Dear Friend,

You may be a regular attendee at St James’ in Salt or St Peter’s in Hopton, or a local resident who only knows the church as a landmark.

Perhaps your family has had a major family occasion here, say a wedding or a baptism? You may occasionally visit our churchyard that we are proud to keep clean, tidy and inviting for relatives and visitors.

The presence of these beautiful buildings adds greatly to the appeal of our villages, and you will know that they are important parts of our community.

We shouldn’t be surprised if Victorian buildings need repairing from time to time.

In the last few years we have repaired the wooden floor in St James, and fitted new electric heating. This has reduced our carbon footprint significantly. The upkeep of the exterior of the buildings and grounds around the churches – and the churchyard – is expensive.

Our current project is repairs to the bell flèche and surrounding roof area. Once repaired we hope that the chancel area will be watertight. We are in the process of raising £35,000 to finance this work. 

So, to enable us to tackle some of these areas, we need to raise funds.

We are asking the community to help by becoming ‘Friends of Salt and Hopton Churches’.

We are asking you if you could give £5 a month to assist us in looking after the buildings and grounds of our churches.

In return we would like to enrol you in our monthly 50/50 draw.

Half of your £5 monthly donation to the ‘Friends of Salt and Hopton Churches’ will go into a draw and would give you a chance of winning one or more prizes. The size of the prizes depends on how many people join – the more people, the bigger the prizes.

So, if you are interested – and we hope you are! – please take time to think about what St James’ in Salt and St Peter’s in Hopton, mean to you and consider helping our Buildings Appeal by joining our ‘Friends of Salt and Hopton Churches’.

For more information, please email [email protected]

You can keep up to date by visiting our facebook page book page or the section on the Compass magazine, which is circulated free of charge to houses in the  mid Trent Benefice.