St. Mary's Spire Appeal
🏁 We have now closed our spire campaign
Following a busy day on the stall at the 2026 Billingshurst Show, we've closed the sponsorship campaign.
The tremendous generosity of parishioners and our friends in the village has helped towards the cost of reshingling three faces of our spire.
All the sponsored shingles will attached to the southern face of our spire in the first week of July 2026.
The Spire of St. Mary's
Steeplejack working on the spire of St Mary’s early in 2026. Photo: Norman Dudman Up above the fields and houses, the spire of St Mary’s Church has watched over Billingshurst for centuries. Visible across fields, lanes and rooftops, it is more than an architectural feature - it is a symbol of continuity, faith and community life.
A church has stood on this site since at least the 12th century, and within the tower hangs a ring of eight bells, whose sound marks celebration and remembrance across the parish. St Mary’s is also a Grade I listed building, recognised nationally for its historic importance. Caring for it is a privilege - and a responsibility shared across generations.
The spire is clad in thousands of wooden shingles, or timber tiles, that protect the structure from wind and weather. Over time, shingles fail through age and exposure to the elements. In 2026, what started as a small bit of maintenance grew into a project to cover the west, southwest and finally the south faces of the spire.
Having heard that other parishes had ran sponsorship campaigns for their spire repair, we thought we could do something similar, but with a slight twist. Our campaign was a two-pronged approach, with one of our churchwardens gathering sponsorship to climb the spire using the scaffolding and the ladder that was attached as part of the work. The other part of the campaign was to offer sponsors - both parishioners and those that live in the parish and beyond - the chance to have an inscription burned into a shingle. Both elements proved to be popular, running from January 2026 until the last week of June, where we had a stall at the Billingshurst Show.
The 2026 appeal continues a centuries-old tradition of stewardship: ordinary people ensuring that this extraordinary landmark remains safe and weatherproof for the future.
One last artefact will be a list of all the shingles and their inscriptions. This will be stored in the church as a reminder of those who were remembered and celebrated. A time capsule, if you like.
26/06/2026