A GENEROUS church member has enabled renovations to go ahead at a village church near Oswestry, with a £7,000 donation.
The anonymous individual has helped with much-needed work on St John's Parish Church in Weston Rhyn, along with grants from the Three Parishes Big Local Project.
Work has just been completed on the installation of secondary glazing at a total cost of £25,632.
The work is part of a sustained effort over several decades to make the 19th century building suitable for the 21st century.
A spokesman from the church said: "Earlier work included gutting the building and putting in a new insulated level floor and completely new services alongside redecoration and refurbishment."
They continued to explain that this involved changing the traditional East facing orientation and providing a new entrance, while an extension was also added for a toilet.
The building is disabled friendly and highly flexible.
While comfortable seating and good resources, including audio visual systems and hearing loop, have greatly enhanced its primary purpose as a place of worship, it is now a very useful community resource.
The secondary glazing work had to be fitted around the midweek use of the building, as well as the weekly Sunday Worship.
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The spokesman contined: "This healthy list [of groups using the building] is evidence that the changes already made have made a huge impact on the usefulness of the building both to the church and the local community.
"Churches face an enormous challenge to make their buildings relevant and sustainable."
At St John’s there is still much to do with ambitions to create an Upper Room over the reception area.
The secondary glazing is a small step on the long road to carbon neutrality.
And they hope it will it reduce slightly the horrendous heating bills created by making the building available through the week.
All costs are being met by donations.
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