Church reveals its £150,000 plans

The project, led by the Rev Ian Walters who is Vicar of Gosberton, Quadring and Gosberton Clough, aims to replace the church’s wooden flooring and repair stone slabs around the outside of the building.

Members of St Peter and St Paul’s Church, Gosberton, have set up a floor fund to raise part of the cash needed for the repair work in the hope that the rest will come from grant-making bodies dedicated to protecting England’s historic architecture and heritage.

Mr Walters said: “What we have is this wonderful, Grade I-listed building of national importance, but with a floor that is deteriorating, wooden platforms on which the pews are built that have to be renovated and stone slabs around the outside of the church that have cracked.

“All this is likely to cost a large sum of money and what I’d like to see is a group who may not necessarily be churchgoers but who do look on this as being a church and heritage issue.”

St Peter and St Paul’s Church, which dates back to the 12th century, was restored in 1896 and includes a wall monument dedicated to John Calthrop who is thought to have built what is now Gosberton House Care Home.

The need for repairs to the church was spelt out by Mr Walters in the latest Gosberton Parish News where he wrote: “We’ve known this for some time but now realise that we’ve got to do something before long to replace the wooden flooring and also the broken stone slabs.

“If we don’t then, in the next year or two, we will have to close off parts of the building and eventually close the church totally.”

However, hope may come from Gosberton and District Community Action team and Mr Walters added: “This could be something that brings the whole community together.”