Holy Trinity Church, Hartshill was built between 1842 and 1848 in a Norman Style from local stone that was donated by Mr Richard Jee and with funds raised by the local people, initially a sum of £650 and later, following a major setback when part of the building work collapsed, approx £2500 donated by Rev H E Lowe who was visiting friends in Atherstone.
Over the years many more gifts and donations have enabled the building to be adorned and today we have a very beautiful church for the community to enjoy and which the congregation of Holy Trinity gratefully uses for worship.
As a Grade II listed building all repairs and maintenance have to be in accordance with strict guidelines and this means the costs are higher than for unlisted buildings. With a congregation of 50-80 people we are able to support the spiritual life of the church but we are struggling to meet the running costs, which last year amounted to around £36,500. Therefore, to find the funds for the repair and maintenance of the building is becoming increasingly difficult.
The congregation remain committed to funding special community projects. These are supported by donations from the congregation and the generosity of local businesses. We hope to continue to run community events in the future and feel that we can sustain the budget for these which currently runs at hundreds of pounds. The difficulty we have is that building repairs and maintenance cost thousands of pounds a year, and although we can often get grants for some works, we will shortly be unable to afford to maintain the church building.
Many people who only visit the church occasionally still feel that it is an important part of their community, lives or heritage. We believe that the wider community should be given the chance to help in its survival.
If you care about the building and would like to support the work of repairing and maintaining it, could we ask you to contact us using the information on the right of this post, so that we can record your interest and supply further details about how you can help.
We understand that you may not be in sympathy with the spiritual life of the church, or may be of another faith, or have no faith, so we are setting up a completely separate fund for repair and maintenance.
Other churches in our area have closed because the cost of maintaining them could not be sustained any longer. We want to try to avoid this happening at Holy Trinity. If you agree, we hope that you will help to support this appeal.
We would like to thank you for reading this notice and thank you for your kindness if you feel able to support us.
Please, if you have an interest in helping maintain this iconic local church then contact our PCC Secretary, Carol Miles Carol.Miles@Sky.com