St Mary's Church Repair Project
Project Outline
St Mary the Virgin Wirksworth is a grade I listed Major Parish Church in central Derbyshire. The PCC is embarking on a project to deliver repairs to the transept roofs, repointing and stone consolidation, repairs to churchyard paths, improvements to heating and lighting systems, and work to reduce our carbon footprint through green energy generation. There will also be a programme of public engagement and interpretation that focusses on the foundation of the early church and town, and the story of Wirksworth through its families alongside opportunities to try hands-on heritage crafts activities. The project is being delivered with a development phase grant (work to RIBA stage 4 and contractor’s tender) through a grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, alongside other sources of funding and local fundraising.
The project is also known as Faith Folk Foundations, describing the three strands of our focus, the faith of the people who originally built this church, the folk of our town and the foundations of the church and our town that we hope to find in during our project.
Project Updates
April 2026: We have now advertised for our Project Manager, with closing date of the end of April and interviews in May 2026.
May 2026: We have now interviewed and appointed a Project Manager. Her name is Lucy Godfrey and her tender submission offered excellent value for money and excellent experience, alongside knowledge of our Wirksworth community. We are sure that Lucy will be a good fit for our project and look forward to working with her.
The PCC of St Mary the Virgin, Wirksworth is seeking to appoint two consultants to support Faith, Folk, Foundations, our National Lottery Heritage Fund project to conserve the church, improve its environment and open up its heritage to more people.
We are inviting tenders for an Activity Planning and Interpretation Consultant (up to £20,000 excluding VAT) to prepare the project's Activity Plan and Interpretation Plan, and for an Evaluation Consultant (up to £18,000 excluding VAT across both Development and Delivery phases) to establish and deliver the project's evaluation framework.
Full briefs for both commissions can be downloaded below. Tenders should be submitted by email in PDF format by 12 noon on Friday 11th September 2026. Clarification questions should be sent by 5pm on Friday 28th August 2026, and responses of general relevance will be published on this page.
Enquiries and submissions: Lucy Godfrey, Consultant Project Manager - stmaryswirksworth@gmail.com
