St Aidan Church in Bamburgh to get its first toilet thanks to £10,000 funding grant

More than 20,000 visitors a year visit St Aidan Church in Bamburgh to visit the Grace Darling memorial and an Anglo-Saxon project – but the nearest public conveniences are in the village.

Thankfully, help is on hand and the Grade I Listed church, which dates to the 12th century, is to share in a £478,110 urgent funding pay-out from the National Churches Trust.

A £10,000 grant will help to pay for two toilets – one accessible – as well create a small kitchen and servery area in the church to enable St Aidan’s to become more welcoming.

It will allow the church to host more events and community activities, such as coffee mornings.

Louise Taylor-Kenyon, Vicar of St Aidan’s said: “We are delighted that the National Churches Trust is helping us with this new phase in the life of St Aidan’s. Putting new facilities into a Grade 1 listed building is not straightforward and is expensive, so this grant from the National Churches Trust is very welcome.

“Our aim is to extend our existing ministry of hospitality to a wider range of people through being able to host many more events and activities. In addition, we look forward to not having to direct wedding guests and school children back out of the church to the public facilities beyond the churchyard in the village, and to being able to become more accessible to as many people within our community as possible.”

“St Aidan’s is a unique and special building with an astonishing history – now we can look forward to being able to offer a better welcome to the many people who come here for worship, for events, for special services and for visits.”

Claire Walker, chief executive of the National Churches Trust, said: "The National Churches Trust is excited to be able to support St Aidan Church. This will help to keep the church open and serving local people.”

The church’s crypts hold the remains of 110 individuals who died in the 7th and 8th century, whose remains were found during an archaeological dig at Bamburgh Castle. They were reburied in the crypt in 2016, which has been open to visitors since 2019.