Click here for information about Value Added Tax and Church Buildings.

Over 16,000 churches and 42 cathedrals in England are cared for by the Church of England. They are a unique collection of buildings: signposts to belief and symbols of the presence of God.

These buildings are first and foremost places of worship, witnesses in stone and brick to the truth of the Gospel. But these buildings are much else besides: their spires and towers, rising over town and countryside, play an important part in defining the English sense of place, community and identity. From modest church to glorious cathedral, they are a priceless part of our national heritage. England would be markedly different without its much loved churches and cathedrals.

The variety of churches is remarkable: ranging in date from St Martin�s in Canterbury, already in use when St Augustine landed in AD 597, to new buildings such as the award-winning St Paul�s, Harringay, opened in 1993; in size from St Paul�s Cathedral, to St Swithun�s, just a room above Kingsgate in Winchester.


Some facts about the Church of England�s buildings

• The Church of England has over 16,000 churches and 42 cathedrals in England, as well as others in mainland Europe.

• 13,000 of these buildings are listed by the Government as being of special architectural or historic interest.

• Some 40% of Grade I listed buildings (i.e. the most valuable historic buildings in the country) are churches. Most of these buildings are Church of England churches and cathedrals.

• Not all churches are historic buildings. Many churches have been built in recent years - in 1997, for example, ten new buildings were opened, bringing the total of new churches to 131 in the last ten years.

• Most churches are in fact a mixture of new and old. A typical parish church might be basically a mediaeval building, with sixteenth-century communion plate, some eighteenth-century monuments and fittings, a nineteenth-century restoration, refurnishing and stained glass and some twentieth-century additions to make the building suitable for contemporary needs. All this reflects the way in which churches have been adapted and added to over the years, as the needs of the worshipping community have changed.

• Church buildings are treasuries of art, local and national history, culture, music and archaeology.

• Although the main purpose of churchyards is as places for burials, they also provide valuable (and often unique) habitats for plants and animals and green spaces for people to enjoy.

• Church organs and bells support living traditions of music and change-ringing.

• Over 31 million tourists a year visit churches and cathedrals, many of them from overseas.

• Church buildings are at the heart of communities: for example, with the closure of village shops and post offices churches are often the only community buildings in rural areas; and church buildings are often also at the heart of urban communities as meeting places, headquarters of community projects and so on. Examples include the many churches which make their premises available for providing shelter for the homeless and those which host lunch clubs for the elderly.

• It is local church communities who meet most of the costs of looking after church buildings. The cost of maintaining, repairing and running churches is over �100 million per year.

The responsibility for looking after churches lies mainly with the local church communities. They are advised in this by their local archdeacon and bodies known as Diocesan Advisory Committees for the Care of Churches or, in the case of cathedrals, by Fabric Advisory Committees. Nationally there are two central bodies with responsibility for the care of churches and cathedrals, respectively: the Council for the Care of Churches (E-mail: [email protected]) and the Cathedrals Fabric Commission for England (E-mail: [email protected]).

The address of these two organisations is:

Fifth Floor,
Church House,
Great Smith Street,
London,
SW1P 3NZ.
Telephone: 020 7898 1000;
fax: 020 7898 1881.

These bodies are also involved in the Church�s control systems over its buildings, which are designed to ensure that buildings are looked after responsibly for the benefit both of current and future worshippers. The control systems are comparable to those used by the Government to control work to historic buildings, but recognise the mission and spiritual dimension of churches. They are intended to conserve churches by allowing adaptations to meet the needs of worshippers provided that these changes are sensitive also to the heritage aspects of the building.

The leading charity which supports essential repairs to churches of all denominations in England and Wales is The Historic Churches Preservation Trust.

A small number of churches each year cease to be used for public worship, usually at the request of the local church community. A process of consultation takes place which involves the diocese, interested parties and some of the national Church heritage bodies. Great efforts are made to find suitable uses for churches no longer required for public worship.

Examples of uses for redundant churches include worship by other Christian bodies, civic, cultural or community purposes, museums and educational use, and residential conversion. Where suitable uses cannot be found, churches of particular historic, archaeological or architectural interest are vested in the Churches Conservation Trust for preservation. Details of redundant churches currently available for suitable alternative uses are included on the Church Commissioners� Web pages.

The Church�s stock of buildings is by no means static. For the same reasons that it is necessary to take some churches out of use, because of population changes for example, new churches are built regularly.

The Church of England is proud of its church buildings. This remarkable collection of buildings is testimony to the enduring presence of God and the faith of many centuries. In each generation churches have been lovingly looked after, adapted and new ones built so as to proclaim the faith afresh in each generation.

Value Added Tax and Church Buildings

The Church of England believes that the value of the ecclesiastical built heritage to the community as a whole should be recognised by the application of the UK reduced rate of VAT of 5% (the lowest allowed by Europe VAT Directives) for all costs associated with the upkeep and repair of Church buildings.

The Church is committed to press for this "fairer treatment" of the ecclesiastical built heritage by ensuring that a well-researched case is heard by government. If you would like to know more about the issues involved then for a short summary click here.