PEOPLE are being asked to sponsor “a fiver a foot” to make an historic dale church waterproof.
St Mary The Virgin Church, in Middleton-in-Teesdale, has 310 feet of guttering and downspouts that need replacing at a cost of about £80,000.
About £40,000 more is needed to make the good the damaged caused to the interior of the grade II-listed building by water that has seeped in.
Despite being turned down for a Lottery grant, church officers and their vicar, Revd Alison Wallbank, have so far raised almost £60,000 for the repairs.
Scaffolding for work on the east side of the building went up on Friday, March 23, despite worshippers still being short of their target.
Mrs Wallbank said: “We were having a morning service and all we heard was clonk-clock.
“Generations and generations have done lots of work but this is the biggy. This needs people with fundraising skills.
“We have given days of our time and each application is different so you can’t just copy and paste. It is a full time job.”
Applications demanded documents as a “statement of significance” and a “heritage strategy” , she said.
The vicar added: “It has to be to a conservation standard because this is a grade II-listed building. You can’t just slap on Dulux.”
About £2,000 had been raised via contributions from villagers and local businesses, but the bulk of the £60,000 had been achieved through grant applications, she said.
The church has now started an online fundraising page, give.net/stmarymint, where people can support the “fiver a foot” campaign.
