Buildings and Churchyards

With the priorities of Living God’s Love, churches are and should be local centres of worship and mission, in which

people can encounter God and be drawn into a worshipping community
parishes can reach out in mission
local communities can be transformed.

Church Buildings

A church is more than bricks and mortar. It is a community of people who, together, live in relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

There is a church at the heart of every community. And each one puts its faith in action. Our churches run food banks and night shelters, host exercise classes, organise farmers markets, and so much more.

Our church buildings can be great assets to mission; this section of the website aims to help parishes work with their buildings by providing information and resources on a range of topics, including:

Permissions, such as faculties and minor matters and how to apply for them;
Caring for your church building, including guidance on maintenance and quinquennial inspections;
Net Zero Carbon guidance, including heating, renewables and the Energy Footprint Tool;
Developing your church building for worship, mission and outreach;
Grants for repairs, maintenance and development projects; and
Income Generation, including guidance on hiring out your church, church hall and spaces in the car park to a third party

Heating your church building

Churchyards

Churchyards are special places. They can be places of peace, sanctity, history, biodiversity and so much more to so many people in the community. This creates a special set of issues in the need to balance the needs and expectations of a wide range of people.

The Churchyards page provides advice and guidance on memorials and regulations, maintenance, wildlife and the Living Churchyard project. The Churchyard Regulations aim to ensure that all users of their churchyards are treated with fairness, equity and consistency. There are several DAC Advice leaflets related to churchyards.

Church Halls

For many PCCs, church halls are an important part of their ministry and mission. They can provide more flexible and versatile spaces than church buildings. In other cases, halls will be a major source of income which supports the work of the church. For more information, contact the Property Team and/or Richard Jackson, the Local Church Income Support Officer.

Clergy housing

The clergy house is often at the heart of parish life and as such is really important to you and to us. If you are a clergyperson click here for information about your house. There is also guidance for Churchwardens looking after a house in a vacancy . Or please contact the Property Team.

Upcoming Events

Emergency Planning Sessions with Ann Wise

Flooding, leaks and fire often happen without warning. This informal session with Ann Wise, Historic Church Buildings Officer, offers practical advice on what to have in place before an emergency occurs, helping you respond quickly and calmly when it does.

New Emergency Planning Sessions are available throughout October and November.

Solve Portal Problems: drop-in help sessions

The DAC team are hosting weekly online drop-in sessions (between November – January) to answer any questions you might have that relate to the Online Portal for making Faculty and List B applications. These drop-in sessions are an opportunity for attendees to ask specific questions about the online Portal, including queries on topics such as uploading documents, completing the forms (Petition and Public notice), and certifying the petition form and the certificate of public notice,

These sessions are entirely focussed on the Online Portal itself. Session numbers will be kept small to enable attendees to have the chance to raise their queries. As the sessions are subject specific, please get in touch with the team directly if you have any other queries such as proposals for new projects, applying for a grant/faculty or heating problems.

Martyn’s Law Briefing

Martyn’s Law (the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025) will come into force in 2027. To help churches prepare, CST will be delivering two online briefings covering what churches need to do to comply, including those in the Standard Tier (where 200 to 799 people may be present at one time) and larger premises.

Online briefings:

4 November, 2pm to 4pm

3 November, 7pm to 9pm

Churchwarden Training

The autumn session on church buildings, churchyards and church grounds will be held online on:

Monday 9 November 14:30 – 16:00

Thursday 19 November 19:30 – 21:00

By attending the autumn session, you will know:

How to contact the DAC team
How to apply for permissions
Where to look for help for PCC policies
Who to contact about funding and practical advice

The Gift of the Place – making the most of your church, its buildings and facilities for all

Date: Friday 20 November, 09:45 – 12:15

Location: Barton Le Clay

Our church buildings matter, their layouts and facilities influence how people use them and how they feel about them. Those that regularly visit and use church buildings often have a love hate relationship with them; some may view them as being too cold or damp, others that they are beautiful but unwelcoming. The relationship we have with our buildings is important.

This workshop explores several aspects of churches being open and used – including tips on opening your church for visitors, good maintenance, accessibility, ideas for heating your church to make people feel warm and using your church to generate income. We are delighted that Bishop Andrew has recorded a special introduction for this workshop.

Parish workshops

The DAC team often offer parish workshops on aspects of the care and development of church buildings, but sometimes clergy find it difficult to attend if the dates are agreed at short notice To make planning easier, we are setting up a programme of termly clergy training events in person. We have already held events on Caring for your church and churchyard or church garden and Applying for Faculties and Minor Matters Permissions.

The DAC team have the following events planned in the next few months:

Curates and clergy newly in post are particularly encouraged to attend as many sessions as possible, but all clergy or ministers in charge of a parish are very welcome.

Future sessions planned for 2027 will cover:

Developing a project
Statements of Significance and Needs
Major projects – how to organise a successful project without breaking you, your churchwardens or your volunteer project team.

Recent training events

The resources, including the recordings, are available online:

If you have any problems accessing the Portal please do get in touch with the DAC team.

Church Maintenance workshop

This practical workshop took place on Thursday 16th May 2024. These are the resources that were shared at the workshop which should help parishes identify routine maintenance issues and understand what to do next.

Fundraising workshops

Ann Wise, the Historic Church Buildings Support Officer, has now led two fundraising workshops. The first was held in June 2024 and the second was held in November 2024 . These are the resources that were shared at the first workshop which should help parishes to identify strategies to fund their projects. The resources from the second workshop will be uploaded shortly.

Maintenance week

Liz West, the Church Buildings Maintenance Officer, hosted a series of events for SPAB’S Maintenance week, in November 2024, aimed at helping parishes with issues relating to maintenance. Liz also wrote a blog post every day to highlight some important issues.

There is a page of resources from the ‘Lunch and Learn – Maintenance Plans‘.

AccessAble webinar

This webinar was held in January 2025, and was led by AccessAble’s founder and CEO, Dr Gregory Burke, and shared information on the website AccessAble with parish volunteers, clergy and professional advisers. AccessAble is a disabled person-led organisation, founded in 2000. They exist to enable disabled people and their families to use buildings and spaces with dignity.

Their website www.AccessAble.co.uk helps over 6 million disabled people a year find the accessibility information they need before visiting a place or space. Over the last 25 years they have worked with 1000s of disability groups to shape their service. They work with 100s of public and private sector organisations to support them on their accessibility journey. Their team of 50+ surveyors have personally assessed over 125,000 places, including some of the oldest buildings in the UK.