A NEW lease of life has been given to a village church with the restoration of a unique heating system.

As a result, not only will the congregation of Pockley church be able to worship in warm surroundings, but plans are now being made to widen its usage to become a concert venue.

Churchwarden John Ashworth said the scheme has seen the reinstatement of the church’s Victorian hypocaust heating system, achieved thanks to a grant from the North York Moors Small Scale Enhancements Scheme – a fund provided jointly by the National Park and the area’s EU LEADER programme.

While many churches have a hot air system, Pockley's solid fuel boiler is fed by an underground railway track through a tunnel, said Mr Ashworth.

The bell tower is also the chimney, but over the years it had become completely blocked by debris from jackdaws.

Determined to resolve the situation, Mr Ashworth set about achieving a long-held ambition to restore the system which was abandoned in the 1950s. The problem, he said, was that all the hot air was rising to the top of the eight-metre high interior of the Victorian church.

“So it was warm at ceiling level but cold on the ground floor for the congregation,” he said.

One of the main reasons for carrying out the restoration was to combat dampness in the church fabric, said Mr Ashworth.

“The church is known for its fantastic acoustics and now with our new heating system we hope to have concerts which will help to boost our income, because we only have a regular congregation of six to eight,” he added.

The Rev Andrew De Smet, priest in charge of Pockley, said: “Without the support of the National Park we could never have accomplished the project which has injected new life into the church and enables us to hold functions in addition to our services.”