Despite being a relatively modern building, Guildford Cathedral requires urgent repairs and has launched a ‘Make Your Mark’ campaign to help raise the funds. The campaign, which will fund urgent repairs to the Cathedral’s vaults (including asbestos removal) aims to help raise the £1.3million it requires to secure further lottery funding.
The ‘Make Your Mark’ campaign allows patrons of the cathedral to leave a message in a book to be immortalised for future generations. It’s a time capsule of sorts and aims to rekindle the community spirit behind the 1961 ‘Buy a Brick’ campaign, in which 200,000 people each bought a brick of the cathedral. While the campaign is set to be a success, it will still barely touch the massive £7 million renovation bill. Most of the money is hoped to be provided by the national lottery, while the remainder will be made from development companies purchasing land on the slopes of Stag Hill as endowments to help give the cathedral a future.
To help launch the campaign, Revd Dianna Gwilliams, the Dean of Guildford, will be abseiling down the 160 foot tall tower. Mrs Gwilliams, said, “Between 1952 and 1961 a truly impressive range of people from schools and streets to couples on their wedding day and families remembering loved ones all came together to help complete the people’s cathedral”. She hopes this stunt will inspire similar devotion. Also a teddy bear birthday fund-raiser, run by an original ‘Buy a Brick’ patron of the cathedral, will be taking place for children and parents in the coming weeks.
There is also a hope that other people will also begin engaging with our cathedral and start fund-raisers of their own. They also want to hear from anybody who bought a brick in 1961, as they intend to produce an oral history project, which records the memories of the original brick-givers.
Anyone wishing to learn more about ‘Make Your Mark’, or wanting to participate in fund raising for the Cathedral, should check out the Guildford Cathedral website HERE.
Adam Niblett
Photograph by Ezra Rollinson