Mission Statement

Heytesbury Church is the physical heart of our village and our vision is to transform it into the spiritual and communal heart for the entire community. Since the great fire in the 18th century the church has served as a refuge for the village as well as for travellers and has been the site of national celebrations, moments of joy and times of sadness for the community. We have great expectations for our church, that it may become a vibrant hub for our community and its heritage, a place for friendship and activity and once again, its communal heart.

The Heytesbury Open Place (HOP) project has been divided into four phases:
1. Renovation of the Nave and aisles roofs: completed April 2018
2. Restoration of the interior of the chancel: completed August 2018
3. Renovation of the chancel roof, including the roof of the tower: completed July 2019
4. Renovation of the nave with the addition of an enclosed meeting area to include a servery and toilet: ongoing with drainage repaired; plans for heating, lighting and audio sought and most pews removed.

Tom Roberts, the Project Manager says "It all started with the Steering Group seeking the thoughts of everyone in the community about what is needed to make our beautiful church best suited for today and tomorrow".

The Steering Group
Members are all residents in the community who have a passion to help to maintain, and renovate, the village church. They have volunteered their time and expertise to the Heytesbury Open Place project. They are:
Chairman: A retired vicar living in Heytesbury with experience of church restoration.
A former paintings conservation, and historic interiors adviser for the National Trust, now retained as a specialist adviser. Currently churchwarden.
A retired army officer with a particular interest in local history.
A musician with 40 years’ management experience.
A retired NHS Radiographer with event organising experience. Heytesbury Parish Councillor.

Advisors: A Chartered Architect, and Town Planner with a love for seeing buildings and places designed, used, or adapted imaginatively to generate welcome and hospitality, also an experienced fundraiser.
A Church Architect and a Quantity Surveyor.

The Steering Group works closely with the Heytesbury Parochial Church Council (PCC) and The Friends of Heytesbury, Knook & Tytherington Churches, a registered charity.

Latest News
At the meeting of the Steering Group, the church heating and provision of a toilet were discussed. Decisions were made to plan for overhead Halo heating, and a toilet in the south west corner of the nave. Fundraising for these facilities, and the renovation of the nave is ongoing.

January 2024
The exterior drains have now been cleared of tree roots and a new stopcock fitted to the main pipe... all in preparation for the eventual instalment of toilet facilities.

October 2023: A Drainage Survey was carried out in the churchyard to help with plans for plumbing, and a possible septic tank, as part of the start of Phase 4.

The repair and restoration of the chancel roof has now been completed. This project stayed within budget and concludes the end of Phase 3 of the four part HOP project.
The HB Allen Trust has awarded the church £11k for the chancel repairs & roof, so we have now covered our costs, along with the £10k recent award from the Churches Trust.

We were successful in our application for a grant of £5000 for the repair of the south aisle roof from the Warminster Area Board of Wiltshire Council. This amount was added to our previous grant of £100,000 for repair of the nave roof. The remaining money was raised by The Friends of Heytesbury, Knook and Tytherington Churches and local people, thus enabling the nave roof to be repaired and retiled. This work is now complete.

A donation of £150,000 from an anonymous trust has been granted for the renovation and conservation of the interior of the chancel. This is a much needed boost to our fund raising. The fundraising continues in our objective to create a user friendly interior which also celebrates a thousand years of heritage relating to the church and the remarkable village of Heytesbury. The restoration of the chancel interior was completed in August 2018 and the original polychromatic design of William Butterfield can now be seen once more .

If you have any queries or wish to know more about the project, please email us at info@heytesburychurch.org.

If you would like to receive regular updates on the project by email then please let us know your email address.

About Heytesbury Open Place