Parishioners in a North Yorkshire village fear its historic church bells could fall silent within the next year after Labour cancelled a VAT relief scheme.
The Church of St James the Great in Melsonby, near Richmond, have four bells dating from 1370 and 1713 and the Victoria era, which are currently held on old and worn-out fixings, making them difficult to ring. More than £170,000 has already been raised towards the replacement of the bells.
But the Government’s decision to end the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme has left the project with a £30,000 shortfall. If the money, which would otherwise have been VAT claimed back on the work, cannot be found in the next year, the ancient bells that have rung for the last 650 years will never be rung again.
Graham Smith, Melsonby Parochial Church Council Secretary and Project Lead, told GB News: “We’re a relatively small community, but we’ve managed to raise £170,000. The project started, so we began the work, and then we had the government’s decision to stop churches reclaiming VAT, and that gave us a hit of £30,000. So now we’ve got to find that additional £30,000 to enable the project to go ahead. It’s a bit of a kick, and it’s galling with a small community raising £170,000 and then finding out it’s now going to be £200,000.
“If the work isn’t done, the bells will fall silent – the bells themselves will last for centuries, but the fixings on which the bells sit are worn out, so unless we take remedial action, we’d have to stop ringing the bells in the next 12 months, and that would be such a shame. We’ve got a bell from 1370, and to be the generation where those bells fall silent wouldn’t be great for us.”
The Melsonby Bells Project Group hopes the restoration will encourage villagers of all ages to take up bell ringing and continue the ancient craft. For older members of the community, it offers companionship and purpose, helping to reduce loneliness and isolation.
For younger ringers, it provides a hands-on link with living heritage and a chance to learn a skill that has endured for centuries. The tower currently contains four bells, with the earliest bell cast in 1370 and has “Johanes had me made” engraved into the metal, the next in 1718 and the latest two in 1875.
The Melsonby Bells Project Group has been offered six bells from a redundant church in Leeds and aims to install them in the tower, along with two new bells, on a new frame. The existing bells are very difficult to ring, and it is hoped the new ring of eight bells will make it easier to retain and attract ringers.
There are concerns historic church bells will fall silent
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GB NEWS
Michael Carr, Melsonby Parochial Church Council Treasurer, said: “Bell ringing is good fun. You get a group of people together and ringing the bells, you do get a sense of achievement.”The original bell was cast in the 1300s, but the four bells that we have at the moment were installed 175 years ago, so that tradition must be kept going – it’s part of English heritage and culture.”
The Church of St James the Great dates back to 1115 and is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II-listed building. It is also on the Camino Way Ingles, a route taken by pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela, in northern Spain, which is reputed to be the burial place of St James the Great.
For villagers, the church is more than just a place of worship: it’s a hub for groups to gather. Melsonby is a village of around 800 people, and, with the surrounding farms and neighbouring villages, the community may be considered to number up to 2,000.
Funds for church improvements, including the bell restoration, have been raised by the tight-knit community. With their help, the church has been transformed into a welcoming space for Melsonby and its neighbouring villages, hosting multiple events, Parish Council and Women’s Institute meetings, a Friday Café and Post Office, and the creation of new facilities including a kitchen, toilet and meeting room.
Lisa Nandy renewed the scheme but reduced its budget
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PAReverend Caroline Pinchbeck, vicar of the parishes of Aldbrough St John, Forcett and Melsonby, said: “Melsonby doesn’t have any community buildings and so the church is the most important place. It’s not a museum, it’s a living building. This church has been here for 1,400 plus years and you know, most people living in this community were probably living in mud huts back then, and yet they built this to the glory of God. They built this for future generations, for the community, and we’re continuing that.”
The Church of St James the Great and hundreds more have been left in limbo, as a replacement programme has not yet replaced the VAT reclaim scheme before the previous scheme expired. Clergy and heritage groups have spoken of how they have been left thousands of pounds out of pocket after the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme closed six weeks before it was due to expire on March 31.
The scheme, introduced in 2001 by Gordon Brown, the then-chancellor, allowed churches and other listed places of worship to reclaim VAT on repair works. For two decades, it has been relied upon by churches, synagogues and mosques.
Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, renewed the scheme in January for only 12 months but reduced its budget from £42million to £23million and introduced a £25,000 cap on the value of repairs eligible for VAT relief. Ministers have since announced a £92million Places of Worship Renewal Fund to replace it, but the fund has yet to open, leaving uncertainty over what support churches can expect.
Bill Nixon, Member of Melsonby Parish Council, told the People’s Channel: “From the Parish Council’s point of view, I think we’ve been really badly let down by Government on these schemes. They haven’t come forward and said, ‘Oh well, this scheme is finished, but this is a new policy, this is a new scheme that we’re going to introduce, and you can do this, this and this’ – there’s nothing there. Even children have been putting little bits of money in and their families [to the bells project], and to be taxed upon that as well puts a bad message out to the wider community. But hopefully we will succeed, because that’s what the people of Melsonby do, we do succeed. This is such a community asset as well as a church.”
The National Churches Trust (NCT) say historic churches across Britain now face a six-week gap in the funding needed to secure roofs and prevent historic buildings from “falling down”. Almost 1,000 churches were already on Historic England’s Heritage at Risk Register, while one in 20 churches need a new roof or gutters this year, according to the 2025 National Churches Survey.
The NCT says churches have no idea what government support they can expect to receive from now until the end of the financial year, and added: “The future of churches is our biggest heritage challenge. The Government have been caught short – they have no scheme or funding in place to help keep churches open. They have withdrawn help from churches when they need it most.”
It describes the additional 20 per cent VAT as “the biggest blow of all” and Sir Philip Rutnam, who chairs the Trust, said the news has left potentially hundreds of churches in the lurch. The Trust has already expressed concern that, since churches depended overwhelmingly on volunteers, the scheme needed to be simple, accessible and predictable.
It said the scheme also needed to work “in an agile way, so that it does not slow down urgent repair works that are needing to be made, particularly following bad weather and storms”. A spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport confirmed the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme is now closed for applications and said: “The recently announced £92million Places of Worship Renewal Fund is designed to support churches with capital grants for repairs. More information will be announced in due course.”
The spokesman added a review of the previous scheme showed 80 per cent of respondents would still have carried out works without the VAT rebate and said: “The Places of Worship Renewal Fund will be designed so that more targeted funding gets to the areas and communities that need it the most.”
The Melsonby Bells Project Group has written to their local Richmond and Northallerton MP, former prime minister Rishi Sunak, asking for his help, and hopes that with further donations or a change in government funding, its church bells will continue to ring for centuries more.
To donate to the bell restoration project, visit www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/melsonby-church-bells-project-our-community-hub.