Vital restoration projects at St Peter’s Church in Stetchworth, near Newmarket, costing over £280,000 virtually complete

Two vital restoration projects at a village church near Newmarket costing more than £280,000 are all but completed.

The refurbishment work at St Peter’s Church in Stetchworth got under way earlier this year and involved removing the hard render from the exterior of the chancel, vestry and organ loft and replacing it with a breathable material called harling a mixture of lime and aggregate.

Plaster which had sustained water damage also had to be removed from the interior of the walls of the Grade II listed church, which then had to be re-plastered and re-decorated.

The second part of the work was to repair the walls and windows of the church’s tower and the spire-like pinnacles at each of its four corners bearing stone balls two of which were missing and had to be replaced.

Church warden Lily Whymer, who with her fellow wardens, her husband Michael, and Alastair France, have worked tirelessly to secure grants towards the cost of the work, said it was a huge relief to see it nearing completion.

“It’s a huge achievement for a small village,” said Lily, who in 2018 was awarded the British Empire Medal recognising her work for the parish church over the previous 25 years.

That included completing the grant applications to funding bodies such as English Heritage for a 2013, a renovation project costing in excess of £300,000 which saw the church re-wired, have new heating installed and its north wall underpinned.

Lily had to make a new round of grant applications for the current works. “There is a huge amount of work and stress which goes into the applications,” said Lily who managed to secure funds from the Cambridgeshire Historic Churches Trust, the Benefact Trust, the Garfield Weston Foundation, the Jack Patston Trust and the Thalia WB Community Fund.

“There was also local fund-raising and donations,” said Lily, “for which we are very grateful. There had been some money left over from the previous work but a lot of that was needed towards the vestry repair and that left us with hardly anything and ​to get the grants you have to show you have some money there.

“Fortunately a local benefactor stepped in to help and we also received a generous donation from another parishioner who was most keen to see the church preserved and repaired.”