Examples from the Diocese: a new roof
Examples from the Diocese – A new roof for St Lawrence’s, Sigglesthorne, by Nancy Davies, Churchwarden.
There has been a church on this site for almost 1000 years – it has been a place for people to worship God, find peace and comfort, to share their love of Christ but most of all to be a family. With the original church, if the roof leaked or it wasn’t warm enough the roof would have been fixed with mud and rocks and another log thrown on the fire, but today is a whole different story……there are fund raisers, grant applications, architects and builders to consult, quotations for tenders and faculty forms to complete!
The never ending story of our building project began on Easter Sunday morning in 2007 – the snow was fairly thick on the ground and as the sun rose the snow began to melt. Marjorie Hill was the Vicar at the time and as she was celebrating Holy Communion folks suddenly found themselves being baptised at the same time as the roof had begun to leak! The PCC were informed that the roof was in a very bad state. A temporary repair was possible but that wouldn’t solve all the problems.
Marjorie, along with the Church Wardens Lyn Banks and Sue Perry, contacted the architect at that time and were informed that the roof should have been replaced 12 years earlier. It soon became apparent that unless we received grants the church would continue to have an indoor water feature and we would be emptying buckets and sitting on soggy pews for some time. Lyn took the bull by the horns and started applying for every grant she could find –Lyn, Sue and Marjorie worked tirelessly, overcoming many obstacles and persevering despite setbacks.
Eventually the grants were promised, our resident bat colony was not going to be a problem, a new architect, Andrew Boyce was appointed, and things began to move forwards. It was now almost two years since that first drop of water had bounced off the Communion rail! But we continued to pray.
As a result of the situation the Friends of St Lawrence or FOSL’s as we’re known were born and fund raising began in earnest! There have been Flower Festivals, Family Fun days, Christmas Tree and Angel Festivals, Tombola’s, Jumble Sales and Garage Sales. Who will ever forget taking over the Rectory kitchen to make Meal Deals, or the dealers showing up at the crack of dawn on the day of the Garage Sale to try and buy everything in sight!
While all this was going on Marjorie decided to retire yet one more time – but this time she meant it! She would be leaving in September 2009. We had been hoped that work would be completed before she left, but unfortunately it had not even begun! So St Lawrence went into interregnum with a PCC resolved to see the roof completed. More prayers were said!
Good news finally came and we were told that work would commence in the springtime of 2010 - a new roof for the chancel, restoration of the East Window, emergency stabilisation of the chancel arch wall painting and other masonry work. – It seemed God was answering those prayers
Now how do you interview for the post of Priest in Charge and put a really positive spin on the fact that not only would the new priest being dealing with a new parish but also with a construction site! Well you smile a lot and gloss over it and in March 2010 Anne Dawson joined St Lawrence. Talk about a baptism of fire – her first week went something like this…..here’s your parish – get to know the folks –Have we told you there’s a meeting next week with the Architects, Builders, and CDM Coordinator so that we can get the roof started…PS welcome to St Lawrence!
It was during that first meeting that Anne mentioned to Mr Kemp from Kemp Construction, our builders, that there was a wedding booked for the beginning of October. So it was that 2nd October became the definite deadline.
The scaffolding arrived and the work began – in no time at all our beautiful chancel was partitioned off as behind the screen resembled a demolition site. But we all knew that the end result would be worth it. At the same time we also began to appreciate the temporary dais. Although its original purpose was to accommodate a nave altar, it suddenly offered us space and flexibility at the front of the church that we had never had before!
The months went on, the fund raising continued - the grant money came in and went out even faster. We spent a lot of time dealing with the VAT, grants and payments and at one point when a particularly large bill arrived on the doormat we knew there wasn’t enough to cover it. While everyone was trying to come up with Plan B God again answered our prayers and an unexpected grant came in to cover all the cost of the bill. Who says God doesn’t listen!
The week of the wedding finally arrived– scaffolding still surrounded the Church – the East Window was still missing and boarded up – and work was going on in earnest behind the chancel screen. The men from Kemps kept their cool – reassured us at every step of the way and kept going.
True to their word, the morning before the wedding the last of the scaffolding was being removed as the florist arrived to decorate. A team were busy cleaning, the organ was being unwrapped from its polythene protective covering and re-tuned to its glory, and the next day as the bride walked down the aisle on her father’s arm the sun shone through the new East Window flooding the Chancel with radiance and colour. Not many brides can say they have had a new church roof for their wedding day!
It was done – the roof and the window were beautiful. Everyone could now stand back and admire what had been given to us through the efforts of so many wonderful people….. It was now time to not only thank God but to thank all of you who have been part of our story.
I wish I could say the story ends here but as I said at the beginning, it is a never ending story - there are bells that need to be repaired and an ancient boiler to be replaced – in other words more fundraising, more grants, more quotes and more faculty forms to complete!!
Maybe the original PCC 1000 years ago had the right idea -just put another log on the fire and fill the gaps with mud.
The PCC did a terrific amount of fundraising – Flower Festivals, Open Gardens, Family Fun Days, Angel Festivals, Tombolas, Jumble Sales, Garage Sales, Christmas Tree Festival. We sold Lunch Meal Deals (sandwich, salad, crisps, drink) at most of the events along with cakes/buns etc. These fundraising events earned around £500-600, and the PCC were given the following grants:
- English Heritage £13,7350
- All Churches Trust £750
- Yorkshire Historic Churches Trust £1,000
- Entrust (landfill grant) £10,000
- Hornsea Lions £3,377
- Archbishops Council £4,000
- Allan Evans Memorial Trust £1,500
- Fundraising
- Flower Festival £5,364
- Tree Festival £700