Welcome to Cornwall Historic Churches Trust

About Us

CHCT’s essential task is to support the historic fabric of religious buildings throughout the Duchy. Parishes can apply to us for funds which will go towards the restoration and repairs of Cornish churches.
Read more here

Grants

We offer grants, primarily for fabric repairs, to Cornish churches of all denominations which are used as places of worship. Unfortunately we cannot help closed churches or chapels. Our Smaller Projects Grant, available to Church Friends only, for projects costing less than £10,000 and our Restoration and Repair Grant for large projects up to 25% of the cost capped at a maximum of £10,000.
Read more here.

 

 

CHURCH OF THE MONTH
St German's Priory, St Germans

The Church of St Germanus, known as St Germans Priory is one of the finest, oldest and most historic parish churches in Cornwall. It is Grade 1 listed and of exceptional architectural, archaeological and historic significance. The present Church is dedicated to St Germanus of Auxerre who visited Britain twice in the mid-5th century and his relics, including bones, were venerated here by the mid-10th century. In the 930s King Athelstan confirmed St Germans as the seat of a bishop. An earlier building on the site was the cathedral for Cornwall before the area was absorbed into the Diocese of Exeter just before the Norman Conquest. The Normans then built a Priory on the site of the old cathedral, and the present church building dates to the 12th century with more original Norman masonry in its powerful and iconic west front than any other Cornish church.
The monastery had a busy port and was an important attraction for pilgrims visiting St Gemanus' relics. In September the priory marks the eastern end point of our fundraising pilgrimage for CHCT and all Cornwall's churches: visit Ride, Stride & Sail  for details.
St Germans Priory Trust has exciting plans to improve facilities to host more events in this iconic space for which CHCT awarded £500 towards scoping fees. For more information about the church visit our histories page here

GET INVOLVED

Beating the bounds at Ladock

Why your support is essential

To enable us to offer the invaluable assistance for the preservation of our Cornish heritage, we need every church in the Duchy to support and work with us so that we can be there for all in times of need.

To support more projects, we need more funds and your community can help. If each of our 218 parishes could fundraise just £100 a year for CHCT we would have in excess of £20,000 additional funding to offer annually.  Find out more here.

Cornwall Churches Day

Our main fundraising event is Cornwall Churches Day which can be held at any time during the year. We hope all parishes will get involved and raise some essential funds for both themselves and CHCT.
Find out more here.

£200 was raised for CHCT and the same for Veryan church.
A celebration of cupcakes!

Next CHCT Event

Cornwall Historic Churches Trust

Click Events Diary to see the full list of events for 2026

In the meantime why not take a virtual trip around some of Cornwall’s historic churches here or if you fancy a day out why not try one of our Drive About Trails.

Next Community Event

Cornwall Historic Churches Trust

This year CHCT is organising a joint fundraiser for all, Ride, Stride & Sail over the weekend 12/13th September. See here for details.
If your church is holding any event with proceeds split in aid of CHCT at any time let us know and we’ll advertise it here. Thank you.

Recent Fundraising

Thanks to our sponsors Taylor Money Wealth Management and Jonathan Cunliffe and all who helped on the night our Christmas Drinks Party at Scorrier on 18th December 2025 raised £5,600.

A huge thank you to all the communities who raise funds for us. Your support really does make a difference and together we can help to keep Cornish churches & chapels open for future generations. See recent fundraising results here.

EXPLORE CORNISH CHURCHES

St Winnow, Lostwithiel PL22 0LF

Church Histories

Over the years, CHCT has been encouraging individual parishes to write a local history of their church. This is a short, informative piece and is written by the local parish with the help of our historian and archivist.

Is your local church missing from the archive? Full details of how to send us your information are included in the archive here.

Arches in the Decorated Style

Reading Cornish Churches

Thanks to Joanna Mattingly, we have been privileged to be addressed by renowned experts on different stages of church architectural development. We have worked through the Romanesque, Early English, Decorated and Perpendicular periods. We have records of the lecture notes from each talk which you can view here.

Visit an interesting selection of churches on a guided drive

Drive About Tours

The annual driveabouts are created by Carole Vivian as a way of discovering 3-4 churches in a day. She writes about the history of the buildings and features to look out for and directs you from one church to another with suggestions for good places to stop for lunch en route. Trails from previous years are available for a donation of £5. Find out more here.

We are very greatful for the ongoing support of Scott & Co.
sponsors of this website.