Church needing urgent repairs gets Lottery boost

A 13th Century rural church plagued by damp and in need of urgent repairs has been awarded £210,000 to tackle it.

All Saints Church is nestled in the north Norfolk hamlet of Toftrees and is said to have one of the finest examples of a Norman font in Europe.

However, in recent years damp has caused the building to deteriorate, with plaster falling off the walls.

The money from the National Lottery Heritage Fund would help repair the nave and tower in the church's "race against time" to stop further damage, churchwarden Colin Vogel said.

In 2023, the church decided it needed to do something to save the building for "decades to come" - but it only had £1,000 in the bank, Mr Vogel added.

That year it was put on the Heritage at Risk Register "because things were really getting too bad".

The church had already embarked on some chancel repairs after a donation from Viscount Raynham, whose family farm surrounds the church, and grants from Norfolk Churches Trust and the Geoffrey Watling Charity, but the bulk of the works remained impossible until the latest donation.

To preserve the church's history further, the small congregation is running a separate project to record inscriptions on the churchyard memorials before they become "completely illegible".

Mr Vogel said: "This is perhaps our last chance to record for posterity the details of so many of the past inhabitants of this over 1,000-year-old hamlet and to trace their history down to the present day.

"It's got a real importance not just for the current people who live in Toftrees, but for those whose relatives did."

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