If you are local to the village, or even a frequent visitor, it cannot have escaped your attention that some major works have taken place over the last few months.

The main part of the project has been to replace the tower roof and broken king truss. The truss has been the main reason why the church bells have not rung for the past couple of years.

Other works which have taken place are the replacement of a lot of stonework, including the replacememt of stone mullions on all six of the tower windows, 5 of which have not been in place for about 200 years.

Also connected with the tower windows was the replacement of the wooden louvres which prevent the ingress of rainwater into the tower. Alongside this windows were fitted onto the inside of the windows of the bell ringing chamber to make conditions more pleasant for the bell ringers during winter.

The faces of the clock have also been repainted and new gold leaf applied to the hands and numerals.

Other works that have also taken place include the replacement of the rainwater goods (gutters, downspouts, etc) and renewal and cleaning out of soakaway drains.

The cost of all these works amounted to approximately £170,000, the majority of which has come from grants, but the work on the drains and soakaways was done by members of the church, making a saving of about £12,000

The finishing of the repairs was celebrated during an open day that was held on Saturday 26th September. This included tower visits with panoramic views, informative displays and historical information, musical items in the church throughout the day, refreshments in the church hall, harvest displays and seeing the flag flying again on the church tower. The church bells were also rung for the first time in nearly 2 years!

As a result of the fire that we had in church a few years ago, the church organ was deemed to be beyond viable repair. The insurance company have given us the amount of money that they would have given us towards cleaning towards its replacement.

The old organ has now been removed, and thanks to very generous donations, gift aid and the fact that we have managed to avoid paying VAT, we now have a new replacement electronic digital pipe organ.

Along with this, the space that has been freed up by the removal of the organ has been used to reposition the church music group to maximise the use of the space available.