Trysull All Saints were awarded a grant to help towards installing a toilet at the west end of the church.  On May 11 there was a Thanksgiving service  and the Bishop of Wolverhampton was invited and formally 'cut the ribbon' opening the toilet. The toilet is very cleverly inserted into the west end porch.

The aim of the project was to re-roof above both North and South aisles of this Grade 1 listed Church. Water ingress during heavy rain and high winds posed risk of slipping to regular congregations and attendees at special services and events. On the North side, one particular objective was to prevent water entering the organ casing where complex electronic actions as well as main electric supplies were vulnerable.  Temporary protection both before and during the roofing work has avoided any further damage and permanent repairs can now be started.

At the time of our application, it was envisaged that a start to the project was to be at the end of September 2023 with completion in January 2024. It was disappointing in some ways that the start date needed to be postponed until late summer 2024 with completion in January 2025. However, an advantage was that additional funding could be applied for from organisations whose conditions included a stipulation that grants would not be awarded for projects where work had already commenced. An example is from a sum of money allocated to District Councils as part of the Government’s Levelling Up policy, under the heading ‘UK Shared Prosperity Fund’. By overlapping work on North and South sides, final completion of the whole project has been achieved in January 2025.

At a pre-start meeting, an order to the Contractor was placed for £115,875 which allowed for inflation and included contingencies and provisional sums of £7,000. These were put in because with a roofing project such as this, there is a strong possibility that extra work will be needed after existing tiles have been removed. This proved to be the case although at completion over £400 of the contingency sum was unspent. The cost to the Church included the addition of Architect’s fee and VAT. The latter will be recovered under the Listed Places of Worship Scheme.

For a roofing project such as this, the outcome has been successful and welcomed by the Church authorities who would like to emphasise their previous thanks to the Staffordshire Historic Churches Trust for its generous grant.  

A few progress and completion photos are shown below.                                                                                                                                  

                                                                                                        Report dated January 2025

Enter your text here...