A historic Sheffield church has received a promising boost in its £1.4 million restoration project to help it serve local communities for generations to come.
St John’s Ranmoor has received £100,000 from the Sheffield Church Burgesses following last week’s launch of the Inspire appeal. The appeal, which includes important safety work to restore the tallest parish church spire in the city, will also make St John’s more accessible and will open up the building further.
Lots of fundraising work still needs to be done, with the building work forecast to take around 18 months once the finances are raised. Discussions had been ongoing with the Sheffield Church Burgesses for a while to help lay the groundwork for this bid.
The Revd Canon Dr Matthew Rhodes, Vicar of St John’s, said:
“We’re really pleased they decided to give us such a substantial and generous amount towards this project. This is the first grant we’ve applied for. There will be others, but it’s a great encouragement to the people who came to the launch of our appeal on Saturday (1st March) and will hopefully encourage other donors to match or perhaps exceed this amount.
“The launch day was really positive and lots of people came. I think we gave a good presentation explaining what we needed to do. We are grateful for anybody’s support, however small or large it is. We’d appreciate people’s prayers for this project as we move to the next stages of it.”
It’s hoped Phase 1 of the project will be fully funded and ready to go by the end of 2026. You can read more about the Inspire appeal here.
