Assessing the Challenges for Managing Historic Major Parish Churches
England has a fantastic heritage of large, historically significant parish churches. Historic England is working with partners to understand what special challenges may face people in managing and caring for this particular type of place of worship in our changing 21st century society.
There are more than 200 historic parish churches in England with a floor space of more than 1000m2. However, until now no research had ever been done to try to understand whether there are particular challenges or opportunities that make them harder or easier for their congregations to maintain and sustain than the 14,790 smaller listed places of worship.
Historic England, National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF), the Greater Churches Network, the Church Buildings Council and Doncaster Minster launched a partnership project to fill this gap in understanding.
- This research explores the current physical condition and the resources available to maintain, repair, manage and sustain larger historic churches.
- It focuses on highly significant buildings used by the community and nation that are expected to provide functions and services beyond those of a typical parish church (civic, cultural, ecclesiastical, tourism, etc.) but only have the resources of a parish church.
- The research involved a carefully selected sample of large buildings, representing sites across the country, dating from different periods and serving a range of communities. In order to provide parallel data a number of other parish churches were also included, which, though smaller in size, are significant because of their history and the expectations placed upon them.
The project began in October 2015 when we invited Church of England dioceses and 80 sample parishes to complete short online questionnaires. The questions covered five topics:
- Attitudes towards the buildings
- Who takes responsibility or contributes to their care
- How they welcome visitors
- Funding and finances
- Making changes to accommodate new activities or facilities
Fifty of those who completed questionnaires on behalf of parish churches were invited to take part in a follow-up telephone interview. Each building was the focus for a short case study. Twelve churches were chosen for more detailed investigation, to illustrate a cross-section of experiences, locations, roles and ministries. Representatives of the 12 took part in further interviews to provide a deeper appreciation of the daily challenges and opportunities associated with using these buildings. The project partners are indebted to everyone who is took part in this research.
You can find out more about the project in the following ways:
Working with
