THE recent reports that York Minster has been selling medieval carved stonework to raise money for building repairs caused predictable outrage. But northern Europe’s largest Gothic cathedral is not alone in facing colossal bills for repair and maintenance.
Scores of churches, with incomes that struggle into five figures, face frightening sixfigure bills to keep their buildings safe and intact. The Norman Christchurch Priory in Hampshire, to take one example of many in similarly dire straits, needs £3 million simply to preserve its fabric. Yet the annual English Heritage and Lottery repair budget for more than 25,000 places of worship in Britain is a paltry £25 million.
In its annual report, the Historic Churches Preservation Trust says that substantial changes in the way churches are run and financed are necessary if these fine buildings are to be handed down to future generations. “In what other countries in Europe do church buildings of this quality enjoy such paucity of institutional support?” asks Michael Hoare, the HCPT chairman.
One Anglican clergyman, however, is challenging the entrenched attitudes that prevent churches from unlocking the full financial potential of their properties.
The Rev Andrew Mottram has recently resigned after 15 years as priest-in-charge of All Saints in Hereford to become full-time co-director of his own consultancy, Ecclesiastical Property Solutions (EPS).
Founded in 2004 with Emma Osmundsen, the Exeter Diocesan surveyor, EPS encourages church communities in England and Wales to hold their noses and to be ready to wheel and deal their way towards financial salvation.
At St John’s in Howle Hill, near Ross-on-Wye, for example, the consultancy has helped the church to dispose of a redundant and unsafe chapel of ease and schoolroom, at maximum gain to parishioners.
Mottram says: “The Church, in general, is an immensely capital-rich but cash-poor organisation. What often happens is that the church community has a building, which is often a hall. They all want to be nice Christians so they don’t charge enough rent. Therefore the asset isn’t looked after properly. So the asset deteriorates and you get to the point where the hall is clearly an abomination.
“The problem then is that they can’t raise the money to do it up. An estate agent values it at £30,000. It goes on the market at that price. Someone buys it, doesn’t do anything, but sells it on for £100,000. Then someone gets planning permission for housing or offices and the whole site rises in value from £30,000 to £200,000.
“At Howle Hill, the church community had the chapel valued at £30,000. It took two years to build a case for the planners because it’s in an ecologically sensitive area, but it went at auction for £250,000. And the Parochial Church Council got all that money rather than someone who bought ‘at risk’ and knew the inherent value.”
In Plymouth EPS has project-managed the £3 million restoration and internal re- ordering of St Peter’s Church, in one of the West Country’s most deprived inner-city areas, by helping to attract funding for regeneration. What the church community is doing, says Mottram, “is making it possible to run a full range of social support — but using space within the church to generate a rental income from facilities such as parenting support, drug and alcohol counselling and other social action”.
It was All Saints, a landmark church in Hereford city centre, that gave Mottram his first substantial project. On arrival in 1991 he found the top 60ft of the spire on the verge of collapse, with ominous chinks of daylight showing through the masonry “like the white squares in a crossword”. The west wall was in a similar state of decay. The church was subject to three “dangerous structure” notices and was earmarked for closure.
Fifteen years on, All Saints still stands. As part of a £1.7 million redevelopment, assisted by English Heritage and lottery funding, the rear of the nave is now an award-winning café and restaurant that draws up to 4,000 people a week. Worshippers attend lunchtime Communion services against the clatter of crockery and the cheerful squish of coffee machines. A projected turnover of £300,000 after five years was achieved in 18 months. Outside, in the shadow of the spire, no one has to worry when the wind blows. Bills in the post no longer strike terror into the hearts of the church community.
When other churches began to approach him for advice, Mottram saw the potential for a personal mission of a more radical kind. He says: “Ecclesiastical Property Solutions was inspired by the genuine desire of churches to have buildings that actually serve their need.”
“Until the Reformation churches were huge multi-functional spaces. There was no other centre. No pubs. No civic centres or courts. Everything happened in the parish church. Then it all got stuck. The church became a ‘God box’ full of pews. And the pews were put there not because the sermons were wonderful, but because the churchwardens could charge rent for them. But EPS is talking about the rediscovery of the medieval understanding of church buildings.”
EPS charges up to £65 an hour and £500 a day for its services, with project management fees determined by the size of the project. “People think that’s what I earn,” Mottram says. “I wish it were. We have to be realistic in our fees, which some churches find difficult to cope with because they want everything free. I’m currently taking a salary of no more than £400 a month.”
Ordained in 1979, the 53-year-old priest found his vocation after dropping out of sixth form and developing an interest in theology during an unhappy spell at teacher training college. “I’m a bit of a square peg. I find the person of Jesus Christ in the Gospels enigmatic. He took risks. He worked with dodgy people. He was not part of the Establishment. It is that persona of Jesus that inspires me now.
“I find church communities that are completely depressed about their buildings. Some just need blowing up or walking away from. But sometimes it’s because nobody gives them permission to say, ‘You can do something in this building other than just worship’.
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