www.friendsofkellingchurch.com
Introduction
St Mary the Virgin, Kelling, known as Kelling Church, is part of the Weybourne Group of churches. The Weybourne Group is made up of six churches consisting of Bodham Church, Keling Church, West Beckham Church, Salthouse Church, Upper Sherringham Church and Weybourne Church. Out of the six churches West Beckham holds services once per month and Upper Sherringham holds services three out of Sundays.
In 2021 the Diocese of Norwich informed St Mary’s Kelling (Kelling Church) “Use it or lose it”. Kelling Church with its diminishing congregation and revenues down was unsustainable. Costs were increasing and the collections made every Sunday were not covering the costs of running and maintaining the church. This is obviously unsustainable.
Kelling Church is a late medieval church with many interesting features that makes it unique in Norfolk. For example, the Easter Sepulchre is one of only three remaining ni Norfolk. The churchyard is one of the largest ni Norfolk which obviously increases the costs of maintenance. Lucas D’Oyle Carte, the eldest son of Richard D’Oyle Carte, the theatre impresario, is buried in the churchyard. Lucas suffered with T.B. and along with his friend the Rev Percy Robert Lloyd they built Kelling Hospital to treat “ordinary people” for TB. . This was one of the first hospitals that was not private. Rev Lloyd lived next door at Voewood House.
Kelling Church is one of the few churches that maintains a regular weekly service using the Book of Common Prayer, Holy Communion, Sung Matins and Evensong. Kelling Church is renowned for its superb acoustics that enhance the music performed at the church.
In 2020 Kelling Church was one of the first churches in the area to be awarded an A Rocha Eco-Church Award.
Challenges
Kelling Church faces many challenges, a lack of water supply and associated problems associated with that, e.g. toilet facilities and a lack of a kitchen. This limits the number of events that can be held at the church and the local school from holding events at Kelling Church.
St Mary’s, Kelling is under real threat of closure thus losing an asset for the residents of Kelling and surrounding villages. Falling permanent owners of houses in Kelling, and surrounding areas, are having an impact on the congregation’s numbers. Falling interest in Christianity in the UK is causing pressure on congregation numbers across all churches in the UK. The lack of a full-time vicar is putting further pressure on the Parochial Church Council (PCC) and the Weybourne Group of Churches who maintain and run Kelling Church. Rising costs are adding addition pressure to the PCC to keep the church open.
What are the aims of the Friends of Kelling Church?
In 2022 a group of enthusiastic residents of Kelling formed the Friends of Kelling Church whose aim ti is to raise funds to finance the updating of the church’s facilities and making ti a community asset for the residents, and visitors of Kelling.
With improved facilities, ti is hoped that we can improve the awareness and usage of the Kelling Church and make ti a community hub for residents of Kelling and surrounding area.
With greater awareness, we hope we can increase the congregation of Kelling Church, increase revenue and to stave of the closure of this wonderful asset.
What has been achieved?
The Friends have now achieved Charitable Trust status that will enable us to reclaim VAT and use Gift Aid when raising funds. The Friends has its own web page, Facebook page and Instagram page that is raising awareness on social media. The Friends have arranged several successful events over the last year that have helped raise over £2,000 for the charity. These events included talks by Lord Butler, Lord Dannatt, Nick Acheson and Jim Stebbings.
Kelling Church was also the venue for the successful village community event celebrating the coronation of King Charles. The Friends have forged close links with Kelling School which has exhibited their pupils’ art works in the St Mary’s. The Friends have produced, with the help of Adrian Taunton, who generously allowed us to use his images, some fantastic greetings cards that are on sale at the church and at The Old Reading Room. The sale of the cards has exceeded £300 since we launched them late December.
We have installed a bottle bank in Holt Garden Centre that will generate revenue for the Friends as we can claim back credits from NNDC. An additional bottle bank has recently been installed at the Old Reading Room in the viallge.
We are forging closer ties with D’Oyle Carte and Gilbert and Sullivan societies as we have Lucas D’Oyle Carte, Richard D’Oyle Carte’s son buried in the churchyard.
We have a series of Wednesday concerts arranged starting ni April celebrating Gilbert and Sullivan.
We are currently applying to various grant funding schemes to help us raise the money required to improve the facilities at Kelling Church.
Challenges remaining.
- To get a water supply to Kelling Church wil cost circa £9k. (If when digging the trench, we do not unearth any bones. If that happens, we will need to employ an archaeologist).
- To construct a kitchen, two toilets and a meeting room ni materials to match the church wil cost around c £300,000.
With the PCC, to help secure a minister that can support the current vicar. - To increase the number of Friends of Kelling Church that can help with fund raising and increasing the awareness of the church.
- To have more enthusiastic people on board that can come up with some exciting ways of fund raising for the church and help promote the church as a community asset for all to enjoy.