Churches everywhere are struggling to make ends meet and pay for essential repairs, but three parishes in Wiltshire are celebrating grants from the Historic Churches Preservation Trust as LEWIS COWEN reports

THE community of Marden, near Devizes, has much in common with villages throughout Wiltshire, and, indeed, the rest of the country.

It has a listed Grade I 12th century church, which was in dire need of essential repairs to the roof of the nave.

Marden has a population of 120, very few of whom are multi-millionaires, so where were they going to find the £40,000 they needed to keep their parish church from descending into decrepitude?

Janie Bell, the treasurer of the All Saints, Marden, Roof Appeal, said: "This time last year I was rather despondent. We had nothing in the bank and no way of raising that kind of money in this tiny village."

An approach to English Heritage proved fruitless but then they were put in contact with the Historic Churches Preservation Trust and it awarded an £8,000 grant.

The Historic Churches Preservation Trust has contributed to other projects in Wiltshire, donating £1,500 to St John the Baptist church in neighbouring Chirton, and a total of £8,000 to St John the Baptist in Little Somerford, near Malmesbury, with a further loan of £4,000 towards the restoration project there.

The trust is the direct descendant of The Society for Promoting the Enlargement, Building and Repair of Anglican Churches and Chapels in England and Wales, formed in 1818 and responsible for the huge movement in church restoration of the Victorian era, when virtually every church in the country was refurbished, rebuilt or remodelled.

The Historic Churches Preservation Trust was set up in 1953 to carry out a similar task, renovating church buildings that had fallen into disrepair during the enforced neglect of the Second World War.

In 1983 the two organisations were amalgamated.

In the last 50 years, the trust has handed out more than £23 million worth of grants, all raised from voluntary giving. In 2000, the trust's Millennium Fund grants were introduced and £1,755,000 has been given away to 40 particularly deserving churches under this scheme.

The trust was happy to shell out to the tune of £8,000 towards the cost of re-roofing the nave of All Saints Church at Marden, impressed as much by the enterprise of the villagers as the spectacular Norman internal arch, Jacobean pulpit and 13th century font.

Mrs Bell said: "The encouragement we received along with that first big grant was worth as much in morale as in financial terms and we are greatly indebted to the trust."

The imprimatur of the HCPT grant encouraged other charities to donate as well. Contributions came from Onyx Environmental Trust, Wiltshire Historic Churches, The Alan Evans Memorial Trust and, out of the blue, from the Italian restaurant chain Pizza Express.

The company set up its Veneziana Fund over 20 years ago in response to an approach from the Venice In Peril Fund, which is trying to restore Venice's finest buildings damaged in the devastating floods of 1966.

The company donates 25p from the sale of each of its Veneziana pizzas to their Veneziana Fund, but not all of that goes to Venice. It also supports the restoration and maintenance of British buildings which are more than 250 years old, and they contributed £500 towards the cost of re-leading the nave roof at All Saints.

But these grants still left £17,000 to find from other sources and the parishioners of Marden dug deep and came up with the money. Mrs Bell said: "There were no large donors. Everyone in the village contributed what they could to save their church from dereliction. It was a wonderful effort."

The roof is approaching completion but, like the painting of the Forth Bridge, work to keep the ecclesiastical gem in good order never stops.

St John the Baptist Church roof in Little Somerford was repaired in a £180,000 operation between September 2002 and June 2003.

It received a grant of £8,000 and a £4,000 loan from Historic Churches Preservation Trust.

Parochial church council secretary Julie Frayling said without such help village churches would struggle to survive.

"They are very important," she said. "People just can't keep repairs up on churches without organisations like that. It costs so much, they have got to be done a specific way.

"Our church was built in the 14th century and is Grade 1 listed. The money was for the church roof, it was in a terrible state; we literally had bowls and buckets in between the pews and down the isles.

"We got a £102,000 grant from English Heritage and had to raise £15,000 from the local community, quite a lot of money for a small village like Little Somerford."

St Michael and All Angels Church in Urchfont, near Devizes, has become the latest to launch an appeal for money to save its ancient structure from the ravages of time.

The newly-formed Friends of St Michael's, Urchfont, aims to raise a capital sum large enough to provide enough interest, when invested, to cover the cost of major structural renovations on the medieval Grade I listed building.

Urgent work is needed to save the rapidly deteriorating lead roof, which alone will cost in the region of £60,000, but the bells, organ and churchyard will also need some attention in the next few years.

The first fundraising event will be the visit of former Generation Game girl, Isla St Clair, who will present a concert of folk music at the church on February 13 at 7.30pm.

The trust has recently moved its headquarters to 31 Newbury Street, London EC1A 7HU.

It can also be contacted on (020) 7600 6090, by e-mail on info@historicchurches.org.uk or by visiting www.historicchurches.org.uk