Church Mouse donned best bib and tucker last week and set off through rain and floods for the grand surroundings of the Mercer’s Hall in London. The National Churches Trust, the charity for people who love church buildings, held its first ever dedicated awards event for churches celebrating people and places on November 15th 2019. It was an excellent choice of venue as the Mercers’ Company, one of the old livery companies with over 700 years of history, exists for philanthropic purposes, with a particular focus on churches and communities. This event was a wonderful opportunity for attendees to hear about exciting and inspiring ideas from across the UK. Three different categories saw Herefordshire represented in two – what an accolade for our county! Even better – St. James the Great, Cradley was the overall winner of the Good Guardianship Awards against a very strong shortlist, and received £5000 for the excellence of their planning and maintenance schedules towards the ongoing care of their church.
In addition, Church Mouse is delighted to report that Chairman of HHCT, David Furnival, also received the Church and Community Volunteer Award for Central England for engaging new audiences through the Music in Quiet Places series. He accepted the award on behalf of the small, hard-working team which puts each series together.
