Celebrations were afoot at a village church near Sudbury, after a major renovation costing more than £500,000, which has restored the building to its best condition in centuries.
A large congregation of supporters and special guests gathered on Sunday to mark the completion of an extensive programme of repairs at St Mary’s Church, in Stoke-by-Nayland.
The Dean of St Edmundsbury Cathedral, Joe Hawes, led the service of celebration – the culmination of four years of work to save the building from a state of severe deterioration.
Other attendees included South Suffolk MP James Cartlidge, Tendring Hall estate owner Emily Holden and the Rev Stéphane Javelle, rector for Stoke-by-Nayland.
The St Mary’s Church Fabric Repair Campaign began in late 2020, when a significant portion of flint wall on the southern side of the structure collapsed.
The initial fund-raising target was set at £150,000 but, once repairs got under way, further areas of damage were uncovered, leading the project to greatly expand in scope.
In total, the cost of refurbishing the south aisle wall, chancel roof, parapets and stonework is estimated at around £590,000.
Restoration committee member Richard Channon said: “The original plan was to restore the chunk of wall that had fallen out and the chancel roof needed to be renovated completely.
“However, when we got the scaffolding up, we noticed a great deal of the rest of the wall needed to be attended to as well.
“In addition, the parapet was very shaky and virtually unsupported, so that had to come down and set up again with new stone.
“The chancel roof restoration went fine to start with, but then the parapets around there were also very shaky.
"The progress of the work has been very difficult. The work has grown greater and greater.
“I think we can say now that the parts of the church that have been worked on have not been in as good a condition for the last 500 years – basically, the condition when the church was built.”
To raise the funds for the necessary work, St Mary’s Church, which has existed in its current form since the 15th century, tapped into various funding sources.
The restoration committee successfully applied for grants from bodies such as Historic England and the Suffolk Historic Churches Trust.
In addition, there were a substantial number of individual contributions, ranging from small community pledges to large sums from private donors.
Mr Channon added that, while they can celebrate the completion of the project, their work has not finished, as further repairs are still needed to the church tower.
“We had splendid people who really dug into sources of money,” he said. “We have had extremely good support.
“We have got to the end of a very important and expensive phase, but more is needed.
“The tower is quoted as being on of the 50 finest medieval towers, but it will need work. It is in need of repairs from top to bottom.”
Published by the Suffolk Free Press.
