Saints was designed by William and his son Henry William Inwood and built 1822-24 in Greek Revival style. It was originally built as Camden Chapel, a chapel of ease to serve Lord Camden’s new developments. It was dedicated to All Saints in 1920. It was loaned to the Greek Orthodox Church in 1948 and they obtained the freehold in 1978. Rightly listed Grade I. It serves as a focus for the North London Cypriot community in the post WWII years.

St Mary Magdalene, Paddington, City of Westminster – Grade I
Grant £112,000
Repair and conservation of the historical decorative scheme in the chapel within the crypt. Works include repair of damaged plaster and stonework, conservation of ornate wall and vault paintings, repair and conservation of the stained glass window. St Mary Magdalene was designed by G E Street and built 1867-78. The Chapel of St Sepulchre in the undercroft was added in 1895 by Sir Ninian Comper. In the 1920’s Martin Travers made some alterations to the chancel and south aisle Lady Chapel. The stained glass is by Henry Holland. 

St Augustine, Kilburn, City of Westminster – Grade I
Grant £45,000
Urgent roof and associated high level repair.
St Augustine’s was built 1870-77 and later, designed by J.L. Pearson.  Nikolaus Pevsner refers to it as ‘one of the best churches of its date in the whole of England, a proud, honest, upright achievement’.

St John the Baptist, Kensington and Chelsea – Grade II Grant 171,000
Re-slating of roof to East end of the Nave including new lead valley gutter at junction with South Transept. Associated repairs at junction to roof timbers, ridge tiles, lead flashings, etc. Designed by James Brook and completed by J S Atkins after his death. Construction commenced on the stone church with the chancel to the east in 1885 and work proceeded westward with the completion of the west front in 1910. The organ dates from 1897 by August Gern, modified by Henry Willis in 1928. 

Christ Church, Wanstead, London Borough of Redbridge – Grade II
Grant £158,000
Renewal of valley gutters and rainwater gutters, coping of w elevation and north slope of chancel roof. Built 1860-61 by Sir George Gilbert Scott to Gothic design.  North tower with entrance beneath and broach spire with dormers. 

St Mary's Church, Bow Road, Tower Hamlets – Grade II Grant £71,000
High level masonry repairs, removal of cement mortar pointing and essential work to the cupola.
Parish Church. Possible 14th century core, 15th century tower, and further rebuilding and restoration throughout the 19th century and the 1950s. Kentish Rag stone with brick additions and tiled roofs. 

St Peter's Church, Ealing – Grade II
Grant of £156,000
High level masonry repairs to turrets.
Built 1889 to 1892 by J D Sedding and H Wilson.  Church in free Gothic style with a 3 bay nave, 2 bay choir. Yellow stock brick with stone mouldings, arches, quoins, buttresses and tracery.

St Pauls Church, Clapham – Grade II
Grant £85,000
Roof repairs to east end of church.
Built 1815 by Christopher Edwards.  East end by Blomfield 1879. Cruciform church with wide nave, west porch, chancel with aisles and a south extension and a lower half octagonal apse.

All Saints' Church, Edmonton, Enfield – Grade II
Total offer £28,000
Urgent high level repairs to tower stonework and masonry.  The building is on English Heritage’s Heritage at Risk register.
The ancient parish church of Edmonton, the church is first mentioned in early 12th century records. It was the only church in the parish until 1615 when a chapel was built in Southgate and church provision augmented only from mid-late 19th century. The remains of a 12th-century arch and doorway were discovered in the south wall in 1889 and then incorporated into the west wall of a new aisle. The chancel, vestry (including the metal-plated door which survives), nave, north aisle, and west tower were rebuilt in the 15th century and the north chapel was added in the early 16th century. The roof of the north aisle probably dates from 1626 although it was ordered to be repaired in 1685. In 1772 the church was encased, except for the tower, in brick and substituted wooden frames for the stone mullions of the windows. The chancel was restored in 1858 by Ewan Christian, and in 1885 W G Scott removed the galleries and added the south aisle and organ chamber. Further refurnishing took place in the late 19th and 20th centuries including replacement of the wood frames with stone mullions in 1868, and the south aisle and chapel added in 1889.

St Paul’s Church, Hammersmith – Grade II
Grant £55,000
Renewal of lead valley gutter between Lady Chapel and Chancel. Outstanding cleaning, pointing and stone repairs to the South Aisle, porches, East Vestry and the Lady Chapel.
St Paul’s was built in the 1880’s designed by John Pollard Seddon and Hugh Roumieu Gough.

The Repair Grants for Places of Worship in England Scheme is funded mostly by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and administered by English Heritage (EH) on behalf of both organisations.

The scheme, in a slightly different form, began in 1996. Before then it was difficult to secure funding on the scale required to help a place of worship facing closure or demolition because of high repair costs. 

Listed places of worship in England of all denominations are eligible for grants which support urgent repairs to the fabric of the building with a focus on projects costing less than £250,000. There is a two-stage application process with development funding available at Stage One to help work up proposals.

The Listed Places of Worship Scheme makes payments equivalent to the VAT incurred in making repairs to listed buildings primarily in use for public worship. In the 2009-10 financial year, 3,745 claims were paid UK-wide, with a total value of £14,963,412.67, giving an average grant of £3,996. Since last Autumn’s Comprehensive Spending Review, works on clocks, pews, bells, organs and professional services such as architects’ fees are no longer eligible and the future of the scheme beyond March this year is under review.

Further information

Laura Bates, HLF Press Office on 020 7591 6027 or lbates@hlf.org.uk.