With just six weeks to go before this year’s Ride + Stride fundraiser, excitement is building at churches right across West and East Sussex ahead of the September 13 event .   Ride + Stride plays a vital role in raising funds for places of worship and gives participants a chance to really appreciate the hundreds of gorgeous churches around our two counties.   Sponsored participants can choose to cycle, walk or even run around their planned route, visiting as many churches as possible along the way. Half the money raised goes to your nominated place of worship while the other half goes to the Sussex Historic Churches Trust, which awards grants to churches in need of urgent repair or restoration.   Ride + Stride is a nationwide event and raises more than £15 million for churches every year.   This year Ride + Stride is taking place on Saturday, September 13 from 9am to 5pm.   JustGiving makes donating easy Sussex Historic Churches Trust has a JustGiving page that makes it easy to donate funds and even enables you to set up your own JustGiving page so that your friends and family can donate directly. JustGiving also makes it easy to apply Gift Aid  - this is incredibly important as it enables us to claim an extra 25% on all Gift Aided donations.   Click JustGiving to visit our dedicated Sussex Historic Churches Trust page and, if you want to set up your own page, then click the Start Fundraising button . (If you are collecting all the money from your sponsors - directly rather than asking them to donate via JustGiving -  just click the Donate Now button)   Ride + Stride is essential so that the Sussex Historic Churches Trust   can continue its work of preserving historic places of worship, of all denominations, throughout Sussex. In the last year, the Trust has awarded nearly £100,000 to help churches carry out essential repairs and restoration. The Trust meets twice a year to approve applications and provide funds – visit our Grants page for more information.   Getting involved For full information about this year’s Ride + Stride, including route planning guidance and details on how to arrange sponsorship, just visit our Info for Participants  page. Our area by area guide  will let you know which churches are open but, if you visit a church and it’s closed, don’t worry, it still counts towards your sponsorship total!   Ride + Stride Heroes There are many heroes on Ride + Stride day  and we are always keen to hear how fundraisers have got involved. If you have a fun Ride + Stride Heroes story or you’re raising funds in memory of a loved one, just get in touch by emailing contact@sussexhistoricchurchestrust.org.uk . We look forward to hearing from you!

Fundraisers taking part in this September’s Ride + Stride on behalf of St Bartholomew's Egdean in West Sussex will be following in the footsteps of one of the county’s most prolific Ride-and-Striders.   Robert Longmore, who died in April just a few months short of his 100th birthday, was a true Ride + Stride Hero. He helped raised thousands of pounds for St Bartholomew's and the Sussex Historic Churches Trust during a highly productive 15-year tenure as local organiser.    Robert, a keen fisherman, started his career in the colonial service in Nigeria before returning to the UK and becoming a solicitor. He played an active role in the Petworth Festival and was also a director of Petworth Cottage Nursing Home. His beloved wife Nancy died at the home in 2011; the couple had been married for 57 years.    Church warden Jenny Foster said: “Robert was amazing. He organised our Ride and Stride for many years and also always walked on the day with his two dogs. Of course, not only did we have to sponsor him but we also had to sponsor his two dogs too!  Robert only stopped organising in 2021 - when he was 96 - but still carried on as a participant and also helping to man the church on the day. Robert raised about £1,000 a year with a record year in 2017 of £1,804. He often raised more than half of the entire amount raised.    “We’re now aiming to put our best foot forward this Sepember - to raise as much as we can for the cause to which he was so dedicated. 50% of the funds will go to the Sussex Historic Churches Trust and the other half directly to St Bartholomew's Egdean.”   Along with hundreds of churches throughout West and East Sussex, St Bartholomew's Egdean will be open and will be manned on Ride + Stride day - Saturday 13th September. Participants can visit as many or as few churches as works for them. It is a great way to visit many of our very varied places of worship in Sussex. as works for them. It is a great way to visit many of our very varied churches in Sussex.

A beautiful 14th-century church in Etchingham received a £10,000 grant from the Sussex Historic Churches Trust in 2023 to help towards vital repair work. The project involved repairing gutters and a cracked downpipe along with repairs to damp-damaged stonework and the removal of a tree at the church’s North Tower.   The Assumption of Blessed Mary and St Nicholas, which is a Grade I listed building, has a rich history. Construction first started in the early 1360s under the auspices of Sir William de Etchingham (1333-88) and has many interesting features, including 18 stalls and misericords, medieval glass which has been preserved in the tracery of the aisle and clerestory windows, a magnificent sedilia with provision for three priest and memorial brasses to Sir William and various members of his family. There is also a memorial to Penny Black postage stamp artist Henry Corbould who fell ill near Hurst Green while travelling back to London and is buried just inside the south entrance. Following the awarding of the Sussex Historic Churches Trust’s grant, repair work to the church started in January 2024 and was completed by last August. The tree, which was growing out of the North tower, was removed using a cherry-picker. Close matches were found for the stones used to replace damaged stones on the parapets and the church has reported that the new guttering is working well.   Caroline Moore, churchwarden and acting treasurer for Etchingham, said: “It is wonderful that the struggle to raise money for those repairs is now over. It involved endless fundraising talks etc. In our village play (itself a fundraising event for the church) one of the suspects in the spoof Agatha Christie murder mystery was a Churchwarden obsessed by raising money for the Church gutters!   “Thanks to the Trust, we have dealt with a major problem. We are deeply grateful for your help; we could not have managed the repairs without you.”

The Sussex Historic Churches Trust is delighted to announce the launch of its brand new website and logo. It’s been many years since the Trust website had a refresh and the new site is aimed at raising awareness of the Trust’s role in helping Sussex churches with repairs and restoration as well as making it easy for places of worship and individuals to get involved in fund-raising. The Sussex Historic Churches Trust was founded in 1956 to give grants for essential repairs and restoration of places of worship of architectural and historic interest throughout Sussex. The Trust's main fundraising venture is the annual sponsored Ride + Stride which is taking place this year on  September 13, 2025 . Chris Whittick, chair of the SHCT said: “Our website is often the first place potential supporters will check before donating, signing up, or getting involved. We recognise the need to help visitors interact more easily with the main areas of our work and mission and it was clearly time for an upgrade. “We are delighted with the new look and ease of navigating between the various strands of the site. It is now easier than ever to register your church for the Ride + Stride event and it is also easier to find out how to go about submitting a grant bid including a new online grant application form.” Another improvement is the creation of a new Trust logo. Chris said: “We wanted a logo that reflected the core heritage work that SHCT supports and commissioned StudioMoo, the design company involved in Chichester950, this year’s 950th anniversary of the formation of the Diocese of Chichester and Chichester Cathedral. We were really impressed with how StudioMoo captured our ideas and the result is a fine and striking logo that represents our work. “We are now ready and excited about what this year will bring and we will be encouraging all the parishes in East and West Sussex and Brighton and Hove to get on board this year with Ride + Stride. Once your church is registered for Ride + Stride , you can access your details and level at which it is open to participants and encourage more sponsorship. Don’t forget that 50% of the funds raised by participants will be going to a church or chapel building of their choice!” Since its foundation, the Trust has assisted more than 500 churches in East and West Sussex. In 2024 alone, £103,000 was awarded to 14 historic places of worship. Chris added: “The more money the Trust receives, the more help it can give! Thanks to the generosity of individuals and churches, the Trust was able to make a number of significant grants to churches in the Diocese this year.” Forest Row                              £10,000 St Leonards Christ Church    £5,000 South Stoke St Leonard        £6,000 Steyning St Andrew              £12,000 Winchelsea St Thomas         £3,000

Slindon @pic by John Morrison Massive thanks and congrats to long-distance Ride + Strider John Morrison who braved inclement weather and some very steep hills to cycle 27 miles last September raising £615. split equally between Tortington Church and the Sussex Historic Churches Trust. A magnificent feat! John wrote a fantastic write-up of his adventure which took in visits to Binstead and Madehurst churches - both of which have received grants from the Trust in recent years to fund repairs. Binstead was granted £5,000 to cover the entire bell tower in wooden shingles. Madehurst received £5,000 to carry out important and extensive restoration work dealing with rotten nails and broken tiles. To read John's fascinating report, download the PDF below.

Sussex Historic Churches Trust awarded St Mary's Pulborough a grant of £18,000 in September 2024 towards the cost of masonry repair work which church urgently needs to carry out. The project will be a major effort supported by the Friends of Pulborough Parish Church who are busy raising funds to pay for the work and who made the application for a grant. It is a tribute to Jo Wotton who masterminded the application. A church spokesperson said: "This justifies all our sponsored fundraising for this charity over the years, particularly for the sponsored Ride and Stride annual event, that we have been awarded the largest grant that the Sussex Historic Churches Trust has ever made."

A landmark church in Brighton is a step closer to removing scaffolding which has encased the building for a decade - thanks to a £10,000 grant from the Sussex Historic Churches Trust. St Peter's Church - which occupies a very prominent site in the centre of Brighton – is hoping that the grant, plus an additional £5,000 grant from the Wolfson Foundation, will mean that the scaffolding can come down soon. The church celebrated its 200th anniversary last year. A spokesperson said: "These grants will mean the church will be able to carry out urgent repairs to the building. It is hopeful that this will enable the scaffolding that is obscuring the church to finally be dismantled. “While there will still be some work after this phase to keep the building watertight and in good condition, it is a huge achievement that the historic fabric of the building will be protected again. “Without this project, there would have been further deterioration and the church would struggle to continue to host the wide-ranging community groups inside the building.” St Peter’s Church, which was designed by Sir Charles Barry, who also designed the Houses of Parliament. is a Grade II* listed building which is on Historic England’s Heritage at Risk list. The tower has been a huge concern for years due to eroding masonry and crumbling stone and rust.