STRONG>Applicant: Hartpury Parochial Church Council
Location: Hartpury, Gloucestershire
Grant awarded: £50,000
Total project cost: £57,544
Grant programme: Your Heritage

Aims of the project
To produce a range of informative and interactive materials that will enable the local community and visitors enjoy Hartpury’s rich heritage. To restore the church’s rare mid 19th Century organ and case.

Background
St Mary the Virgin Church is situated five miles north of the city of Gloucester. Grade I listed, the church was built before 1100 and boasts a number of interesting features. These include a medieval Green Man carved out of wood in nave of the roof; a 19th Century organ with a rare Gothic Revival case; a unique stone Bee Shelter and collection of historic fruit trees including the Hartpury Green perry pear in its Churchyard.

Brown tourist signs have recently been installed around the village leading to a rise in visitor levels of up to 12,000 a year. It seemed opportune therefore to improve the quality of the information already available so as to enable visitors to really appreciate, enjoy and learn about the heritage they were seeing.

What did the project involve?
The organ was in dire need of restoration as its bellows were full of holes and it was leaking air both of which made it quite inoperable.  Generations of varnish were removed from its case to reveal its beautiful and unique gothic revival architecture. The woodwork was re-grained, the pipes re-gilded, the bellows re-levelled and the newly discovered motifs revealed and restored to their former glory.  Half way through the project, an open evening for the general public was held where the experts demonstrated the workings of the organ and their restoration techniques.

Key to this project was the production of a range of materials that would enable the general public to enjoy and appreciate the heritage of St Mary’s. These included a church guide, information signs, a visitor information sheet, updates for the website, a cycle guide for the area and churchyard trail leaflet.

What difference did the project make?
“The whole village is proud to share our delightful church with visitors - the congregation eagerly read the visitors' book comments.  These also reveal how many overseas visitors we have, including someone from San Francisco recently.  A far cry from the under appreciated church of a few years ago!” – Jim Chapman, Project Manager.

How did the project meet our criteria?

• The materials produced, e.g. leaflets, trails and guides, ensured everyone could learn about, have access to and enjoy their heritage.
  
• The project proposals were based on sound research, were well costed based on estimates or experience from other similar work and the quality of the information provided was high.
  
• Evidence of strong support was provided e.g. from the Council for the Care of Churches, Gloucestershire County Tourism Officer, Gloucester Diocese, Forest of Dean District Council, the Adams Trust and the Diocesan Advisory Committee.

Useful tips
“Be patient. It does take a lot of stamina to get funding together but it is tremendously rewarding in the end to see both the local community and visitors enjoying the church.”

“This is my third HLF funded project. From the outset HLF was very helpful. The Project Monitor in particular really helped me all the way through in putting everything together. I also found Gloucester Dioceses a great source of advice and they helped me find likely funding supporters for the project.”

“Be stubborn, don’t be put off at the first hurdle as you are bound to have problems on the way. I was turned down by HLF on my first submission. I talked it through with them, tried to learn from it and put in a fresh bid and now this is my third successful application!”  - Jim Chapman