You can now use Text Giving to help us with the care of our beautiful medieval church.

All you have  to do is to send STAN88 , with the amount of your donation, to 70070.

You will only pay for the amount you wish to donate.You will not be charged for the text nor have it deducted from your monthly allowance if you have one.

We will then receive your gift through the Norwich Diocese justgiving account.

With our grateful thanks for your support.

Following the preliminary studies carried out in 2010 in Norwich Diocese, covering four affected churches, including our own, a three year study of the problem of bats in churches has been commissioned by Defra.

Meetings were arranged last year in Norfolk by The Enviromnent Council and The Bat Conservation Trust, to explain the purpose and scope of the study, and to hear the views of church members from a number of churches.

The Environment Council’s report on the meetings (less its appendices) is on the list of pages.

The Heritage Lottery fund has offered £65000 in grant aid for urgent repairs to the church tower and other essential work on the fabric of the church.

This help is conditional on the village raising £18000 in match-funding by the end of 2011.

We have now reached that target, thanks to our fund raising in the village and generous offers of help from the Norfolk Churches Trust, the Paul Bassham Charitable Trust, the Wolfson Foundation, the Geoffrey Watling Charity, the Pickenham Windmill Trust, the Garfield Weston Trust, the Allchurches Trust and Westcotec. It is already clear, however, that the actual cost of the work will exceed the estimates on which the English Heritage grant is based. So, we press on.

The first, investigative, phase of the project is now complete and tenders are being sought for phase two, when all the necessary restoration and repair work is carried out.