Documents

The Friends of Pilton Church first came into being, in its 21st Century version, in about 2002 when an urgent need arose to repair the War Memorial West Window of the Priory Church of St Mary, Pilton. That repair work was successfully completed in 2005 and, effectively, the Friends lapsed again. Then, in 2007 the Parochial Church Council was told by the church’s insurance company that, if the South Porch, which had been in a poor state for some time, was not repaired within six months, the church would have to close. A very successful appeal followed to raise the money for the repairs which were carried out in 2008.

However, the church remained in need of both large and small ongoing repairs and modifications, so The Friends of Pilton Church was re-launched under the leadership of Carol and Martin Haddrill. People were invited to contribute subscriptions and sponsorship but the main fundraising in the next four years was through a series of splendid concerts of words and music.

The document which you can download here describes in detail the activities of The Friends of Pilton Church organising those concerts in the church, selling cards of the church and Pilton Festival and Pilton Calendars for 2010, 2011 and 2012, and collecting sponsor money and subscriptions. £600 was raised by the Piltonstock Festival held in the Chichester Arms in 2008. The Young Musicians Support of the Dartington North Devon Charitable Trust and the Exmoor Carolers with readers drawn from the community produced a wonderful series of memorable summer and winter concerts. Unfortunately, in 2012 it was determined that The Friends would require its own public liability insurance to continue. The cost of that made the organisation of the concerts unviable so fundraising activity ceased.

Over the four years of activity, a total of £7426 was raised and this was spent on seven projects within the church over the period 2010 to 2019. In 2020, following the death of Carol Haddrill, it was decided to close The Friends and use the balance of funds for the eighth project of a toilet block for the church.