It has been a cold start to 2026, but the arrival of snow has provided a lovely canvas to our county’s churches, as at Hingham, St Andrew pictured here.
2026 is an important year for the Trust as we celebrate our 50th anniversary.
Over the past five decades, the Trust has awarded more than £7 million in grants to 732 churches, helping parishes address urgent repairs and conserve some of the county’s most precious historic buildings. This support has been vital in keeping churches open, safe and at the heart of their communities. Despite what has been achieved, there is still much to do. Churches across the county remain in urgent need of help with repairs to failing roofs, rainwater goods, and the conservation of their magnificent interiors. Throughout our 50th anniversary year, the Trust will be launching a series of initiatives to strengthen support for churches into the future including –
- A Skills & Maintenance Day: Saturday, 18th April – A celebratory day showcasing the craftspeople who care for Norfolk’s historic churches, featuring hands-on workshops and demonstrations. The day will also offer guidance on funding opportunities and practical church care and will see the launch of our Heritage Skills Scholarship, more details on this will follow shortly.
- A new grant scheme to help with the installation of automated locking systems – 50 grants of £1,000 are available to any church that is suitable. Please follow link for further information and to submit your application.
We have added up all the forms and banked the cheques and we are delighted to announce the total for the 2025 Bike Ride, Walk & Drive, the fantastic sum of £115,527.99. Thank you to everyone who has contributed in any way to that total. Since its inception in 1983 more than £4.5 million has been raised from this annual event, with proceeds going directly to support Norfolk churches with repair projects.
Thank you to everyone who sent in photographs of their day, we have loved seeing them and have selected the winners in the three categories of the Photography Competition.
Spirit of the Day – Mark Pfeiffer for ‘Bikes and Bales,’ above. Our Bike Ride team felt ‘that this joyous photograph of this bike ride gang on bales with Sea Palling church in the background summed up the Spirit of the Day category. It really exuded the feeling of a good fun day spent in the extraordinary Norfolk countryside with its big skies and expansive landscape, cleverly capturing the tower of the church beneath a fellow bike riders arms. Just great. We all loved it.’ Mark said ‘it was a very special day and the event has been a regular family and friends event since the early 2000’s. We concur with his belief that, Bicycles, churches and Norfolk really are a winning combination!
Exterior – Helen Barber – Our Bike Ride team felt that ‘this sunny photograph of the bright red bicycle in front of St Andrew’s Little Massingham, with the bright yellow flowers singing out either side of the porch was a wonderful, positive record of a happy day.’ Helen said ‘our small church has gratefully received grants from your Trust and the PCC thought it suitable for your competition.’
Interior – Gill Ashby – Our Bike Ride team loved the beautifully composed photograph of the Harvest Window at the church of All Saints, Kettlestone, capturing the rainbow and the parallel line of sunshine that falls across the still life that had been created on the altar. It really is a very lovely photograph. Gill and her husband took part together, and certainly captured the changeable weather on the day.
We will be announcing the winners of the Most Improved Church Award and the Lord Lieutenant’s Certificate shortly, and giving you more details from the 2025 event.
Looking forward, we have exciting plans and new features for the Bike Ride, Walk & Drive for the Trust’s 50th anniversary year, so watch this space!
We will be continuing our Coffee, Clean & Chat sessions in the Leased Churches in our Care. No experience needed, we will supply everything, including delicious cake! One of our Trustees will be on hand to give a brief talk on the history of the church.
Dates for your diary are :-
Tuesday 3rd February – West Rudham, St Peter PE31 8TE
Tuesday 3rd March – Cockthorpe, All Saints NR23 1QS
Tuesday 14th April – Snetterton, All Saints NR16 2LR
We would love to meet you and speak to you about the work that we do, so please do join us if you can between 10.00 and 12.30 on those dates. You can download one of our flyers here.
The Trust directly looks after thirteen churches, and once these are all spick and span, we will be running two tours which will take in eight of these churches. These self-drive tours will give you the opportunity to discover, their history, architecture and stories in the company of Ecclesiastical Historian, John Vigar, who will bring each building to life with expert insight and engaging commentary. Each tour is priced at £20 for a member and £30 for a non-member. Light refreshments will be available at the final church of the day.
Tour 1: Wednesday 8th July – Bagthorpe, St Mary; Barmer, All Saints; Dunton, St Peter’s, and West Rudham, St Peter. Timings are 11am to approximately 4pm, the tour will involve around 20 minutes driving between the four churches, plus a suggested lunch stop in Fakenham. More information and booking details can be found here.
Tour 2: Wednesday 22nd July – Hargham, All Saints; Snetterton All Saints; Illington St Andrew, and Lynford, Our Lady of Consolation & St Stephen. Timings 11am to approximately 4pm, this tour will involve around 40 minutes driving between the four churches, plus a local lunch stop. For more information and to book this tour, follow this link.
The Trust is planning many more interesting and varied events for the coming months, these will appear on the Events page of our website, so do check regularly for all the latest information.
Organising a fundraising event at your church? Then why not send the details to media@norfolkchurchestrust.org.uk and we can promote these for you on our website. They will appear on our dedicated Fundraising Events organised by Local Parish Church page.
Tickets are selling fast for the first Billa Harrod Lecture which is taking place at Bylaugh Hall on Friday 24th April. Our speaker is John Goodall, Architectural Editor of Country Life. The title of the talk, Parish Churches the Fight for Survival, is a subject that was dear to Lady Harrod’s heart. The Talk priced at £35pp, includes drinks and canapes and the opportunity for questions following the lecture.
England’s parish churches constitute a living patrimony without precise European parallel, their architecture and fittings constituting a palimpsest of our social, political and religious history over the last millennium and more. The oldest of these buildings have been lucky survivors many times. At the present moment, however, they face multiple new threats. This talk will consider what issues lie at the heart of these existential problems and suggest ways in which it may be possible to save them, their contents, and their character for future generations.
For more information and to book, follow this link.
Something that may be of interest to Trust supporters – Professor Susan Whitfield of the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Art and Culture (SISJAC) will be giving a talk at Norwich Cathedral Hostry (also available online via Zoom) entitled Pilgrimage from Nara to Norwich: Commonalities Across Cultures and Religions
This talk will consider the medieval context and modern growth of pilgrimage, focussing on pilgrimages in Japan and England. How different are the motives for pilgrims — and for those promoting pilgrimage—now and in the past and between cultures and religions? This talk is free, however in person places are limited, to book your in-person place email sisjac@sainsbury-institute.org , or for online attendance via SISJAC’s event page.
Proceeds from fundraising events, such as those outlined above, go directly to support grant funding. As previously mentioned, the Trust has awarded more than £7 million in grants to 732 churches over the last fifty years. One of the first in 1976 was for £43.20, in recent years as much as £10,000 has been given as an individual grant. These have been for a wide range of urgent repairs and conservation projects.
Small grants have also been offered for structural survey and conservation reports when a parish does not have the funds to pay for this essential first step in developing a repair project.
Our Grants Committee convenes three times a year and the closing date for applications for the next round of grants is Thursday 5th February. If your parish requires a grant, or some advice about the process, see our Grants Page for more information.
Don’t forget our Monthly Blog which this month focuses on Norfolk’s churches and their nautical links, read it here.
Finally, thank you to those of you who purchased Trust Christmas cards. We had a bumper year and raised more than £2,600, which is a great boost to our funds.
You can download a condensed version of this newsletter for your church notice board here.
Thank you for your support and we look forward to sharing this celebratory year with you
