Five historic buildings in Merseyside will be repaired and renovated thanks to £10 million from two heritage funds. The Places of Worship Renewal Fund and Heritage at Risk Capital Fund are part of the wider £1.5 billion Arts Everywhere Fund. This round is expected to protect 19 sites across northern England.
Places of Worship Renewal Fund recipients
The first recipients of the new Places of Worship Renewal Fund, designed to support historic places of worship, range from major minsters to churches and synagogues in areas of the greatest need. The 13 recipients include four churches here on Merseyside.
St Helens Minster, formerly known as the Church of St Helen, will receive £345,813. The Grade II-listed Anglican church was designed by W. D. Caröe and built between 1920 and 1926. The funding will enable significant repairs to the historic sandstone entrance, as well as roof repairs and the installation of new facilities and visual improvements, including a new “shop window”.
Other churches awarded grants
The Roman Catholic Church of St Anthony on Scotland Road in Vauxhall, the Church of St Mary in West Derby Village, and The Roman Catholic Church of St Matthew located on Townsend Avenue in Clubmoor are also recipients of the Places of Worship Renewal Fund.
St Anthony's was built in 1833 and designed by John Broadbent in the Gothic Revival style, featuring early English buttresses and lancet windows. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building. It will be awarded £775,228 for full stripping and reroofing of the nave and narthex, repairs to gutters and lead flashings, external masonry and leaded windows and renewal of cast-iron downpipes. Further works will address timber decay, wall and internal plaster repairs and redecoration.
Also a Grade II-listed building and benefiting from the funding is St Mary’s, which will be awarded £217,487. The building is constructed of red sandstone, with pillars of Yorkshire stone in the interior and slate roofs. It is an active Anglican parish church. It will undergo urgent repairs following a dry rot outbreak affecting roof trusses and structural roof timbers within the chancel. The project also includes conservation and replacement repairs to the lath and plaster ceiling.
The Roman Catholic Church of St Matthew has been awarded £810,000 which will go towards urgent repairs to the aisle and bell tower roofs, improvements to rainwater disposal, repointing and repairs to external masonry and windows. The project also includes improvements to boundary walls and paths and installation of accessible toilets.
Prescot Picture Palace restoration
Another historic Mersey building on the list is Prescot Picture Palace. The former 113 year old cinema on Kemble Street in Prescot will receive funding through the Heritage at Risk Capital Fund. The cinema opened in 1912 but the building has had many incarnations in the last century. Many from the area will know more recently it was a community church from the 1990s.
The building is part of what was a longer terrace of mainly three storey houses, with an auditorium built in the rear gardens. In 1912, the cinema opened as the Prescot Picture Palace and Theatre of Varieties and was built by Mr L Hughes, who appears to have been the landlord of several commercial buildings around Prescot town centre. It has been awarded a grant of £665,000 from the Heritage at Risk Capital Fund.
Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council will use the funding to deliver the next phase of restoration at Prescot Picture Palace, including internal decorative repairs, localised timber flooring repairs, structural repairs and restoration of the projection room, following an earlier phase of roof and elevation repairs. The funding will protect the building’s historic interior and support the continued development of the Picture Palace as an important community and cultural asset, helping secure its long-term future as a venue for local cultural activity.
Minister and Historic England comments
Heritage Minister Baroness Twycross said: “Nothing tells the stories of our nation quite like the historic buildings at the heart of our communities. But too often they are a far cry from their former glory, with leaking roofs and crumbling stonework. Thanks to this funding, the much-loved buildings that fill our hometowns with character will be keeping the doors open to communities for years to come.”
Now in its second year, the Heritage at Risk Capital Fund helps heritage buildings in the greatest need to be saved from at-risk status, with an emphasis on their role within communities. Both funds give priority to areas of England which are in the greatest need, where fundraising can be most difficult and Government funding can have the greatest impact. The schemes are delivered by Historic England.
Emma Squire and Claudia Kenyatta, Co-CEOs, Historic England, said: “Historic places are at the heart of communities across England. They help shape the character and identity of the places we live, work and visit, and provide spaces where people can come together, connect and take part in community life. Through the first rounds of grants from the Heritage at Risk Capital Fund and Places of Worship Renewal Fund, which we’re proud to steward on behalf of Government, we are investing over £41 million to support 74 projects across England. These grants will support historic buildings and places of worship that face significant repair and conservation needs.”
