News stories

In April, the 12th-century church of St Mary in the West Sussex village of Binsted received a £24,000 grant from the Sussex Historic Churches Trust – the largest single award the Trust has ever made. Four months on and the church’s ambitious programme of repairs is well under way with restoration work to the buttresses and west window now completed. During this process, the contractors Tilley Stonemasons also managed to clean and replace the polycarbonate that’s protecting

One of the longest-serving Ride+ Stride organisers in Sussex is finally passing on the baton after helping to raise funds for St Mary's Storrington and the Sussex Historic Churches Trust for over 20 years. Sheila Ward has been a driving force in helping St Mary's and its legion of sponsored Ride + Stride participants to raise funds for the ancient church. In the last five years alone, St Mary's Ride + Stride participants have raised more than £4,500. St Mary's dates back we

We are delighted that this year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Sussex Historic Churches Trust. During that time, hundreds of thousands of pounds have been awarded in grants to more than 500 churches and places of worship across East and West Sussex. St Peter's, Brighton How we started By the middle of the 20th century, many historic parish churches right across the UK were in a very poor state of repair. This was the result of many social and economic facto

The Ride + Stride fundraiser on September 12 coincides fortuitously with this year’s Heritage Open Day event which sees thousands of buildings nationwide open their doors to the public.

An enterprising and motorbike-mad vicar from Midhurst is embarking on an epic pilgrimage at the end of this month to raise much-needed funds for the Sussex Historic Churches Trust. The Revd Marcus Collie, vicar of Midhurst and Rector of All Hallows, Woolbeding, plans to pray in 100 churches across the Diocese of Chichester – traversing right from one end of Sussex to the other on the back of his newly-acquired Suzuki V-Strom. Marcus’s five-day pilgrimage gets underway on

A record-breaking £24,000 grant will help fund an ambitious programme of repairs and restoration at the 12th-century Church of St Mary in the village of Binsted, near Arundel in West Sussex. The grant, awarded by the Sussex Historic Churches Trust, is the largest single grant ever made by the Trust to a parish church and reflects the scale and urgency of the work facing the Grade II* listed building. Among the most pressing concerns are repairs to the church’s 13th-centur

The Sussex Historic Churches Trust (SHCT) has awarded £40,000 in its latest round of grants in April including a record-breaking £24,000 to the 12th-century Grade II* listed St Mary’s in Binsted. Grants from the Trust play an invaluable role, countywide, in helping churches carry out essential care and conservation of their historic buildings and the grants are often the ‘make or break’ factor in enabling church repairs to go ahead. To read more about earlier church ‘success

A £7,500 grant from the Sussex Historic Churches Trust came just in the nick of time for the 800-year-old, Grade 1 listed church in Salehurst. St Mary the Virgin, originally built by the Cistercian monks of Robertsbridge Abbey, is mentioned in the Domesday Book; the present building dates back to the early 13 th century. The church applied for the Sussex Historic Churches Trust grant as a matter of urgency in December after components of the wooden roof started coming lo

Scaffolding that has enshrouded the tower of St Peter’s Church in Brighton has finally come down after more than a decade. The tower of the Grade II* listed building has been a huge concern for years due to eroding masonry and crumbling stone and rust. Often dubbed Brighton’s cathedral, the church one of the city’s most prominent landmarks and is considered one of the finest examples of the pre-Victorian Gothic Revival style. Restoration work has been going on for more than 1

A £6,000 grant awarded to the ancient parish church has helped to fund a major project to re-tile the entire roof. St Leonard’s in South Stoke, near Arundel, was built in the 11th century and has been a sacred place for almost a thousand years. Described on Visit Arundel website as a “hidden gem”, the tiny flint church is situated in one of the most stunning parts of the South Downs National Park overlooking the River Arun. The church has no electricity or water and is l