A church which put out an urgent appeal for financial help has been saved.
Grade II listed St John’s church in Bemerton, near Salisbury, closed in 2010 when the heating broke and there was no money to fix it.
The building was declared redundant by the Church of England but supporters have raised more than £500,000 to turn it into a community centre.
So the people worked hard to save the church as a building. It seems that they were indifferent to it as the focus of a living Christian community, but perked up when it was shuttered, because it could then be available for secular use. And a clergyman named in the story rejoices that it has been ‘saved’. It makes me want to weep. England today has come to this.
For any anxious George Herbert fans, St. Andrew’s Bemerton, not St. John’s, is the home of “The Country Parson.”