The Trust

Welcome to the website of The Churches Conservation Trust!

We are the national charity protecting historic churches at risk.  We’ve saved over 340 special buildings which attract more than 1.5 million visitors a year.  With our help and with your support they are kept open, in use and free to all – living once again at the heart of their communities.

Our estate is the largest single collection of historic churches in the country, ranging from the virtually untouched medieval in idyllic rural settings, to ornately impressive Victorian in busy town centres. It includes ten challenging inner urban churches, which will need new uses and significant funds to survive.

Our churches are there for you to enjoy:

• as a visitor keen to experience the beauty and calm of these historic buildings;
• as a volunteer or member of the local community playing an active part in the life of the buildings; and
• as a supporter who cares passionately about the history which churches represent and wants to know that your financial help will ensure that all these wonderful buildings will be there for generations to come.

We were established by the 1968 Pastoral Measure: Ecclesiastical, Church of England law which is also approved by Parliament, and we celebrated our 40th birthday in 2009. The 1968 Pastoral Measure allows for churches which have been made redundant by the Church of England, for which the diocese has been unable to find any alternative use and which are of exceptional historic, architectural or archaeological significance, to be ‘vested’ in the Trust by the Church Commissioners.

The Government through the Department for Culture Media and Sport, and the General Synod of the Church of England through the Church Commissioners, have always provided much-needed core funds for the Trust.  Their grants have ensured that the buildings in our care are weathertight and safe for public use.  Neither the Trust nor our churches would have survived without them. But in 2001 these grants were frozen and, as costs and the number of churches in our care climb steadily, we need more and more help from you to be able to continue our work.

Not only that, but we all now believe that our historic churches, though officially ‘redundant’, are actually important community buildings which are central to the future of our countryside, our towns and our cities.  To begin with, they all remain consecrated and many are playing an increasingly important role in the parish as a special place for occasional worship - to the benefit of local people and clergy.  The Trust also works with local schools to engage children and young people in the history and architecture of the special buildings on their doorstep and we invest time and energy to encourage volunteers and communities to use and care for buildings on our behalf.  In some cases that means adapting the church in a sensitive way for use in the 21st century.  All these and other important efforts to bring historic churches back to life, cost money.

We hope our website will tell you what you need to know about the wonderful buildings in our care and the immensely varied conservation and community work of The Churches Conservation Trust.  But nothing can substitute for a few moments spent looking up at the ancient stonework of a Saxon tower in Norfolk or sitting peacefully in the carved splendour of a Victorian nave in East Yorkshire.  Our aim is to make it easier for you to enjoy and understand the glory of church buildings and their thousand years of English history.  When you’ve seen a few, come back and tell us what you think.

CCT is also proud to be a member of the following organisations. 

We are also proud to have been Highly Commended in the 2010 Charity Awards.