Ancient village church carries out urgent roof repairs supported by Trust grant

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 loose and falling from the 12-metre-high ceiling of the church nave. The incidents included one slat falling into the congregation during a wedding – luckily into an empty pew. The fragile state of the wooden ceiling was a source of huge concern and led to two areas of the church having to be cordoned off for safety reasons.

Churchwarden Stuart Thompson said: ‘We discovered that the Victorian nails had rusted and more slats were in danger of falling.  Our inspecting architect recommended we act swiftly as the nails would continue to fail, putting those below in some jeopardy – and threatening the viability – or even closure – of the Church.’

With the SHCT grant and other funds secured, St Mary the Virgin was able to press ahead with the crucial repairs. St Mary’s has the longest church nave in Sussex so the project was a major undertaking, costing just over £30,000 in total.

Mr Thompson said: ‘Once the scaffolding was up, it became clear that the work was being done not a minute too soon. We could see from the ground that another slat was dislodged but, once the builders could inspect the structure of the ceiling, it turned out that a total of eight slats needed replacing – all of which could have fallen at any time! The apex of the nave ceiling is 12m high so any repairs are expensive and potentially complicated.’

Even though the church’s application was received some time before the next Trustees’ meeting the Trust acted quickly to award funds. Once the scaffolding was up, the builders secured the whole nave and chancel ceilings with some 2.5km of matching wooden battens - firmly nailed down either side of the wooden slats. As well as replacing the loose slats and securing the entire ceiling, the builders treated areas of extensive deathwatch beetle and woodworm damage and also painted the irons, holding the cross beams, with Hammerite.   

Mr Thompson said: ‘The works were complete by early March, thanks to the generous support of the Sussex Historic Churches Trust. It was a massive, unplanned, cost in the middle of our major reordering project at St Mary’s – a headache the Wardens and Parochial Church Council could have done without!’  

Worship continued during the essential roof repairs

Because the cost of the scaffolding was so high, the PCC decided to bring forward plans to install wiring for a new Halo thermal heating system – rather than putting up scaffolding for a second time later on and spending an additional large sum.

Mr Thompson added: ‘With the Victorian wooden ceiling safely secured for the next 100+ years, we can now press on with the next stages of our ambitious reordering project which will make St Mary’s a warm, huge and versatile space for the whole community to use and enjoy. The PCC, and all those who will now be able to sit safely in the nave and chancel, are really grateful to the Trust for their swift and generous answer to our SOS which helped make this vital repair work possible.’