St Mary Redcliffe Church Parish Magazine - October 2016

SMR Development Project Update
Rhys Williams
September witnessed some important changes in our thinking about
the project. During the last few months we have been working with
architects Purcell to gather information for a bid to the Heritage
Lottery Fund (HLF) for financial support. Initially, it was envisaged
that the project would cost between £12 and £15 million, that the
church would bid for around £5 million from HLF and that the
outstanding amount would be raised from additional fundraising. Two
things have modified this thinking: William Hogarth’s altarpiece and a
new HLF fund called Resilient Heritage.
Hogarth’s altarpiece – of international importance in the art world -
was painted for the church in 1755 and, after being removed from St
Mary Redcliffe during the C19th, eventually fell into the ownership of
Bristol of Bristol City Council. The piece is currently housed in far
from ideal conditions at St Nicholas’ Church in the Old City, away
from public view. After discussions with the council, we have decided
to include the piece in our project. The creation of suitable facilities
will raise the overall project costs, so the Project Board – after
taking advice from Purcell - has decided to offset this raising our bid
to the HLF from £5 to £10 million; a move which will also reduce
the amount of funding we need to raise from other sources.
We have also decided to delay this bid by one year based on the
recent launch of the HLF Resilient Heritage Fund. This programme is
available to organisations in the UK who want to build their capacity
or achieve strategic change to improve the management of heritage.
We will, therefore, bid for funds to support a year’s worth of
additional work on preparing our organisation for a robust bid to the
HLF main funding programme in November 2017, which we think
will significantly increase our chances of success.