St Peter’s Church in Haveringland is about to embark on an ambitious programme of repairs and improvements following substantial lottery funding and a number of other grants.
The building, known as the ‘Church in the Fields’ because of its remote location, has been awarded nearly £200,000 by The National Lottery Heritage Fund to ‘Build the Future and Repair the Past’. The project includes repairs and improvements to the church building, and a range of heritage projects.
St Peters has one of the oldest round towers in Norfolk, and is also considered to be a great example of a near complete Victorian rebuild with high-quality glass and carpentry. The church building is set to be made wind and weatherproof, plus automatic door opening, wheelchair access, heating and lighting, and a water supply.
The project includes a new ‘welcome area’ just inside the main entrance to the church with space for information and souvenirs such as a new Church Guide and an interactive console to enable people to access historical information.
Alongside the works – which will begin next summer – there are projects to research and present aspects of local history over the next three years, including a ‘Victorian Village’ which features a local primary school making puppets and putting on a play about life in the 19th century, with a reference to Haveringland Hall which once stood close to the Church. Performances of a play that tells the story of ‘St William’ of Norwich are also planned.
The church, which is the only public building in Haveringland, is only open for a few services and a growing programme of events each year. It has been deemed a ‘Festival Church’, which is a way of keeping otherwise struggling churches open and serving a range of communities as well as local residents. There are links to the service personnel at the Second World War RAF airfield that once stood close the Church; it was the building of the airfield that required the surrounding woodland to be felled – hence ‘The Church in the Fields’.
St Peters is also striving to improve local biodiversity- its award-winning Conservation Churchyard is the focus for other environmental action to spread to the surrounding landscape; with an avenue of trees planted on the track leading to the Church five years ago and plans to work with local landowners to create more nature friendly habitats and food sources.
A new community group- ‘Haveringland Together’- is already looking at raising further funds to complete stage 2 of the overall project, which would install an internal all-access toilet and galley kitchen.
Commenting on the award, local vicar the Revd Andrew Whitehead said:
“This grant is fantastic news for our church! This generous lottery funding will help us to realise our exciting vision of a church serving its community in new ways, as well as securing a precious historic building for generations to come.”
Churchwarden Nigel Boldero, who led the funding applications, said: “It is fantastic to get this support, not only from the Heritage Fund, but a number of other sources. We can now continue our research into local history and start to tell these wonderful stories in a variety of ways to a wide range of people.”
This story, together with the picture of the people involved, is based on an article from the Diocese of Norwich newsletter.
The photo of Haveringland Church is courtesy of NorfolkChurches.co.uk .
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Tony Rothe, 12/12/2022
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