It has been announced that Trafalgar Square’s iconic St Martin-in-the-Fields has been awarded £1 million through the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) to start an endowment to ensure that the historic building can continue to be maintained in excellent condition.
As part of the match funded Catalyst: Endowments Programme, the team at St Martin-in-the-Fields will now take up the task of fundraising to match the award.
The Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, welcomed the news, saying:
"St Martin’s has been a place of worship for over 800 years and is of tremendous importance both for its unique place in the nation’s heritage and for the excellent practical community works that it undertakes. I am pleased that the Heritage Lottery Fund has decided to recognise it with this investment, which will sow the seeds for a flourishing endowment fund to secure it for the long-term."/
The Catalyst: Endowments Programme, is aimed at helping to boost private giving across the heritage sector. St Martin-in-the-Fields will have until March 2016 to raise the additional £1 million required to access the HLF’s award. This grant will help to secure the long term future of St Martin-in-the-Fields and enable the Church’s Trust to access private philanthropic giving in order to help build future financial resilience for the remarkable Grade I Listed building.
Designed by architect James Gibbs and opened in 1726, St Martin-in-the-Fields completed a £36m Renewal Project in 2008 that restored the church and created new facilities beneath its surface that include a chapel, community meeting place, facilities for care of homeless people, a shop and the award winning Cafe in the Crypt.
