St Mary's Appeal

See the damage

Our beautiful church, St Mary The Virgin is in very urgent need of roof repairs.  The cost is estimated to be in the region of £225,000, however, after initial exploratory work we expect this figure to rise.  English Heritage has offered a provisional grant of of £175,000 and Norfolk Churches Trust have offered a grant of £10,000 but this still leaves a huge shortfall for the village to raise.

The Friends of St Mary's was formed in 2007 to undertake the daunting but exciting  task of raising this shortfall and have received an encouraging amount of support to date.

September 2008 sees the launch of our biggest fund raising project so far.

We are offering you the opportunity to sponsor a roof slate for £5 and for children to sponsor a nail to secure the slates for just £1.  There is no limit on the number of slates or nails that any one person can sponsor.

Sponsors will have the option of entering their details, dedications or family information in a book to be printed once the roof repairs have been completed. Each sponsor will be able to make their entry up to half a page; there will be a special section for children sponsoring nails. This book will be kept on display in the church once the work has been completed.

If you would like to sponsor some slates or nails please contact Paul Garland and I will send you a donation slip.
Please remove the capitals from the email address first.

Registered charity number 245456

One of several blocked downpipes so the rainwater has nowhere to go but down the walls.

Loose and broken slates abound.

Loose and broken slates abound.

Just some of the rotten roof wood. Notice the plant roots established in the old roof edges.

Some of the water damaged roof discovered during an early exploratory.

Discovered in an exploratory and too far gone to ignore.

It really is bad as you can see.

Water damage to some of the big beams.

Even woodworm!

Lift some of the lead gulleys and you can see that the wood underneath is wet.

Even the roof line is cracked in places letting water in.

Repairs done many years ago were not done properly and with the correct materials. Both cement and wood show water damage.

More water damage inside the church.

More rotten timbers.

Early exploratory found lots of serious rot.

This timber was so far gone it had to be replaced even though these were only fact-finding investigations.

Emergency repair work underway.

Look at the woodworm damage.

As the timbers weaken gaps open up in the roof structure.

A close up of the seriousness of the damage.

Wet rot.

Peel back the lead gulleys and find even more serious damage. In this case, missing planks!

More of the same, rotten timber.

Earlier repair work is already rotten.

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One of several blocked downpipes so the rainwater has nowhere to go but down the walls.