Heritage Fund visit lifts spirits on a wet day at Dockyard Church

On 13 May 2021 we were pleased to welcome Stuart McLeod (Director of the National Lottery Heritage Fund for London and the South East) to Dockyard Church. A wet day failed to dampen spirits as Stuart toured the site and talked to our team and the press about the project.

NLHF Director for London & South East, Stuart McLeod and SDPT Chairman, Will Palin discuss the project with local Sheppey College student, Ethan Stocker.Photo by Chris Foulds (Trustee)

NLHF Director for London & South East, Stuart McLeod and SDPT Chairman, Will Palin discuss the project with local Sheppey College student, Ethan Stocker.

Photo by Chris Foulds (Trustee)

Stuart has been following our project for many years and was a key figure in the award of our £4.2m Lottery Grant back in 2019. It was a pleasure to be able to show him the tremendous progress we have made since the start of the capital works in November 2020.

Stuart said:

‘The reason why this was particularly special to us, was first of all seeing the state of disrepair of the building, the vision to bring this back into some kind of sustainable new use was, well, the sort of ambition we were keen to support in the first place and then the end use, the proposed use for the building, I think just seem to be wholly appropriate for the area.’

Craftsman from PAYE Stone & Restoration working on the rendering at parapet level.Photo by Chris Foulds (Trustee)

Craftsman from PAYE Stone & Restoration working on the rendering at parapet level.

Photo by Chris Foulds (Trustee)

Stuart met the project team, including Coniston and sub-contractors PAYE and he re-affirmed the Heritage Fund’s strong support of this landmark project. Highlights of the visit for him included meeting our apprentice Tommy Stower and Sheppey College student Ethan Stocker who is keen to be one of the first occupiers of the business incubation centre when it opens.

As well as a catch up with the project team, Stuart was able to get up close to the restoration works and he was even able to watch craftsmen in the process of ‘running a horse’ over the render at parapet level to create the moulded detail.

You can watch both news reports from ITV Meridian and KMTV by viewing the videos below:

Addition photos taken during the visit, shown below.

Photos by Chris Foulds (Trustee) & Robert Songhurst of Hugh Broughton Architects.

Site Updates

Community, NewsChris Fouldssheerness dockyarddockyard, church, sheerness, bluetown, sheppey, heritage, history, historic, restoration, rebuild, architecture, architectural, archaeology1 Comment