St. Albans Diocessan Board of Finance - Selling ag land from under Tenant (fbt)

Hindsight

Member
Location
Lincolnshire
Being currently involved in shutting a church in Lincolnshire, I can say the process is still ongoing after about seven years. And I mean seven years from getting the "this church will close" stamp.

I go to the deanery synod meetings and it's the same each time - how do we attract more people / membership declining. Well, I'll say no church membership of Christian denominations are zooming up in Lincolnshire. But it's not in the CofE.

Tesla - what will happen to the church when it is closed? I am not a church goer - so, my apologies. But our good friend is and she is the Church Warden. And I recognise all the comments in this thread. I look out of my bedroom office over the Church some 200 metres away. Norman with Saxon parts in the base of the spire. I just wonder what would happen to these buildings if abandoned by the CofE as no longer required.
 

Nearly

Member
Location
North of York
The old churches are sold off without planning but the deal doesn't go through until the purchaser has got planning.
A friend is going through this but the church is going to be very cheap as the restrictions imposed by the diocese and the surrounding cemetry mean no one in their right mind would want it.
 

Hindsight

Member
Location
Lincolnshire
The old churches are sold off without planning but the deal doesn't go through until the purchaser has got planning.
A friend is going through this but the church is going to be very cheap as the restrictions imposed by the diocese and the surrounding cemetry mean no one in their right mind would want it.

Thats interesting. I wondered as I know from my wifes friend who is Church Warden our local parish group of eight churches has been told no new vicar will be appointed when the current vicar departs. And that the group of churches will be reviewed. I am typing this looking across 200 metres to the 12C spire and the Jackdaws. Inside the Church is the list of incumbents since the 11C, actually is that long, about 40 names if I recall. I just wonder how these buildings with the adjacent consecrated land with internments can be developed, presumably into housing while retaining the historic internal features and complying with I presume future legally required energy saving measures - I think the same about our own 1850 stone house after the oil price rises! Many thanks for you post.
 

teslacoils

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Tesla - what will happen to the church when it is closed? I am not a church goer - so, my apologies. But our good friend is and she is the Church Warden. And I recognise all the comments in this thread. I look out of my bedroom office over the Church some 200 metres away. Norman with Saxon parts in the base of the spire. I just wonder what would happen to these buildings if abandoned by the CofE as no longer required.
Almost all churches are grade 1 or 2 listed. The process is very, very long and involves a lot of London bods. There are many options including community use such as a museum or tearoom; being taken on by the churches trust which looks after particularly snazzy churches; finally sale fir alternative use if this is practical.

Simple fact is that based on previous "usage" the church was costing maybe £200 per person per service and that's before repairs. Reality is that myself and my wife both attend churches out of the parish.

My own personal view is that church is not about the buildings. That a more pragmatic use would be to take it down; sell the building plot; reuse the stone to build a new one where it would be used.


There's a huge split between folk who give money simply to preserve the building, and those who require a place of worship. As an aside, my local town has gone from one to three "happy clappy" Christian churches who regularly expand and do lots of outreach. CofE in rural Lincs is dead.
 

Nearly

Member
Location
North of York
Purchaser has to apply to bishop to build a small hut for air source heat pump as it's all graves.
Can't build a garage, lay a patio or widen the path to the door.
Barge pole.

I've approached the farmer with the land opposite to see if he'll consider selling a patch for a drive and a double garage.
This patch may cost more than the church!
 

Hindsight

Member
Location
Lincolnshire
Almost all churches are grade 1 or 2 listed. The process is very, very long and involves a lot of London bods. There are many options including community use such as a museum or tearoom; being taken on by the churches trust which looks after particularly snazzy churches; finally sale fir alternative use if this is practical.

Simple fact is that based on previous "usage" the church was costing maybe £200 per person per service and that's before repairs. Reality is that myself and my wife both attend churches out of the parish.

My own personal view is that church is not about the buildings. That a more pragmatic use would be to take it down; sell the building plot; reuse the stone to build a new one where it would be used.


There's a huge split between folk who give money simply to preserve the building, and those who require a place of worship. As an aside, my local town has gone from one to three "happy clappy" Christian churches who regularly expand and do lots of outreach. CofE in rural Lincs is dead.

Hi Tesla. Thanks for that. Yes, our village is the same. I do not attend church save for funerals etc, and am not a practicing christian, not since I dropped out of Sunday School aged 8 in a fitty huff. Yes, I can see the pragmatic use. But goodness all that history. And in Lincolnshire, as other counties, the building is at the heart of the structures (if not the community) Just that without a purpose there will be no income stream to maintain them. All very difficult and sad. Hey ho.
 

teslacoils

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Hi Tesla. Thanks for that. Yes, our village is the same. I do not attend church save for funerals etc, and am not a practicing christian, not since I dropped out of Sunday School aged 8 in a fitty huff. Yes, I can see the pragmatic use. But goodness all that history. And in Lincolnshire, as other counties, the building is at the heart of the structures (if not the community) Just that without a purpose there will be no income stream to maintain them. All very difficult and sad. Hey ho.
Not really. If you look at our grade 1 church, you'd see that it's really a hotch potch of additions and extensions etc made as fortunes and populations changed. The reality is that there is a strong desire in England to try and keep everything in this Victorian timewarp. The history is that the church is probably on the site of an old pagan site.

We used to have funds. Now they've all been spaffed insuring a building noone uses when they should be used for matters of faith. I can't remember if there are 8 or 10 churches in the "group parish" that really only has enough practising (aka paying) worshippers to fit in a portakabin.

And as said, there are plenty of Christians about. They just choose to worship in village halls; commercial space; people's homes because faith is more important than the building. It's no surprise that the evangelical communities in town have children's groups, multiple services; mental health and old person outreach etc. Because they're out doing what's in the Bible while the Anglicans (by and large) are spending it all maintaining buildings noone wants to use, or sending it all to the cathedral for fancy dinners, outfits etc.

It's cheaper to bus the rural faithful to the big church in town.
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
Being currently involved in shutting a church in Lincolnshire, I can say the process is still ongoing after about seven years. And I mean seven years from getting the "this church will close" stamp.

I go to the deanery synod meetings and it's the same each time - how do we attract more people / membership declining. Well, I'll say no church membership of Christian denominations are zooming up in Lincolnshire. But it's not in the CofE.
my opinion, is that during Covid when the country need spiritual guidance, all the C of E did was close churches and lock their doors! Seems to me the C of E is a branch of the metropolitan Labour party.
 

teslacoils

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
I see the hierarchy of the CofE in the same light as the Parliamentary Labour Party or the NFU. In their own little clique-y bubble with very little idea of what they need. It worse for the CofE as the seem to act very little like the new testament would suggest they should. All my personal opinion obvs.
 

Bongodog

Member
Mum and dad were staunch C of E, Dad was Churcvhwarden for many years, so much of what I read above rings true to all I have heard and witnessed, Dad was constantly frustrated by the attitude of the Church architects who wanted to take everything back to a date in Victorian times, demanding that "modern materials" were ripped out and replaced with more appropriate ones. The average C of E parish church dates back to somewhere between 1000 and 1400, with many additions along the way so why fix a specific date to which materials should conform ?
A typical example of this is that plasterboard is a big no, it must be wooden lathes coated with lime mortar reinforced with horse or pig hair. As anyone who lives in an old house knows, eventually with expansion and contraction the plaster eventually gives way and falls off, its worse for a Church because the temperature swings are larger, below freezing in winter and often very high temperatures under a high roof in summer. I know of one Church where all the 1960's plasterboard was stripped out at the architects insistence to be replaced with "more sympathetic" materials. 10 years later the Church was closed for over a year as the lime mortar started dropping from the ceiling.
Mum regularly used to say that she would have been happier worshipping in the modern Church hall and why couldn't they just abandon the old medieval buiilding.

Rural parishes used to be looked upon as a cash cow, there to send in money for the benefit of the bishop and his pet projects. The number of parish vicars has been decimated, but the number of bishops and archdeacons has remained constant, meawhile the number of staff involved in outreach etc has expanded exponentially.

If people have never ever seen their vicar there is zero chance they will require the Church even for a wedding or funeral.
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
Mum and dad were staunch C of E, Dad was Churcvhwarden for many years, so much of what I read above rings true to all I have heard and witnessed, Dad was constantly frustrated by the attitude of the Church architects who wanted to take everything back to a date in Victorian times, demanding that "modern materials" were ripped out and replaced with more appropriate ones. The average C of E parish church dates back to somewhere between 1000 and 1400, with many additions along the way so why fix a specific date to which materials should conform ?
A typical example of this is that plasterboard is a big no, it must be wooden lathes coated with lime mortar reinforced with horse or pig hair. As anyone who lives in an old house knows, eventually with expansion and contraction the plaster eventually gives way and falls off, its worse for a Church because the temperature swings are larger, below freezing in winter and often very high temperatures under a high roof in summer. I know of one Church where all the 1960's plasterboard was stripped out at the architects insistence to be replaced with "more sympathetic" materials. 10 years later the Church was closed for over a year as the lime mortar started dropping from the ceiling.
Mum regularly used to say that she would have been happier worshipping in the modern Church hall and why couldn't they just abandon the old medieval buiilding.

Rural parishes used to be looked upon as a cash cow, there to send in money for the benefit of the bishop and his pet projects. The number of parish vicars has been decimated, but the number of bishops and archdeacons has remained constant, meawhile the number of staff involved in outreach etc has expanded exponentially.

If people have never ever seen their vicar there is zero chance they will require the Church even for a wedding or funeral.
I disagree over building materials, lime/stone built buildings need a breathable plaster, and not rendered with sand and cement.
 

Cowcorn

Member
Mixed Farmer
I see the hierarchy of the CofE in the same light as the Parliamentary Labour Party or the NFU. In their own little clique-y bubble with very little idea of what they need. It worse for the CofE as the seem to act very little like the new testament would suggest they should. All my personal opinion obvs.
Its sad to see the CoE seeming to accept a managed decline when it was never more needed as you say the " happy clappy I" churches are gaining ground filling the spiritual void that modern society has created .
How fares the Church of Rome in modern secular England ??
Faith among rural dwellers over here is still strong both Catholic and Church of Ireland and numbers although dwindling are enough to maintain and support the Churches .
 

teslacoils

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
I don't feel sad about it per se. There's vibrant church life about.....it's just not to be found in many small rural village Anglican churches. The evangelicals very much have taken on the mantle of hopefullness and life-affirming service, rather than what I see of the Anglicans which seem to keep trudging on until the old folk are buried.

I agree slightly about the church repairs, however our rural Dean of days gone by way much more of a pragmatist. Hence many churches have "temporary repairs" that end up lasting so long that they become actual fabric!

We're due of quinquennial and I fully expect an architect to bill me a grand for telling me how many tens of thousands are needed. Cloud cuckoo land when our income covers insurance, a bit of gardening and fixing a few slates.

On the flip side, exciting to say that the small Quaker meeting I attend is going back to weekly opening from this Easter, after two years of lockdown scheduling.

I'm unsure how busy the Catholic church is in town. Tbh I'm sure all the urban congregations are quite full. We're used to driving to pretty much everything and church is no different.
 

Bongodog

Member
I don't feel sad about it per se. There's vibrant church life about.....it's just not to be found in many small rural village Anglican churches. The evangelicals very much have taken on the mantle of hopefullness and life-affirming service, rather than what I see of the Anglicans which seem to keep trudging on until the old folk are buried.

I agree slightly about the church repairs, however our rural Dean of days gone by way much more of a pragmatist. Hence many churches have "temporary repairs" that end up lasting so long that they become actual fabric!

We're due of quinquennial and I fully expect an architect to bill me a grand for telling me how many tens of thousands are needed. Cloud cuckoo land when our income covers insurance, a bit of gardening and fixing a few slates.

On the flip side, exciting to say that the small Quaker meeting I attend is going back to weekly opening from this Easter, after two years of lockdown scheduling.

I'm unsure how busy the Catholic church is in town. Tbh I'm sure all the urban congregations are quite full. We're used to driving to pretty much everything and church is no different.

Most Churches are lucky if they can clear the outstanding work from one Quinquennial inspection before the next one, as to the architects, in the past they inspected our Church outside by a mixture of using a ladder to gain access to the parapeted flat rooves we provided free of charge and binoculars for the spire. last time the architect insisted on a scaffold being provided just to gain access to the roof, scaffolders arrived in the morning, erected scaffold, sat in lorry for 2 hours then took it down, all to gain access to a roof at normal 2 storey house level.
 

Wolds Beef

Member
@Hindsight @teslacoils Are you both large(Wool) churches on the Heath or smaller more manageable churches.? And could we put pressure on further up the chain to tell the diocese that the cathedral ordained staff should take service at parish level and help out?
WB
 

teslacoils

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
As my capacity is not as a church member, I dont feel it's my place to suggest changes in church policy.

Personally, it pains me to go to the cathedral and see all the silver wear behind glass then walk to the carpark past all the homeless under the bridge near the Odeon cinema. Preoccupation with old buildings has clouded core values.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Christianity is not really about old buildings, blokes wearing frocks and gold hats and that sort of thing. Those ideas came from the State as the State tried to hijack and use religion to keep folk down.
Christianity in fact preaches against the setting up of material things like church buildings or fancy dresses here on earth. It’s almost comedic how the “church” itself has gone so far against the fundamental Christian message.
In fact the more I think about it, the more the C of E is to Christianity as DEFRA is to farming.
Strange how so called representative authoritative bodies always seem to take on a form of their own and diverge from and eventually contradict the masses they were originally supposed to serve.
 

David.

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
J11 M40
I was only half joking with my Jehovahs comment.
No paid clergy, no idolatry, and hard-core Old Testament.
Oh, and a healthy contempt for the fabulously wealthy organised churches, who profess Christian values, whilst fomenting Third world starvation through opposing birth control; and turning a blind eye to nonces.
 
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DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Sometimes I’ve actually welcomed a discussion with Jehovahs witnesses. If I’m not too busy and feeling a bit bored and isolated out here, (I rarely see anybody other than close family) then it’s not the worst way to spend half an hour. Some are even nice lookers in a frumpy kind of way.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

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