£200k windfall for church

A CHURCH has secured £200,000 it needs to complete a renovation in time for the site’s 500th birthday.

The final repairs to the roof of Holy Trinity, Shaw, currently on English Heritage’s “at risk” register, will mark the completion of the £800,000 project.

It secured the £200,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund and hopes to finish phase four of the refurbishment by 2014, a year before it celebrates 500 years of there being a church or chapel on the site.

The 10-year restoration has seen improvements to churchyard security and repairs to the structure and interior.

Father Peter McEvitt said: “This work will bring to a close the restoration project on this significant church building.

“By the time the work is finished over £800,000 will have been raised and spent returning Shaw church to its former glory.

“Most importantly it will bring the building off the English Heritage ‘at risk’ register.

“Significantly this work will be complete before the beginning of the parish’s 500-year celebrations planned for 2015, marking when the first church or chapel on this site was erected in 1515.”
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