You may have seen the article in the Teesdale Mercury in August 2021 and if not, this is a summary of our good news!

St. Andrew’s Church, Winston has just received the tremendous news that the National Churches Trust has awarded them £15,000 and the Wolfson Foundation has awarded £7,000 towards the cost of the replacement Nave roof, which will enable them to complete their ten year programme of making the church watertight for the next 100 years or over.

It was identified ten years ago that the chancel and nave roofs needed replacement and the church was put on the At Risk register by English Heritage due to the water ingress and need for replacement of tiles and rotten roof timbers and for repairs to the walls of the Chancel. To enable us to get the church off the At Risk register it was recommended that the project be split into two projects with the Chancel Roof to be done first (completed 2014) followed by the Nave roof.

Fund raising was started immediately with Flower Festivals, Open Gardens, Christmas Tree Festivals, Christmas Markets, Summer garden parties, raffles, nearly new sales, organ recitals and cheese and wine evenings. All of which have been supported by the local and wider communities, developing friendships as new residents to the village have offered their help and support. The Parochial Church Council would like to thank them for their overwhelming support and generosity over the years resulting in £70,000 being raised of the about £300,000 spend when the total project is complete.

We have also been generously supported by grant providers over these two projects with English Heritage being the main grant provider for the Chancel roof and the Garfield Weston Trust, National Churches Trust, Wolfson Foundation, The Hedley Trust, Durham Diocese, Allchurches Trust, Northumbria Historic Churches Trust and the Sir John Priestman Trust being the supporters for the Nave Roof. Their support have enabled this small parish of Winston of approximately 200 houses to save their medieval church for future generations.

Joyce Wilson, Churchwarden

The scaffolding was put up for the work on the Nave roof to start in September removing the old slates, repairing any timber work as needed, putting on new battens and new slates, renewing the guttering and any repairs to the ceiling. After this, the church was redecorated internally and electrical circuits upgraded and LED lighting installed, before reopening the church. We have had to move all the removeable items from the nave and protect the organ and covers will be placed over everything, as there was a lot of dust during the work but it was worth it to complete the work of ensuring the roof will be watertight/weatherproof hopefully for the next 100 years!

Thank you all for your very generous support over the last 10 years, without your help towards matched funding grants we may have been facing a much different future for our parish church building.

Lynne Lobley, PCC lay chair