Winchester Cathedral has launched Stone by Stone, a £1.5m project to conserve the stone on the outside of its 900-year-old Gothic building and is asking the public for help.
Winchester Cathedral launches Stone by Stone, a 10-year project to conserve the South Nave Aisle
The Cathedral is asking people to sponsor a stone to help raise the estimated £1.5m needed to complete this vital conservation.
Members of the public are invited to be a cornerstone of the campaign and to leave their mark on the building. A gift of £500 supports cleaning and repair of a single stone in return for an invitation to a special tour and talk. Donors giving £1,000 will see their initials – or those of a loved one – carved on the back of a stone, and an invitation to a special tour and talk.
Winchester Cathedral Director of Development Alasdair Akass said:
“We need to act now to arrest the deterioration of our stone.
‘This is a unique opportunity to contribute to the ongoing conservation of this most precious of buildings – and to see your initials carved in stone.
‘We invite everyone to find out more and to support us at whatever level they can afford.
‘The Cathedral has enjoyed a long history of public support and generosity and, without it, given that we receive no regular routine or operational funding from either government or the Church of England, we would struggle to meet our obligations to sustain and conserve this remarkable building for future generations.”
The fundraising appeal comes just days after a new report by THEOS, funded by the Church Commissioners’ Cathedral Sustainability Fund and the Association of English Cathedrals (AEC) was presented to the National Cathedrals Conference in Bristol.
Living Stones: English cathedrals as sacred spaces in changing times celebrated the contribution made by the country’s cathedrals but warned that they are in “serious difficulty”, with 80 per cent in structural deficit and they urgently needfinancial support for them to survive.
The family of the late Revd Canon Gary Philbrick is already supporting the Stone by Stone project, and is pictured visiting the scaffold in spring this year.
Revd Chris Palmer, Dean of Winchester, has also climbed the scaffold to see the work, and even took a chisel to some of the stonework himself (pictured).
The external wall of the South Nave Aisle requires vital conservation work to ensure it remains safe, sound and beautiful for generations to come.
This decade-long project involves the painstaking dedication of its small in-house team of stonemasons.
Winchester Cathedral is one of only 11 English cathedrals that is part of the Cathedrals Workshop Fellowship (CWF), a collaborative partnership dedicated to preserving traditional heritage skills. Work will be undertaken by the Cathedral’s heritage craftspeople.
The programme of work includes:
- Cleaning, conserving and repointing historic masonry
- Repairing, replacing and hand-carving stonework, including grotesques and gargoyles where necessary
- Conserving medieval stained glass, undertaken by specialist contractors working alongside the Cathedral stonemasons
To read more about Stone by Stone, click here.
You can read the THEOS report here.
