22 CONTEXT 175 : MARCH 2023 JOHN MADDISON Supporting Norfolk’s churches and their communities The Norfolk Churches Trust, which grant-aids church repairs and sustains a portfolio of 13 historic churches through direct care, will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2024. Norfolk has more historic churches listed Grade I and Grade II* than any other county; its identity is inextricably bound up with this great legacy. Most lie in the Diocese of Norwich, while the county’s famous Marshland churches, the recently fire-damaged church at Beachamwell and others are in the neighbouring diocese of Ely. It is at these buildings that innumerable communities have direct access to much of the most eloquent, beautiful, and valuable material evidence of our history and culture. Their future is far from assured. Individually, their repair presents fundraising challenges that would daunt a well-organised national public charity, let alone an ageing congregation with a handful of regular attenders. The main purpose of the Norfolk Churches Trust is to provide these congregations with advice and grant aid for their buildings. Parish morale can be more vulnerable than the building fabric. Listening, advising and encouraging emboldens communities to unlock local generosity and the contributions of national funders. Our staff and others spend time in parishes, assessing problems and helping with applications for the grants that we give out at three meetings each year. These rarely run to more than £10,000 per church but they are sometimes the first significant external contribution to a repair project and can be a catalyst for the engagement of other bodies. The trust’s income is generated through events and by personal and institutional charitable giving. Concerts, lectures and visits to churches, houses and gardens are frequently oversubscribed. In the past year the Norfolk Churches Bike Ride has raised £131,000, one athletic 70-year-old cyclist visiting 70 churches. In May 2022 our latest triennial Stately Car Boot Sale at Sennowe Park made £83,000 in a single day. These are striking achievements but what they raise must be seen against the £300,000 recently needed to save a single church tower at North Tuddenham. Here we funded, among other things, a structural survey that confirmed its perilous condition and helped Historic England to make an emergency heritage-at-risk grant of £280,000. The appalling condition of St Peter’s, Corpusty, was one of the factors that prompted our foundress, Wilhelmine Harrod, and a group Our Lady of Consolation and St Stephen at Lynford
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