Our rector Eileen joined us in 2016 and she was also the vicar of St Mary's in Gainford. She has led us with great enthusiasm and joy throughout lots of services, weddings, baptisms and other events over the last 10 years, through good times and difficult times. She was appointed to serve nearby churches in Staindrop and Ingleton too three years ago after a period of vacancy for their churches. She worked very hard to ensure services were available weekly in each church as well as her role in the Gather Church initiative locally and many national roles on race and equality issues.At her last service in Winston church, we presented her with a glass stand engraved with St Andrew's church as a reminder of her time with us, we will miss her but wish her and Brian well for their future in their new home.
We were able to complete repairs for the chancel roof and walls in 2014 which were the most urgently needed. We raised a lot of money locally and had grants awarded, including from the English Heritage Lottery Fund to enable this to be undertaken. The contractor was Team Force Ltd of Gateshead and our architect is David Beaumont of Brown, Beaumont Architects LLP of Castle Eden.We then had to raise funds to renew the roof on the nave and are grateful for all the support we have had to our fundraising events. With the award of matched funding grants, we were able to commence the work.The scaffolding was erected around the nave in the week commencing Monday 24 August for the work to commence on 1 September. The contractor is Dan Ransom Roofing and Building Ltd of Darlington, with our architect David Beaumont. The roof was stripped and new membrane layer, batons and new Welsh slates were put in place with the work finishing on time at the end of October, despite all the strong winds and rain. The scaffolding was removed and from the outside the church would have been ready to open.However, the inside was still receiving attention. Scaffolding was erected to do minor repairs to the ceiling as a result of removing the roof, and the whole church was redecorated and the lighting rewired taking advantage of this scaffolding. With the help of volunteers we were able to polish all the woodwork and restore the church for use for services once more, together with some decorations for Christmas. This was completed on 16th December.The church was able to hold the first service on 20 December and on Christmas Day morning. It was so good to be back!Then another lockdown was imposed and we decided to close the church for services for the safety of people through the risk of transmission of the virus. We are returning to celebrate Easter Sunday and look forward to being able to reopen the church more for private prayer and for visitors as the lockdown is eased over the next few weeks.After 3 months of holding services on 2 Sundays each month and opening for private prayer/visitors on 2 days each week, the church will return to full opening times from 1 July 2021.You are welcome to visit our church but we would ask you to comply with the Covid restrictions notice in the porch and entrance to the church whilst they still apply.
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, ChurchwardenThe 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
