Save Standish Spire

20/09/2025

Our building crafts festival is in full flow despite the weather ☔️

Come down and join us before 4pm for a look at our demonstrators, grab some fish and chips and have a peruse of our new exhibition in the Peace Gate

16/09/2025

Join us for a FREE celebration of traditional building crafts at St Wilfrid's Church in Standish this Saturday 20th September 11am - 4pm ⚒

What to expect:

⭐️ Watch our master craftspeople demonstrate a range of traditional building skills including stonemasonry, leadworking, stained-glass making, wood carving and blacksmithing

⭐️ Take part in our family arts and crafts workshops

⭐️ Tour our newly opened Peace Gate exhibition

⭐️ Hear all about the work happening on the spire in talks with Becky, our church architect

Plus, lots of lovely cake, tea, coffee and fish and chips available from The Joyful Bean Collective and Howe and Co Van 39 Fish and Chips😋

Experience our expert conservationists at work as they demonstrate some of the traditional building crafts involved in maintaining a Grade I Listed building like St Wilfrid's.

26/04/2025

We had such a fantastic day at the launch of our guidebook and are very pleased to report we sold over 100 copies raising a total of £1,053 for the spire project 🎉

Thanks so much to everyone who came - and a special thanks to friend of St Wilfrid’s, Phil Jones who provided the stunning photography for the guidebook as a gift to the church, as well as this beautiful print he presented to us today.

If you missed the event, don’t worry! You can still get a copy of the guidebook (£7) from the Parish Hall office Monday-Friday 10am-12pm.

26/04/2025

We’re all set up and ready to welcome everyone for our guidebook launch! Drop in to St Wilfrid’s Church, Standish any time from 11am-2pm today for some tea, cake and a first look at the guidebook itself 😋

25/04/2025

📣 LAUNCHING TOMORROW!

Join us for the launch of St Wilfrid's brand new guidebook which offers a deep dive into the history of the church and its architecture.

Drop into church between 11am and 2pm tomorrow (Saturday 26th April) for tea, coffee and cake and be among the first to grab your copy - on sale for £7

Looking forward to seeing you there! 🍰☕⛪️

24/04/2025

We recently had a very exciting first day on site with Wigan & Leigh College students Finn and Finley who will be joining our contractors Heritage Conservation Restoration Ltd for a four-month industrial placement.

During their placement the students will be getting lots of hands-on experience in the conservative repair of the spire and will benefit from the mentorship of our principal contractor, SPAB Fellow Michael Goulding as well as architects Becky Gilbert-Rule and Tara Aveyard of Patrick Wilson Architects

Also with us were Beth and Ben, Creative Media students who will be helping to produce a documentary film of the works.

We’re thrilled to have them as part of the project and can’t wait to see what they get up to 🙌

23/04/2025

The race is on to save Standish’s historic spire ⛪️

The scaffolding has now been erected and we’re excited for our contractors, Heritage Conservation Restoration to begin works over the coming weeks!

In case you’re unfamiliar with the story so far, unfortunately recent surveys carried out on the spire at the Grade I listed St Wilfrid’s Church in Standish identified a number of urgent issues which, if not addressed, put the spire at risk of total loss. The necessary repairs are to cost an estimated £500,000, but thanks to the generous support on our crowdfunding campaign and award from The National Lottery works are finally due to commence 🙌

That being said, we’re not quite out of the woods yet and are still a way from our total fundraising target. If you feel like you’d like to lend a hand, you can do so here: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/save-standish-spire