Government money for church maintenance

[ippy]

I have mixed feelings about this and wondered about the views of others?

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2018/28-september/news/uk/baldry-calls-for-30m-a-year-for-church-maintenance

ippy

[Rhiannon]

If we want these magnificent buildings to remain a part of our hetitage then he’s right, dwindling congregations means the state will have to intervene financially.

However, the church should play its part. Shedding redundant churches is only a partial solution; it’s fine to lose an uninteresting Victorian one, not so good to lose access to a historic rural church. And rural churches are very hard to find an alternative use for; there’s a limit to how many community cafes and arts centres are actually sustainable.

If the state steps in then it has to retain the right to say what is and isn’t economic. The next question then is, does the state have the right to say how the buildings are actually used? Can it demand that a publicly funded building abides by equality law for example?

The cynic in me says that the CofE will find its membership is a whole lot more accommoding on issues like marriage equality if it is given a huge pot of cash. Anglicans love their church buildings to the point of idolatry at times.

[ProfessorDavey]

I have mixed feelings about this and wondered about the views of others?

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2018/28-september/news/uk/baldry-calls-for-30m-a-year-for-church-maintenance

ippy

I think it is important that we maintain our heritage buildings, but I don't necessarily see why churches should be provided with a specific ring-fenced pot, which kind of implies that they are more important than other key listed buildings. So I'd prefer to see this as a fund to support all key listed buildings, with churches of course being a key component of those buildings.

But I do think this needs to be linked to the CofE getting its estate house in order so to speak. I completely get the issue of unique rural churches, but in our towns and cities the Code has a massive surfeit of churches, many of which aren't of any historical importance. If the church is to receive millions to support its historically important churches from the tax payer, then I don't think it is unreasonable to expect them to off load buildings and land that are part of that over-capacity of churches where they aren't historically interesting. We are desperate for brown field sites for more affordable housing and just in my local area I can think of two churches (one very non-descript 1930s, the other hideous 1960s) that would be ideal sits for redevelopment. The same will be true in towns and cities up and down the country.

[Steve H]

By all means give government money to help preserve them, on condition that they become subject to planning permission like all other buildings. At the moment, churches are exempt, whci leads to the most appalling vandalism, such as, local to me, the ruination of  St John's, Boxmoor, a lovely Victorian Gothic-revival church, with an unsympathetic church hall tacked on to the East end, and a hideous recangular door, completely jarring with the original gothic-arched doors and windows and which would disgrace a Lidl supermarket, at the West end, and another St John's, at Bourne End, designed by no less an architect than Sir George Gilbert Scott, with an ugly church hall tacked on to the West end. St John's, Bourne End - see what I mean? At least this one could be (and hopefully one day will be) demolished, leaving the church as it was built, unlike the excrecence on the end of St John's, Boxmoor - and as for the hideous supermarket-style door they've punched through the West end...! Aposeopesis is the only adequate response.
St John's, Boxmoor, and St John's, Bourne End before the philistines got to them.

[Roses]

The churches which are heritage sites should have some help from the Government for their upkeep, imo.

[ProfessorDavey]

The churches which are heritage sites should have some help from the Government for their upkeep, imo.

But the CofE needs to do all it can too to support their upkeep. And it isn't doing that if it is retaining far more churches than it needs, many of which are held empty at best. If the CofE is pouring resource into the upkeep of 9 churches (as is the case in my small city) when they probably only have the congregation to need 6, then they can hardly claim poverty.

And there is a further point - if public funds are being used to support the upkeep of important public buildings, then I don't think it is unreasonable for the CofE to be expected to make those buildings available for use by the wider public and not just restrict use to church-goers for worship-type activities. And they certainly shouldn't be allowed to 'veto' perfectly appropriate broader public use as St Sepulchres (the so called musicians church) did recently by banning concerts and other 'non religious' hirings.

[Rhiannon]

By all means give government money to help preserve them, on condition that they become subject to planning permission like all other buildings. At the moment, churches are exempt, whci leads to the most appalling vandalism, such as, local to me, the ruination of  St John's, Boxmoor, a lovely Victorian Gothic-revival church, with an unsympathetic church hall tacked on to the East end, and a hideous recangular door, completely jarring with the original gothic-arched doors and windows and which would disgrace a Lidl supermarket, at the West end, and another St John's, at Bourne End, designed by no less an architect than Sir George Gilbert Scott, with an ugly church hall tacked on to the West end. St John's, Bourne End - see what I mean? At least this one could be (and hopefully one day will be) demolished, leaving the church as it was built, unlike the excrecence on the end of St John's, Boxmoor - and as for the hideous supermarket-style door they've punched through the West end...! Aposeopesis is the only adequate response.
St John's, Boxmoor, and St John's, Bourne End before the philistines got to them.

I used to serve on my local PCC and we could t get so much as a light fitting changed without the permission of English Heritage. Presumably this church wasn’t listed as not of sufficient interest? If not it would have needed listed buildings consent, which is more stringent than standard planning permission,

[ippy]

I'm about there with all of you on this one.

ippy

[Steve H]

And there is a further point - if public funds are being used to support the upkeep of important public buildings, then I don't think it is unreasonable for the CofE to be expected to make those buildings available for use by the wider public and not just restrict use to church-goers for worship-type activities. And they certainly shouldn't be allowed to 'veto' perfectly appropriate broader public use as St Sepulchres (the so called musicians church) did recently by banning concerts and other 'non religious' hirings.

Church-goers ARE the wider public - anyone can go. Most churches already have other activities during the week.

[ProfessorDavey]

Church-goers ARE the wider public - anyone can go. Most churches already have other activities during the week.

CofE church-goers represent about 2% of the population - I am talking about the other 98% - that is the 'wider public'.

And yes churches don't prevent people from attending worship or worship related activities, but if a church is being maintained with significant public funding then I don't think it is unreasonable that the church should be required to open up its building to other activities that have nothing to do with worship. The caveat being that the space (i.e. the church and its church hall etc) should be suitable for the activity.

Now I'm well aware that many, if not most, churches do make their space available, but this is often on a purely commercial basis (i.e. charging the market lent for hiring the space, regardless of the nature of the activity) and also many place restrictions - in other words have hiring policies which will prevent hire from organisations or for activities that they don't approve of. That's fine if you are paying 100% for the upkeep of your building, but once you rely on public funding then I think (within reason) you forfeit that discretion and should not be allowed unreasonably to ban groups or types of activity from hiring your space.

[Rhiannon]

Yes, at present individual churches refuse to allow certain activities (eg yoga) to take place on their premises if they believe them to be 'unchristian'. So a church may well refuse to have an event for young people if its policy is inclusive on grounds of sexuality, for example.

I've lived in this village for two years and have set foot in the church once, to attend a meeting about the local broadband service. Other than that it is open solely for Sunday worship once a month. As it happens it isn't listed so I doubt it will ever receive state funding, but I fail to se what it offers the local community outside of hosting the broadband mast - for which of course it gets paid.

[ProfessorDavey]

Yes, at present individual churches refuse to allow certain activities (eg yoga) to take place on their premises if they believe them to be 'unchristian'. So a church may well refuse to have an event for young people if its policy is inclusive on grounds of sexuality, for example.

That's correct and I don't think it is right when the upkeep fo the building is funding, in part, from the public purse. There is also a further issue, in that many churches have been successful at attracting lottery funding to develop themselves as quasi community centres. Now that in itself (and particularly in rural areas) isn't a bad thing at all. However if they are to act in this way (and benefit from significant external capital funding to develop their facilities) then I think they have forfeited the right to ban organisations they deem to be 'un christian' - if you are marketing yourself as a community centre and attracting significant funding on that basis you need to act as just that, a community centre, for all the community, not just the bits you approve of.

I've lived in this village for two years and have set foot in the church once, to attend a meeting about the local broadband service. Other than that it is open solely for Sunday worship once a month. As it happens it isn't listed so I doubt it will ever receive state funding, but I fail to se what it offers the local community outside of hosting the broadband mast - for which of course it gets paid.

Regardless of whether it is listed there will still be tax breaks - most notably the fact that church buildings aren't even listed for business rates, while all other non-residential buildings are and therefore need to pay business rates to some extent.

The issue of hiring facilities for commercial rates is also an interesting one. I know your church seems to be different, but many churches are extremely busy throughout the week with anything from local nurseries, weight watchers, through to societies and choirs using their facilities. Now I suspect that the uninformed think this is some kind of benevolent act by the church - making their facilities available free or at very cheap rents. But of course in most cases these organisations are paying standard commercial hire charges.

In fact many hotels are much more 'benevolent' in that respect - often providing rooms to charitable organisations free of charge, albeit knowing that they may benefit through the purchase of the odd cup of coffee.

[Steve H]

A church may well refuse to have an event for young people if its policy is inclusive on grounds of sexuality, for example.

Idon't see how sexuality would be an issue in the sort of young people's activities likely to be hosted by a church, e.g. Scouts, Guides, youth club.

[Rhiannon]

Idon't see how sexuality would be an issue in the sort of young people's activities likely to be hosted by a church, e.g. Scouts, Guides, youth club.

Really?

https://www.girlguiding.org.uk/making-guiding-happen/running-your-unit/including-all/lgbt-members/

There are plenty of churches who would find this objectionable. And that is without hiring facilities to other organisations who may also have inclusion policies.

[Harrowby Hall]

I think it is important that we maintain our heritage buildings, but I don't necessarily see why churches should be provided with a specific ring-fenced pot, which kind of implies that they are more important than other key listed buildings. So I'd prefer to see this as a fund to support all key listed buildings, with churches of course being a key component of those buildings.

France - constitutionally - is a secular state. But the historic churches in France are actually owned by the state. The upkeep of churches is a responsibility entrusted to the communes in which they stand. Communes are usually proud of their heritage. My French commune contains three churches and the one in the village is used for both  RC and Anglican worship.

[Rhiannon]

France - constitutionally - is a secular state. But the historic churches in France are actually owned by the state. The upkeep of churches is a responsibility entrusted to the communes in which they stand. Communes are usually proud of their heritage. My French commune contains three churches and the one in the village is used for both  RC and Anglican worship.

My experience is that in rural areas people are very attached to their churches. The one that I used to attend would regularly receive gifts and legacies from non-churchgoers solely for the upkeep of the buildings.

I don't know how long that will continue though, especially as the communities are more fluid now - old families are replaced by commuters with money who stay for a while and then move on.

[Harrowby Hall]

By "commune" I really mean the political authority which manages the community - town or parish council if you like. The maintenance is done using money collected by taxation.

[ProfessorDavey]

My experience is that in rural areas people are very attached to their churches. The one that I used to attend would regularly receive gifts and legacies from non-churchgoers solely for the upkeep of the buildings.

I don't know how long that will continue though, especially as the communities are more fluid now - old families are replaced by commuters with money who stay for a while and then move on.

That may be true in rural villages where there is one church which is clearly a central point of the community, like the pub, village shop and post office.

However that really isn't the case in our towns and cities, where, lets face it, the vast majority of the population live. Individual church-goers necessarily feel an affiliation to and community with the church they attend. But that is very little to do with geography and affiliation to the nearest CofE church.

In my small city (about 80,000 people) I think there are 9 CofE churches, including the Abbey. I know lots of regular CofE churchgoers, but I'm struggling to think of any that attend their nearest church. There affiliation is all to do with the type of worship, not the proximity. So there are people who travel across the city because they like the big Abbey experience. Others I know live at one end of a short street with a CofE church at the other end. Yet they attend a CofE church half way across town as that one is more traditional rather than happy-clappy etc etc.

[Rhiannon]

People travel to church in rural areas too, PD. Some to find a style or worship they like, some because they want a man officiating, but a lot of the time it’s because do many parishes share a priest and there will be a rota as to which church gets the service that week.

Attendance by the young is through the floor. In the twenty years I’ve lived here I’ve seen the church dwindle in influence as people become too old to run committees and events and aren’t replaced. It isn’t the centre of village life any more. But I like to go in my local churches outside of services because I’m interested in the history and the ties to the present.  I think that is a part of their enduring appeal. A sense of place and past.

[Steve H]

I think that is a part of their enduring appeal. A sense of place and past.

Church Going, by Philip Larkin.


Once i am sure there's nothing going on
I step inside letting the door thud shut.
Another church: matting seats and stone
and little books; sprawlings of flowers cut
For Sunday brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense musty unignorable silence
Brewed God knows how long. Hatless I take off
My cylce-clips in awkward reverence

Move forward run my hand around the font.
From where i stand the roof looks almost new--
Cleaned or restored? someone would know: I don't.
Mounting the lectern I peruse a few
hectoring large-scale verses and pronouce
Here endeth much more loudly than I'd meant
The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door
I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

Yet stop I did: in fact I often do
And always end much at a loss like this
Wondering what to look for; wondering too
When churches fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into? If we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show
Their parchment plate and pyx in locked cases
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

Or after dark will dubious women come
To make their children touch a particular stone;
Pick simples for a cancer; or on some
Advised night see walking a dead one?
Power of some sort or other will go on
In games, in riddles, seemingly at random;
But superstition like belief must die
And what remains when disbelief has gone?
Grass weedy pavement brambles buttress sky.

A shape less recognisable each week
A purpose more obscure. I wonder who
Will be the last, the very last, to seek
This place for what it was; one of the crew
That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?
Some ruin-bibber randy for antique
Or Christmas-addict counting on a whiff
Of grown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?
Or will he be my representative

Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt
Dispersed yet tending to this cross of ground
Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt
So long and equably what since is found
Only in separation--marriage and birth
And death and thoughts of these--for which was built
This special shell? For though I've no idea
What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth
It pleases me to stand in silence here;

A serious house on serious earth it is
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet
Are recognisd and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious
And gravitating with it to this ground
Which he once heard was proper to grow wise in
If only that so many dead lie round.

1955

[ProfessorDavey]

People travel to church in rural areas too, PD. Some to find a style or worship they like, some because they want a man officiating, but a lot of the time it’s because do many parishes share a priest and there will be a rota as to which church gets the service that week.

In which case this is similar to urban areas - so a loss of the notion that the church is the hub of a geographical community, rather than a community determined by other characteristics.

Attendance by the young is through the floor. In the twenty years I’ve lived here I’ve seen the church dwindle in influence as people become too old to run committees and events and aren’t replaced. It isn’t the centre of village life any more. But I like to go in my local churches outside of services because I’m interested in the history and the ties to the present.  I think that is a part of their enduring appeal. A sense of place and past.

I agree - I too enjoy looking at the architecture and history associated with historic churches. But of course not all CofE churches are in any manner historic and that is particularly true in urban areas where through the years a new development of housing was linked to a new church. So although there are historic churches in my City (indeed one associated with the first christian martyr in Britain) there are others that aren't. Including one that is 1930s, basically the same design as hundreds of identical 3-bed semis (many now extended) and another from the 1960s that is an eyesore. There is a further church that is late victorian, but those running the church seem to have taken a conscious decision to remove any historic or interesting architectural feature from inside it.

[Anchorman]

The argument runs both ways. Sometimes in Scotland, historicchurchesare maintained virtually empty - at the denomination'sexpense - because the denomination can't get rid of the thing. Oh, for an accomodating vandal! They are only buildings, after all. The place I have in mind is a fantastic building dating from the lare sixteenth century, one of the first truly presbyterian kirks built. The problemis that the rural area it was built to serve no longer has a population, nor has done for nearly eighty years. The CofS has rented local halls and schools in the arwea to provide worship space for a thriving congregation which grew up around four miles away...but has to maintain the old building wind andd watertight, since it is grade 1 listed, and cannot be altered internally or externally. They can't even install central heating and use it as part of a retreat centre! To capit all, they've owned land for the building of a new church in the area for decades, but s glitch in planning laws prevents them from using it! Sometimes these 'historic churches' are a waste of space.

[ippy]

My wife does a lot of gospel singing, she likes the singing not the church stuff, I was at one of her shows with her group at our local church, while there I was having a word with the organist and I asked him how about a bit of of Widor's 5 and unexpectedly he gave it a go, I was presently surprised the organ was definitely up for it, how lovely it was too.

Love the buildings and the sounds of their old musical organs, no not the singers musical organs, It'd be a great loss if these places were to disappear.

Regards ippy.

[Rhiannon]

Back in the day when I was involved with the upkeep of two medieval churches I felt that it was immoral for the church to shell out the insane kinds of money that it did on them, partly because of the weird way in which devotion to the buildings skewed peoples' priorities. One of my kids was in a NICU following her birth; I approached one churchwarden to ask if we could host a coffee morning to raise funds for it and she said 'yes, I'll take the ticket money for the fabric fund and you can have the raffle money for the intensive care unit'. A building was more important to her then supporting sick babies. And she also lacked the empathy to understand how that sounds to a mother whose baby has just come been through that process.

But I'd hate for the buildings to be destroyed. There has to be another way.

[Anchorman]

My wife does a lot of gospel singing, she likes the singing not the church stuff, I was at one of her shows with her group at our local church, while there I was having a word with the organist and I asked him how about a bit of of Widor's 5 and unexpectedly he gave it a go, I was presently surprised the organ was definitely up for it, how lovely it was too.

Love the buildings and the sounds of their old musical organs, no not the singers musical organs, It'd be a great loss if these places were to disappear.

Regards ippy.

   


!@": organ.....
I'm not a fan of the 'kist o Whustles'; OK, thy're good classical instruments, but sometimes on a Sunday morning, I wish they'd blow up - I prefer the piano.
Besides, they're murder to ,maintain.
Ours is relatively modern, being installed after a disasterous fire in 1937 which all but destroyed the building (I wish it had been, though that's anotherr story... )
Anyhoo, a new instrument was installed, created by a a  well known organ builder, and costs hundreds to maintain and service, and is insured for cough cough splutter pounds.
They're more trouble than they're worth.
Trust me.
Got the paracetamol.