Ancient church faces £36,000 bill (From Gazette & Herald)

Ancient church faces £36,000 bill

ONE of Ryedale's best-known and oldest churches, All Saints', Kirkbymoorside, is facing a bill of £36,000 for essential repairs over the next four years.

"There is a serious concern about our financial situation at All Saints'," says the vicar, Canon David Purdy. "The brutal truth is that we are not paying our way."

For the past two years, the church council has shown a deficit, which now amounts to £8,000, eating into the church's slender reserves. The cash crisis has emerged despite increased giving by the congregation, says Canon Purdy.

"The problem is that the demands on our resources has risen even more."

This year, the congregation will have to find £39,000 to contribute to the York Diocesan budget, which is used to fund pensions for clergy, stipends, housing and training - a rise of £9,000 since 2002.

"It is our fair share, assessed on the basis of attendance and income - we are morally obliged to pay it," he said.

60pc of the income to All Saints' goes to the diocesan authorities, with the balance being used towards the insurance, repairs, heating, lighting and other running costs.

"We are now faced with having to find £1,800 to replace the stair lift in Church House - it's an obligation we cannot avoid."

And, says Canon Purdy, around £10,000 is needed as a priority to fund essential repairs to the leaking roof.

He is asking the townspeople of Kirkbymoorside as a whole to help, especially in the funding to provide a new chair lift.

"Church House is used very widely by the whole community. Although we charge rent, it does not cover our costs in cleaning, repairing and maintaining the building."

All Saints', like most Ryedale parishes, faces the two-pronged problem of an ageing, and often declining, congregation, often on fixed incomes, and historic buildings which are expensive to maintain.

"Our churches are rising to the challenge and congregations do respond magnificently. When there is a need for a major fundraising appeal, we find communities as a whole respond because they appreciate that the church is part of their community and most people, at sometime in their lives, use it for weddings, Christenings or funerals."

All Saints' is one of the earliest centres of Christianity in Ryedale - a church has stood on the site since Saxon times - and the present building, dating back to 1250, inevitably needs ongoing expense for repair.

"Like so many churches in Ryedale, it is very old and a listed building, which means the cost of building and restoration work is high," says Canon Purdy.

There are always fundraising events being planned, with one of the most popular being a stall selling homemade cakes, desserts and meringues outside Church House, in the Market Place, and a fundraising stall is being run at Ryedale Show next month.

An article in the Pickering Deanery magazine advocates that in the future, churches may need to become much more of a community centre.

"It cannot be economically practical in today's world to have a church in use for just two or three times a week," says its author.

Congregations of different denominations could use the same building - with individual services - and there could be additional uses of churches. "Perhaps an architect with vision and good taste might look at re-arranging the interior of a church, reducing the size of the area for worship, and creating areas which could be used by community groups or even commercial enterprises".

Updated: 11:24 Wednesday, June 30, 2004