Cornwall Churches Day – Cornwall Historic Churches Trust

Why should your community take part in Cornwall Churches Day?

The important message is that any money raised is split between your parish PCC and the CHCT 50/50, thereby benefiting the parish and also supporting our vision of providing an insurance policy for when your parish church needs help for larger projects that seem overwhelming. The CHCT can offer local knowledge and often when they support an application larger more wealthy bodies are minded to follow suit.

In 2018 we awarded £80,000 in grants to Cornish churches & chapels. In addition to this we were able to advise and direct parishes to other organisations that could offer large areas of financial support. However the reality is that the total combined project costs of churches making applications to us in 2018 was just shy of £2,000,000 therefore, it is clear that we need to be able to offer more assistance and thus why we are reaching out to all the parishes within the county to highlight what we can do with your help.

The most effective way of raising money is for each parish to organise an event of their own. It does not have to be on the second Saturday in September but the important thing is to let us know the what is happening so that we can highlight every parish’s events on our website.

In 2016 Devon achieved a county result of just over £92,000 with £46,000 for Devon Historic Churches Trust, the other half having been retained by the contributing parishes. Cornwall by comparison raised just over £4,000 with £2,000 donated to CHCT. If Cornwall’s 250 parishes could raise £100 each for CHCT we would be looking at £25,000, imagine if we improved on this and were able to raise £200 or more per parish.

With times getting ever tougher for all parishes, we need to join together to look after our county’s unique architectural gems. We have more late medieval remains in this county than anywhere else in the country and we need our communities help do that we can continue to support them in preserving Cornish churches and chapels for our appreciation now and for future generations.

If you would like more information on how you can support CHCT please contact your area representative using the form below.

Community Fundraising

2024

St Austell

St Mary’s Biscovey and Good Shepherd Church Par – £325

East Wivelshire

Maker with Rame – sponsored Bicycle Ride – £175

Carnmarth South

St Gluvyas – Afternoon Tea at the CHCT Annual Meeting – £81

Penwith

St Hilary – Friends’ Outing with Cream Tea – £195

Pendeen with Morvah – Morvah Church Walk and Cream Tea – £140

Pydar

St Mawgan-in-Pydar – Talk by Andrew Langdon with tea – £229.50

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Illuminating Cornish Lantern Crosses

Andrew Langdon gave a brilliant talk at St Mawgan-in-Pydar on 18th April 2024 based on his book “Illuminating Cornish Lantern Crosses” co-written with Ann Preston-Jones. Seventy people attended raising £459 split between the PCC and CHCT as part of the Cornwall Churches Day initiative.

We were blessed with rare (this year) spring sunshine to view St Mawgan’s Lantern Cross, the old St Mawgan Cross brought from what is now part of the airfield to the churchyard and the 10th Century Lanherne Cross in the adjacent convent afterwards. A great day out. Thank you to Rev Helen Baber and David and Jackie Oglethorpe for welcoming CHCT to your church.

St Neot Midsummer Event

A thoroughly enjoyable evening was enjoyed by 120 people at Trevenna, St Neot celebrating Midsummer and raising the magnificent sum of £2,500 for church funds. CHCT is immensely grateful to the PCC for donating £500 of this to us. Thanks are due to PCC member Jonathan Rowe for allowing St Neot Church to use his wedding venue, Trevenna, Mandy and all the staff at Trevenna plus all the community volunteers who dressed the marquee, set up the games, entertainment and music.

Going to Church in Medieval Cornwall

Friends assembled at St Julitta’s at Lanteglos-by-Camelford for our Annual Meeting on 25th May 2022 and were privileged to be addressed by Canon Professor Nicolas Orme, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Exeter on the subject “Going to Church in Medieval Cornwall”. His illuminating talk made all those attending wiser and is best summed up by a remark overheard afterwards “We would have flocked to lectures at university if Nicholas Orme had been teaching us.” For those who missed it his book “Going to Church in Medieval England” is available and has been shortlisted for various prizes.
Afterwards we were treated to a sumptious tea which raised £200 split between the PCC and the CHCT as St Julitta’s Cornwall Churches Day event for this year.