Can you help bring light back to St Peter’s Wolfhampcote with a beautiful stained glass window?
With the support of the Churches Conservation Trust, the Friends are committed to raising funds to help return stained-glass to St Peter’s for the first time in over 50 years.
The first meeting of the Friends of Wolfhampcote Church was chaired by Sir John Betjeman in 1971 in the House of Lords. This was the first ancient ‘friendless’ church to be saved because of its history and its beauty. Now again we need help, this time to replace the disintegrating dismal polycarbonate in the windows with heritage glass, and some stained glass by recognised masters of the art.
Prior to vesting and due to historic vandalism the windows are all polycarbonate, which over the decades have seriously degraded with sunlight, all are cloudy and failing excluding natural light from the church. All of these panels need replacing with plain or stained glass and we know that this is a huge aspiration due to the number and size of the windows and the remoteness of the church.
With the support of the Friends of St Peter’s, the Trust will glaze one window initially to also test the feasibility of a wider scheme, returning stained glass to St Peter’s for the first time in over 50 years. The uplifting re-glazing scheme will bring joy and light back to the church. The theme of the window is pilgrimage that the church has stood for over 1000 years offering peace and tranquillity through the journey of life, a theme which will carry through any future windows.
The project will include a week long craft skills training programme for eight students with a focus on conserving the window’s surrounding stonework, using St Peter’s as a ‘living classroom’ and supporting the nationally recognised shortage of skilled craftspeople.
To help the windows project continue please donate to: the Friends of Wolfhamcote account giving your name as reference: FRIENDS OF WOLFHAMCOTE CHURCH 30-99-50 87516468