Why churches deserve love
Heart-break and history
What is more heart-breaking than having dedicated your existence to one special place, only to find yourself left alone in a field, miles from anywhere, no longer visited as your looks begin to fade. Many of our churches at the CCT have faced a desperate future but thanks to our work, 353 of them really are loved.
TLC for churches
Each of our churches has a basic care package: we fix them, conserve them, maintain them, open them to the public and try to find people who can love them a little more deeply. Most of our churches no longer have congregations, so our job is to seek and encourage a new community to care for these wonderful buildings. Our staff talk to local movers and shakers, research leads, put out adverts, drink tea and eat cake and – in the course of all that – they find that there are many people who love these churches after all. Once we find one person who cares, more come along and soon you have a group of people who get behind the site, ensuring that it is open, cleaned and loved.
Spreading the love
We don’t just support the maintenance and repair of the church: we support these caregivers too, by offering staff time, resources and advice. Our volunteer teams go on to do tremendous work, providing fundraising and support for many initiatives. A great example is St Andrew, Walpole, where local people and our South East team are working together to raise money, fix the roof and breathe life back into the building.
Snuggle up
Don’t worry if you are not near one of our sites – you can always find love a different way. Champing™ provides an amazing opportunity to spend quality time with one of our extraordinary buildings. Once inside, you’ll have the building to yourself, so you can really get to know it. Our Champers™ – who numbered over 1600 last year – have developed a relationship with our churches that they would have never found any other way. The feedback is incredible and people who never even realised that they could love a historic church have discovered that they do after all! If you book before the end of February then you will get 10% off your stay.
Send love to Sunderland
This Valentine's Day, we're also asking people to share the love and send support to the beautiful Holy Trinity church in Sunderland. This 300-year-old building was once at the heart of Old Sunderland, but now it stands isolated and is in urgent need of repairs. We’re waiting with fingers crossed on news of a Heritage Lottery Fund bid and have already raised £30,000 through our public campaign to save the building and transform it into a cultural and community venue. But we need a further £20,000 by the end of March. This church deserves a happy ending! So please donate and share the building's story today.
Historic churches are for everyone. You never know where and when you will fall in love with one of our collection. The best way to unlock your love for historic churches is to meet them. Each one is unique and has a special sense of place: you may love the bustle of the centre of York or the tranquillity (and the view) of Warminghurst, to name but two.
If your heart is already filled with love for our fabulous churches then join us as a member and you can love them all!