All Saints Church go through to Finals of National Conservation Award

The National Churches Trust, annual awards for outstanding care and conservation of a church, chapel or meeting house in the UK, have selected All Saints Church as one of the final nine.

We entered All Saints Church for the Award this year following the rebuilding and massive conservation project undertaken after the fire in 2015.

The submission had to be very detailed as the Trust wanted to know all about our approach to the rebuilding and conservation, the issues we faced and how we overcame them, as well as the innovative approaches we took. The word limits to each section proved challenging as there was so much we wanted to say about this 8 year project. Clews, our architects offered encouragement and helped us answer some of the more technical questions. We also had to cover all the outreach and mission work we undertake and submit a maintenance plan for the future.

We were asked “What’s the best thing about being involved in looking after your church?” and our answer:

Although hard work, this project has been very rewarding as we are now able to see this Burges church in all its glory.  The grime of 150 years has been removed and it is as fresh as the day it was built.

Just as there was public grief over the loss and the fire, we now have public joy at its rebirth.  People of Fleet have their beautiful church back.  For the first time in eight years, we have Weddings, Baptisms and Funerals. Remembrance services, carol concerts and musical recitals have returned, and every Sunday new people attend the services.  We love to see the joy of visitors as they enter the church.

For many of us we can again enter our spiritual home. All Saints has been reinstated to its rightful position as our Parish Church. 

We were delighted, firstly to be shortlisted and now to be in the final 9 – quite an achievement for us and great affirmation of the hard work and involvement undertaken by so many people.  The winner will be announced in Lincoln Cathedral on Tuesday October 22nd during a celebratory service at 2 pm.  This will be live-streamed and free tickets to watch the stream are available (see below).

We feel so proud we have got this far and wanted the whole parish to be aware of our achievement.

All 9 finalists can be viewed on the National Churches Trust Website (www.nationalchurchestrust.org/finalists2024) – go down to the Church Conservation Awards and select the England drop-down arrow.

You can register to watch the live stream of the Awards service at Lincoln Cathedral on Tuesday 22 Oct by scrolling further down on the Finalists 2024 page to the section labelled ‘Church of the Year’ and selecting ‘Register to watch the National Churches Awards livestream 2024’. We also hope to live-stream this into All Saints church from 2 pm to 3.30 pm on Tuesday 22 October (hopefully followed by a cup of tea in the hall).   So that we can gauge how many people might attend, please could you let either Rebecca in the office, or Elizabeth (613156), know,

Jan Cole and Elizabeth Waller