Friends of St Peters Winchcombe

When Jo and I retired to Winchcombe, I was still working at the history of our churches in Warwickshire, and having read David Donaldson's history of Winchcombe, I decided to switch tack from history to landscape painting. However after worshipping in St Peter's for some time, I began to feel an obligation to find out something about those who had built and maintained our beautiful church down the centuries. 

My starting point for doing this was first of all John Leland's account of his visit to Winchcombe in 1542/3, about 80 or 90 years after St Peter's had been rebuilt, and about a couple of years after the Abbey had been demolished. In his account he named two who had played a major part in its reconstruction: the Abbot William de Winchcombe and Ralph Boteler Lord Sudeley, so I started by researching their lives. I also believed that the unknown Master Mason, who had built St Peter's, must have been employed to design and construct other buildings, so it should be possible to identify the impress of his style elsewhere, and so perhaps discover something about him. I had no idea, when I set out on this journey where it would lead - now with 12 books and 13 booklets written by Jo and myself, I have three or four unfinished and others itching to be written.

The journey was already under way, when Christine Lainé, as Secretary, asked me whether I would be willing to succeed Sir John Adye as Chairman of the Friends. I felt honoured to be asked, and loving St Peter's as I did, I was torn. How could I refuse to contribute my pennyworth to the ongoing story of St Peter's, but not at the cost of researching, writing up and publishing its story, which seemed to have become my special contribution. However Christine assured me that essentially all they looked for from me was to chair the committee meetings; on that basis I accepted.

The Friends had been formed in 1996 and by the time I became chairman, they had already made a significant contribution to the costly roof repairs and to the restoration of the organ and there was a healthy balance of £48,607. This balance has now grown to £74,944, despite spending some £80,000 towards the Aldwyn Millennium Memorial, Festal Altar frontal, the sound system, the renovation of the weather cock, the repair of the Trotman Memorials and churchyard gates, provision of window grills, CCTV, the Quinquennial repairs, the refurbishment of the choir vestry, the servery and the toilet. This is not a complete list and in addition the Friends have agreed in principle to make a significant contribution to the cost of the west end improvements and are expecting to be asked to contribute towards to renovation and improvements to the electrics.

All this work has been made possible by the generosity of many individuals paying membership fees, making donations and bequests and by running and supporting fund raising events. In addition there is the hard and often frustrating slog of the churchwardens and others in seeing these projects through - getting designs, estimates and permissions, then overseeing the work. A single project can take three years after the Friends have decided to back it financially and the PCC has approved it. So for example the essential ideas for the west end improvements had been formulated by the end of 2006. Looking back over these years, the events that stand out in my mind are the occasions when we hosted the church parties from Texas, the pig-roasts at the Wilsons' farm in lovely sunshine and unforgettable floods and the Abbey's 1200^th Anniversary celebrations. It has been a privilege to have been associated with the happy band of people who have made these remarkable and worthwhile achievements possible.

Meanwhile Jo and I have had time to continue our researches into the history of St Peter's, the Abbey and the lives of some notable people of Winchcombe and Sudeley. Since 2003, when our first booklets went on sale, 3300 booklets have been sold in St Peter's, 566 books and in the last two years 3000 of the free walk-around guides have been taken from St Peter's, other copies have been replaced and used again. Understandably the most popular of the booklets is the Story of St Peter's with 766 copies sold, followed by Ralph Boteler Lord Sudeley with 471, but his was the first we produced, and the story of the Abbey with 448. Our most recent booklet on Katherine Parr has sold 100 copies in six months. Although the larger, more expensive books, which set out the evidence on which the booklets are based, do not sell so well, they do seem to be well used by church watchers and visitors to St Peter's.