£1.67 million grant award for Grade I listed St Peter’s, Sudbury
We are delighted to announce that St Peter's Church, Sudbury, has received a £1.67 million grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to transform it into an exciting cultural and community venue, fit for the 21st Century. Led by CCT, with support from volunteers and partners from the local and regional community, the ambitious project will repair and adapt a landmark Grade I listed building into a renewed multi-purpose venue for community and corporate events, performance, heritage, arts and learning activities. Work is due to start on-site in October 2021 and is anticipated to take around 12 months to complete.
Since medieval times, St Peter’s has sat at the heart of Sudbury in Suffolk, overlooking the town’s bustling historic market place. The building has been used and cared for by the local community for many years, but is now in need of urgent repairs and a viable and sustainable future. The project will give the historic building a new lease of life and enable an exciting expanded programme of cultural events, learning activities for schools and families, closer working relationships with key organisations and businesses, and create a range of new employment and volunteering opportunities.
It will ensure that urgent repairs to the roof are undertaken, along with the inclusion of a new fully accessible upper mezzanine floor, installation of toilets and development of a new café and bar area. Crucially it will make it possible to unleash St Peter’s full potential and secure its future for generations to come.
St Peter’s sits at the centre of wider regeneration plans for Sudbury, and in addition to The National Lottery Heritage Fund’s award of £1.67 million, we are grateful to have received additional support from donors including Babergh District Council and the New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership Growing Places Fund. This is in addition to more than £100,000 raised by The Friends of St Peter's.
Peter Aiers, Chief Executive of The Churches Conservation Trust, said:
“We are delighted to have received support from the National Lottery for this ambitious project to transform St Peter’s into a first-class cultural centre; a project that will revolutionise opportunities for people to take part in and experience heritage and the arts in Sudbury as well as supporting the long term sustainability of this wonderful historic church. We extend our huge thanks to the National Lottery players and The National Lottery Heritage Fund for this award, and express our deep gratitude to the Friends of St Peter’s, who supported the development of the plans, and all who have helped fund and progress this important project”.
Anne Jenkins, Director, England, Midlands & East at The National Lottery Heritage Fund, added:
“From our conversations with National Lottery players we know that community heritage is incredibly important to them. It is thanks to those players that we are able to support this fantastic project that will provide a multi-purpose space to bring the communities of Sudbury together to explore their heritage and take part in a host of exciting cultural activities.”