Eight churches in Devon will benefit from £2.3m grant funding from Historic England, as part of the Places of Worship Renewal Fund.
The funding will help the churches carry out important building repairs and conservation work.
The fund was launched by Historic England in May, after the closure of the long-running Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme.
More than £13 million has been awarded to Church of England churches.
St Matt’s Church in Plymouth has just celebrated its 10th anniversary
Churches in the Diocese of Exeter set to receive the Places of Worship Renewal Fund grant are: St Mary’s, Brixham; Holy Trinity, Milton Damerel; St John’s, Paignton; St Matthias, Plymouth; St Stephen’s, Putford; St Swithun’s, Pyworthy; St Mary’s, Tamerton Foliot; and All Saints, Torre.
Louise Brown, Church Buildings Support Officer for the Diocese of Exeter, said “This is fantastic news for these eight churches and their communities.
“This money is a real lifeline, enabling essential repairs to take place.
“At a parish level, volunteers work tirelessly to look after their church buildings, and the people in these parishes put significant effort into their grant applications.
“Their success is a recognition that these buildings are at the very heart of our communities.
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St John’s Church in Paignton will receive £175,186 from the grant, which will be used to pay for essential repairs to the church.
This grant is part of a wider success story for St John’s as they have also received a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Rev’d Laura McAdam, the Team Vicar, said “This generous grant allows us to secure the future of our Grade I listed building, a site that has held 900 years of worship.
“The community of Paignton fully deserves this investment in its heritage and finally fixing persistent leaks and water ingress allows us to take the first step in safeguarding the building, as part of a wider vision of community use particularly by SEND families and groups who support our most vulnerable parishioners.”
St Matthias Church, Plymouth, which has a special focus on serving students and young adults, is set to receive £692,077 from the Places of Worship Renewal Fund.
The grant funding will enable the church, which recently celebrated its 10th birthday as a Church of England Resource church, to carry out essential repairs to the roof and stonework of their Victorian building.
Rev’d Mark James is Team Rector of Bradworthy Mission Community in North Devon.
Two of his churches (St Stephen’s, Putford and Holy Trinity, Milton Damerel) have received grants totalling £712,735 which will help to pay for roof repairs and interior plaster restoration.
St Stephen’s, Putford, has also received a grant
He said “The Church is its people, and these buildings shelter our shared life, giving us somewhere to gather before God with all that we are and all that we carry.
“Many who enter may never join a Sunday congregation, yet their connection to this place can be deeply meaningful, rooted in family memories or in the simple reassurance of knowing there is somewhere they can come.
“As custodians, ours is to care for what has been entrusted to us while asking where God is guiding and calling us next, ensuring that these places are structurally sound and ready to receive those who will need them in an ever more volatile world. We cannot know the stories they will bring, but we can prepare a place for them, just as others prepared a place for us.”
Louise Brown said she and her colleagues were committed to supporting all of Devon’s Anglican churches in applying for any available grant funding for their buildings:
“While this is a positive story for these eight churches, we acknowledge that there are many more churches in need of funding for repairs – and that every one of Devon’s churches has been impacted by the loss of the VAT reclaim grant scheme.
“We continue to work with parishes to support them in carrying out repairs and accessing grant funding, and to work with colleagues across the country to campaign for better access to funding for our historic churches,” she said.