A NORTH Tyne parish is celebrating receiving a grant that will help transform their 200-year-old church’s decaying roof.

St Aidan’s in Thorneyburn has been awarded £50,060 for urgent roof repairs.

The parish of Falstone with Greystead and Thorneyburn applied for the grant through the government-funded Listed Places of Worship: Roof Repair Fund.

The project will fund major repairs to the roof and tower to ensure the building is watertight and does not deteriorate further. Before work can begin, a number of surveys must be carried out and the repairs are expected to start at the beginning of next year.

The Grade II-listed building was built in 1818, and still has the original roof lead. One of four churches built with funding from Greenwich Hospital, it was intended to provide a living for redundant navy chaplains after the Battle of Trafalgar.

With a local population of fewer than 300, the church caters for the whole community including Greenhaugh First School.

Churchwarden Caroline Waitt said: “It was absolutely fabulous when we found out we had received the grant. The church is very well supported and everyone was so pleased.

“We are a very small community and there’s no way we would have been able to fund the money ourselves.

“The church and its history are very important to the village and we want to keep it going.

“We need the church, alongside the school, pub and village hall, to continue being part of vibrant community life.”

The money is part of a wider funding package of £22.9m which has gone to 401 historic places of worship across the UK.

The fund was launched by the Chancellor George Osborne in December 2014 and has seen a total of 903 places of worship benefit. The fund is administered by the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) on behalf of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.