Open Day for Myndtown Church restoration attracts 50 visitors

Myndtown Church was given £220,000 of Heritage Lottery Funding earlier this year to help fund extensive refurbishment work.

With work at its midway point, the church opened its doors to the local community for two hours on Friday.

Fifty people took advantage of the opportunity to view progress, ask questions of the builders, architect and project manager, see craftsmen at work and learn some of the history uncovered by the project through a small exhibition of documents, photographs and artefacts.

Project manager John Burt said: "As the building has been off limits for several months, we wanted to maintain community engagement in the project.

"We were delighted to see so many people come along. If we’d had any more, we would have been hard pushed to accommodate them.”

Visitor Bob Berry said: "It was a great opportunity to view the church stripped back to its bare bones and to see the techniques being used in its conservation.

"I am looking forward to seeing it in its reborn form this summer."

The church bells have rung out for hundreds of years, but they too have been carefully packaged up and sent off for analysis and conservation work.

The money, which is bankrolling the restoration of the bells, is also being used to mend the ancient structure of the church – from its bulging walls to its ancient timbers.

Recently a new roof, repairs to stonework, re-rendering of interior and exterior walls have been carried out.

Another visitor was the Reverend Norman Morris, who retired last year after 16 years as rector of Myndtown and its neighbouring parishes.

He said: “It was very impressive, even startling, for me to see the such a  familiar church with so many memories undergoing such major restoration.

"I’m so glad it’s happening as, otherwise, its future as a building would have been pretty shaky.”