Major grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund!

We recently received the wonderful news that the National Lottery Heritsge Fund had decided to award St Laurence Church the full amont requested to allow us to commnece the urgent and essential repair work on the Tower and Lychgate. The funding will also enable the project to deliver on local community ambitions, including providing information boards and educational aids for the local Blackmore Primary School; a nature trail and other artefacts that will support the local Scout Association; support for integrating local charities into our project and improvements to the interior and exterior of the church to make it more accessible. The grant, together with the locvally raised funding of over £80,000 means that the project can now proceed. Further details are included in the attached presentation that was given recently by Richard Thwaite at the Friemds of St Laurence AGM. As he reiterated "this grant is due in large part to the magnificent level of local fundraising that has been achieved by the Friends of St Laurence Church with some amazing contributions that have been made by local people and assocations including the Blackmore Village Fayre, the Brentwood and District Runners, many significant large individual donations and also the grants we received from the Benefact Trust and the Walter Farthing Trust"

Tower and Lychgate Update July 25 2024 AGM

.pptx

Download PPTX • 2.00MB

AGM Tower Fund Raising Update Oct 30th 2023

Following the Friends of St Laurence AGM on October 30th, Richard Thwaite gave a short presentation on the status of the fundraising for the Tower Repair Project and the next steps. Due to the unavailability of the Church Laptop and Projector, he was unable to show his prepared slides. These are now available to be downloaded below:

Tower and Lychgate Update Oct 23 AGM v1

.pdf

Download PDF • 1.06MB

In summary, the situation is that the current cost estimate (including inflation and contingency of over 10%) is that we will require almost £260,000 for the repair works and also to provide improved accessibility to the Tower, as well as the provision of interactive information boards to ensure that the history and heritage of the Tower is able to be enjoyed by many future generations. To date FoSL have incurred expenses of almost £14,000 in architects fees, bat survey fees and cost estimators fees. With regards to fundraising, at the time of the AGM, FoSL had raised around £50,000 for the Tower fund, which together with £10,000 that has been allocated by the PCC gives a total of £60,000.

(Subsequently to the AGM FoSL received confirmation of a £5,000 grant from the Water Farthing Trust and £6,000 from the Village Fayre, which along with other donations has meant that the total available is now £80,000).

Blackmore Fayre Major Fundraising Boost!

For last years' Blackmore Fayre the Friends of St Laurence Church were chosen as one of the 2 headline charities, and on November 24th 2023 we received the magnificent sum of £6,000 as our share of the monies raised at this 4-day event. The Friends of St Laurence Committee would like to thank the Village Fayre Committee, all the helpers and all those who attended for their generosity.

The Fayre was held on the last Bank Holiday weekend in May, and featured a open-air concert on the Green on the Saturday evening, and then 2 days of entertainment along with plenty of stalls, food vendors and attractions for the kids.

FoSL were a significant presence in the parade, thanks to the magnificent replica Bell Tower made by Ben Iddison, proprietor of the Blackmore Workshops. The FoSL committee and friends were dressed as 'Angry Birds' as the theme for the Fayre this year was Games and Gaming.

Meanwhile on the FoSL stall we had putting, chipping and bean bag throwing games, as well as a 'sponsor a shingle for £5' to allow people to effectively purchase a shingle for the Tower refurbishment. This proved to be a very successful way of raising money, and we were able to raise over £1,600 on the stall over the 2 days - selling over 300 shingles!