Media Press Conference and photo call:
When: Tuesday 14th July 2015 at 12 noon
Where: St Augustine’s church, St Augustine’s Road, Ramsgate, Kent CT11 9PA
Who:
Paul Hudson (Chair of the Heritage Lottery Fund’s South East Committee)
Rev Fr Marcus Holden (Rector of St Augustine’s church)
Alastair Stewart OBE (Patron of Friends of St Augustine’s)
Catriona Blaker (Pugin Society)
Members of the Pugin and St Augustine Education, Research and Visitor Centre Project Management Board
Embargoed until 12 Noon on Tuesday 14th July 2015
Heritage Lottery Fund grant to Fund £800,000 project at Pugin’s St Augustine’s church in Ramsgate
You are invited to a photo call at St Augustine’s church in Ramsgate, to announce a Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) grant of 74% of a project costing £810,000 for The Pugin and St Augustine Education, Research, and Visitor Centre Project. Alongside this money is being accumulated for associated works such as organ restoration and decoration. The project is the only one of its kind in the country and will provide for a national centre to tell the intertwined stories of the architect, designer, and reformer Augustus Pugin, and of St Augustine who brought Christianity to Southern England and became the first Archbishop of Canterbury.
This project creates an Education, Research and Visitor Centre at the site of Pugin’s “gem”, St Augustine’s church in Ramsgate, and provides new activities, spaces with new facilities, and displays to interpret Pugin’s work and Augustine’s landing. This will be contained in the buildings Pugin built on the site to support a School: thus returning this part of the site (which has been closed for several decades) to its educational and public-interest role.
Fr Marcus Holden, Rector of St Augustine church comments, “This is great news for Ramsgate. The HLF grant will help us to tell the two intertwined heritage stories of AWN Pugin, the architect who designed much of Parliament, and Saint Augustine, who brought Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England. The grant also allows Pugin’s ‘ideal’ grade one listed church to be open as a leading example of the Gothic Revival and Pugin’s own unique and highly influential vision. As a working church, it is the Shrine of St Augustine of England, and we will be able to properly welcome the many pilgrims that come here each year. We will be open every day for everyone, from religious pilgrim, to leisurely tourist, to Pugin enthusiast, to architectural and design students: St Augustine’s will really be on the map.”
John Coverdale, Centre Manager at St Augustine’s, says, “We have been running many pilot projects and building up the momentum behind this project over the past year and a half of the Development Phase. People are so interested in the hidden histories we have here, and how good it will be to open it all up to the public. It is great to see so many people – from across the world – show such enthusiasm and support for this excellent project. We have developed links with so many people and institutions, and, thanks to the Heritage Lottery Fund grant that we are announcing today, St Augustine’s has a great and fascinating future.”
The grant will provide new facilities for local people to get involved through a variety of activities and provide new opportunities for volunteering, learning and developing new skills. Partnerships with schools and universities will be expanded, and new research will shed light in previously hidden history. The visitor experience will be greatly enhanced, with proper interpretation displays, showing of items currently not on public view, and brand new audio-visual materials. The musical and artistic life of St Augustine’s will be expanded, building on the current high standards, and the interior of the church will be further beautified and restored.
St Augustine’s will be a unique national centre for the architect Augustus Pugin, and the principal site for telling the story of St Augustine, nearest his landing site on the coast.