St. Mary's Church Atherstone Projects | Our Commitment to Community

St.Mary's Church would like to acknowledge and the help given to us by North Warwickshire Borough Council and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development which made this revival possible. A big thank you from us! The grant was awarded to refurbish the Youth HQ at St Mary’s Church to increase community usage. The works included replacement of windows, upgrade of toilet facilities, to include disabled access, and redecoration throughout. The project was part funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development with help from North Warwickshire Borough Council.

St. Mary's Church has received a generous grant award from the Leader Fund to help refurbish one of its community buildings. The building has been improved by replacing old windows and doors with UPVC double glazed units. A new accessible toilet and floor were also fitted.

The refurbishment also included repainting and general repairs. The community building, known as the Youth Headquarters at the rear of St. Mary's church is already used by groups as diverse as mother & toddlers, adult yoga classes as well as youth groups.

St. Mary’s Church in Atherstone has received a confirmed grant of £236,200 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). Thanks to money raised by National Lottery players the Church can now repair its roof, replace failed rainwater goods and make good some water damaged masonry.

The total cost of the urgent repairs is £320,000 because of the vast size of the roof. The church family and townsfolk of Atherstone are working very hard raising funds to meet the repair costs. The Revd. Michael Brandsma said, “This is a project that is uniting the community in the efforts that have been required to raise the money. St Mary’s Church building has been a landmark in Atherstone for over 800 years and has been a place of worship, fellowship and solace for many over the years. The support of Heritage Lottery Fund, the residents and civic authorities especially our town mayor; Councillor Ray Jarvis will allow St Mary’s to continue with this tradition.”

Townsfolk and visitors should soon see the scaffolding going up as the repairs are expected to start at the beginning of April 2017 and go on for around 35 weeks. The roof repairs project is a first important step to revitalise St Mary’s as a major community focus with comfortable, attractive facilities, not just for the Christian community, but for the whole town. The vision is to give Atherstone a quality centre for the performing arts, concerts and exhibitions, hosting a wide variety of events and activities which would attract people from a wider area into Atherstone throughout the week, around the year.

Please continue to give generously to this project as there is still much work to do in preserving this heritage building, the focal point of the town’s Market Place, for future generations.

The Church will remain open to all throughout the period of the repair works. In fact, St. Mary’s are looking to open its Community Café, currently open just Tuesday & Friday market days, on other weekdays too to encourage townsfolk to come inside, have a tea or coffee and explore the interesting heritage of this building by taking a Heritage Trail tour. The Heritage Trail tours are being developed to engage young, old, families and school children as part of this Heritage Lottery supported project.