You may notice some wonderful things happening at St Mark’s Church at the moment and we invite you to come along and see what’s being done. Your village church is cleaning up its act! Thanks to the very great support shown by a member of our PCC (Parochial Church Council), who is also a local business man, but wishes to remain anonymous, the gates of the church, which had been damaged some time ago are now gleaming and rehung at the top of our driveway. As well as arranging for that work to be done, free of charge to the church and as a personal gesture of support, we now have an extremely clean church building on the outside as well as the inside. All the ivy and invasive weeds that had been blocking the gutters and growing alarmingly up the walls have all been removed, the gutters have been swept and cleared and the roof cleaned off. Anything that might prove eager to grow again has been thwarted by the application of root killer and the exterior of the walls, pathway and porch are all having weed killer applied to keep the unwanted weeds at bay. Clearance at the bottom end of the church has revealed the line of memorial stones where various families have the ashes of their loved ones buried. The clearance will continue until the bottom foliage has been cut back and made once again pleasant to walk through. As if all this was not enough, the large fundraising sign that has for some time been blocking a view of the church, is to be removed. The posts will remain, as I am sure you will all realise, we may need to put a new fundraising sign up again soon for the substantial work to the interior that is planned. The Parish Church sign is going to be reframed and recoated so that it is more visible from the road and the hedges bordering Main Road are all being lowered by at least twelve inches to afford a much better aspect. I hope that, as a Village, you are all pleased and proud that your church is alive and well and trying to make itself more appealing. As a Christian presence within the village of Friday Bridge, it is important that we show the love of God to everyone, even those just passing us by. A super clean exterior and an immaculate interior are waiting for you all to come along and enjoy. Take pictures, take a seat on our memorial bench, contemplate the lovely building and its surroundings, come in on a Thursday morning for private prayer or just to sit and think. This icon of Friday Bridge with its leaning tower deserves to be celebrated and, we hope, supported by the people who live here. Thanks to the generosity of the person mentioned above, we trust it will be.