On Hitchin's Churchyard Day (7th June) St Mary's Church held a successful open day with over 250 visitors.

Alongside tours explaining the history of the building, a chance to try out your stonecutting skills and homemade cakes, the volunteer team launched a fundraising scheme to "Sponsor a Stone", as the Church's restoration project gathers pace. 

This is an opportunity to support the repair work and the new stones being used for the renovation of the North side gothic windows in aid of the 'A Million for St Mary's Appeal'. 

Individual stones are ready cut like a giant jigsaw before being fixed back in place on the outside of the windows. These can be sponsored for a token amount of £10 or £20 (there is a detailed chart available at the back of the church). The larger parts of the stone tracery were snapped up at the weekend by kind supporters. 

If you wish to be allocated one of the remaining pieces, then please visit the Appeals page on the website www.stmaryshitchin.co.uk to make a payment and email [email protected] (subject Sponsor a Stone). Include your name and amount for the donation. Names of sponsors will be kept in a file in the church, alongside the identifier code of the stone sponsored and a smaller version of the chart. 

So far, the window nearest to the North side door is almost fully restored and three others are in preparation under scaffolding. 

The very soft local limestone originally used to build the church has suffered major erosion in some areas, and over the years other parts of the structure including the South side windows have been repaired in an ongoing programme. 

The North side windows had reached a crisis point when mortar applied in Victorian times started to detach and bring chunks of stone off with it. The price tag is almost £100,000 per window as the entire section of wall needs to be restored around each one. 

Churchwarden Anne Senechal commented "The open day was a great success thanks to our hardworking team and we were delighted by the response to our sponsorship offer. Thanks to our contractors from Heritage specialists Bakers of Danbury Ltd for arranging a display of stonecutting skills and a chance to have a go" 

"We hope the North side windows will be fully restored in time for Christmas. Ofcourse, our major project to upgrade facilities at St Mary's is under way alongside the stonework restoration and there will be some exciting progress to report on that work in the next few weeks". 

More information can be found on the website stmaryshitchin.co.uk and the Church's social media pages www.facebook.com/StMarysChurchHitchin

Instagram stmaryschurch_hitchin

Heartofhitchin.com