Sussex Historic Churches Trust helps medieval church with roof repair

St John the Baptist, a Grade 1-listed medieval church in the tiny village of Westbourne near Emsworth in West Sussex, is celebrating a beautifully-restored roof, thanks in part to an £8,000 grant from Sussex Historic Churches Trust.

The tiled roof over the north aisle and nave of the church – a structure which dates back to the 13^th century – was fully recovered in 1950, but since then had started to deteriorate. An investigation in 2018 showed that the battens supporting the tiles were beginning to fail and were also suffering from “nail fatigue”, where nails corrode to such a degree that they no longer work. By 2023 it was clear that re-roofing the north slope of the roof was the only solution.

 Church treasurer Stewart Taylor said: “We could tell there had been significant deterioration of the clay tile covering and knew the situation was only going to become steadily worse  - especially if we had periods of intense rainfall and strong winds.

In January last year, the church embarked on a major fundraising campaign, applying for grants from various bodies  - including the Sussex Historic Churches Trust, as well as raising awareness locally with social media, website posts and magazine articles plus a very prominent “Help Save Our Roof” roadside banner.

Mr Taylor added: “Westbourne is something of a rat-run for drivers trying to avoid the Chichester bypass and the banner was right smack in the eye as people drove past. It all really helped. Also donations from our church congregation and the local community were considerably better than we expected.”

All about the bats Overall the project came to £84,000 but one of the bigger costs involved a series of mandatory bat surveys. The whole restoration plan was predicated on the surveys which can only be carried out at certain times of the year. Specialist ecologists conducted the surveys in the spring and summer of 2024 and, fortunately, no bats were detected. Local building firm T Couzens and Sons was able to start work in October 2024.

Mr Taylor said: “The £8,000 grant from the Sussex Historic Churches Trust was one of the more generous contributions but, more importantly, it had a real snowball effect and encouraged other Trusts and donors to support us as well. If you can show that you’re getting support from charities like the Sussex Historic Churches Trust, that increases the confidence of other grant givers and donors.”

Once the project was underway, the church was delighted to discover that most of the roof timbers were sound and that a substantial number of the existing clay tiles could be reused with matched second-hand tiles used for the remainder. All the failed battens and nails were replaced and new bat-friendly roofing felt was installed.”

St John the Baptist was one of nine churches that received grants from the Trust in April 2024. Since then, a further 10 churches have been awarded grants totalling nearly £100,000.

Ride + Stride

St John the Baptist is open for Ride + Stride on September 13 this year and managed to raise nearly £900 at last year’s event. For more details on Ride +  Stride, please click here.