Great news! This article appeared recently in the Darlington & Stockton Times! It’s fantastic news that Over Silton Church has received such a massive boost from The Heritage Lottery Fund! Thank you HLF!

Very well done to John Inch, our church warden/FOSC committee member, for working so hard to gain £28,000 from the HLF towards the vestry roof repairs.  Grateful thanks also to the Wolfson Foundation Partnership, Churchcare, and the Allchurches Trust for their generous donations, together with a further £12,000 from another 2 donors, all of which helps tremendously towards the rest of the funding needed.

Unfortunately it is going to cost more than this to do all the necessary repairs to the church, and so we will try to explain as follows:

1.  The Chancel roof will be repaired this summer thanks to the Trinity College Cambridge Chancel Repair Liability being accepted by them for up to 99% of the cost.  The Friends of Over Silton Church have fundraised hard and are now able to contribute the other 1%. The total tender cost estimate is some £120,000

2.  The Vestry roof will be replaced and the existing concrete drainage channels removed, to be replaced at a lower level by new soakaways to improve the damp levels inside the Church. The Vestry roof and the drainage channel can be repaired at the same time thanks to the Heritage Lottery donation and generosity of other funding as mentioned above.

3. All of the grants were given specifically for roof and fabric repairs to the church but unfortunately do not include the boundary wall.  Despite John’s efforts with applications none of the grants were willing to give towards the boundary wall.  This means it is not covered by any external funding to date, apart from £500 which has already been pledged to the Siltons PCC by us, the Friends of Over Silton Church. It has collapsed in one corner and the whole of the south wall is in danger of collapsing at any time.

So, 2 out of 3 isn’t bad!

The aim of the Friends of Over Silton Church now is to fundraise to try and provide the funds urgently needed for the work on the boundary wall, but it will cost a great deal more than the £500 already raised by us to complete the repairs. There are strict regulations to be followed regarding the type of mortar to be used etc and this work may be quite expensive. Tenders are already out and hopefully a builder will be appointed very soon. Fortunately the wall repairs can be done a bit at a time, obviously starting with the most urgent parts.

So – the plea for saving the wall is on! Thank you so much to all supporters of FOSC who have already generously given donations and supported our events, we cannot do this without you! The FOSC have made this a priority and our fundraising events are now geared specifically for the wall repairs.  Please look out for up and coming events being advertised!

Once again, thanks to absolutely everyone who has contributed in any way towards the upkeep of the church.