St Mary's Church Repair Project
Project Outline
St Mary the Virgin Wirksworth is a grade I listed Major Parish Church in central Derbyshire. The PCC is embarking on a project to deliver repairs to the transept roofs, repointing and stone consolidation, repairs to churchyard paths, improvements to heating and lighting systems, and work to reduce our carbon footprint through green energy generation. There will also be a programme of public engagement and interpretation that focusses on the foundation of the early church and town, and the story of Wirksworth through its families alongside opportunities to try hands-on heritage crafts activities. The project is being delivered with a development phase grant (work to RIBA stage 4 and contractor’s tender) through a grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, alongside other sources of funding and local fundraising.
The project is also known as Faith Folk Foundations, describing the three strands of our focus, the faith of the people who originally built this church, the folk of our town and the foundations of the church and our town that we hope to find in during our project.
Project Updates
April 2026: We have now advertised for our Project Manager, with closing date of the end of April and interviews in May 2026.
May 2026: We have now interviewed and appointed a Project Manager. Her name is Lucy Godfrey and her tender submission offered excellent value for money and excellent experience, alongside knowledge of our Wirksworth community. We are sure that Lucy will be a good fit for our project and look forward to working with her.
Project brief clarifications
Project Manager:
1. Thank you for your request for clarification on the matter of preparing the submission for grant for the delivery phase of the Faith Folk Foundation project at St. Mary’s in Wirksworth. We think that this is a task best co-ordinated by the Project Manager, on behalf of the steering group and PCC. At this point in time we believe that this will need a collaboration between the steering group and the professional advisors we employ through the development phase, as it will need input from many experts to ensure that it is as good as possible.