Newark Parish Church secures £2.5m National Lottery Heritage Fund grant to help preserve 800-year-old grade-one listed building in ‘Reawakening of St Mary Magdalene’ project
More than 800 years of heritage and historic will be preserved as £2.5m of funding has today been awarded to Newark Parish Church.
The Reawakening of St Mary Magdalene project has been in the works since 2019 with the aim of repairing and restoring the grade-one listed building.
The latest grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund will enable to enable work to start later this year.
Scheduled to take roughly 18 months, from late 2024 through to early 2026, the works will make the church a safer and more welcoming place for visitors and residents as well as improving environmental sutainability.
Churchwarden and project-lead, Andrew Fearn, said: “It’s hugely exciting to have received this project funding.
“It presents us with an opportunity to secure the future of this wonderful building for future generations to come.
“The church is the oldest medieval building still in use in the area and so is not only a place of worship, but an important heritage asset as well.
“If only these stones could talk. They started construction on the church in 1180 and over the centuries it has seen the lot, from plague to civil war.
“But this place is more than just stone and beautiful glass, it is a place with purpose and faith and needs to be here for the community.”
A main priority of the project is to repair the leaky and ageing church roof by replacing lead panels with more hard-wearing terne-coat steel, which is also less of a target to thieves.
Alongside the roof, windows, masonry, drainage and lighting will be restored or improved.
As a community asset the church has been at the centre of several major events for the town in recent years, becoming the main hub of remembrance following the death of Queen Elizabeth II and witnessing the farewell repatriation ceremony of three Polish Presidents from their resting place Newark Cemetery, back to their homeland.
As such, the church also aims to support the Newark community by offering for heritage, educational and volunteering activities.
Two new enclosed areas will be created within the west end of the church, so that a cafe and an education room can be built as well as brand-new toilet facilities.
These new rooms will support a three-year programme of engagement activities, enable events and performances to take place and provide a space for community groups and school to use.
Alongside the efforts to repair the building and create community spaces, the church also hope to reduce its carbon footprint with the addition of solar panels and an air source heat pump to replace existing decades-old and faulty boilers.
Works will be carried out in section over the course of 18 months, in which time the church will remain open to the public.
The total estimated cost of the project comes to roughly £4m, with the new £2.5m from the National Lottery rounding off the total of funds already secured though donations from the public and by grants from the Church of England and the National Lottery under a separate scheme.
