LUDLOW’S biggest visitor attraction has taken a big hit because of coronavirus with lost income and the freezing of a multi-million pound funding bid.

St Laurence Church has more visitors than any other of the town’s attractions.

But it is also hugely dependent upon the money that comes from visitors to meet the cost of upkeep and maintenance.

To make matters worse the Church also had a Heritage Lottery bid put on ice because of the virus.

“Covid has had a massive impact on St Laurence’s in a number of ways,” said Ewart Carson, who was church warden for six years and is now involved with preparing bids for funding and also organising events at the church.

“Purely as a place of worship it is totally non-viable financially, so we are heavily reliant on visitor income and income from community events which have ranged through concerts, plays, bazaars, fashion shows, ceilidhs and even a beer festival.

“We have had very little income these past months but with some astute financial work from Peter Nield, we are just managing to keep afloat.”

Sunday services restarted last month with face masks and social distancing and at the beginning of August the church began welcoming back visitors, though with no tower visits at the moment and just for four hours each day.

The church is limited by the number of stewards and would like more.

A new shop in the church has finally opened but numbers are well down and so are donations.

However, things have been slowly picking up and recently the church had 600 visitors in a week which is the best since it reopened.

But perhaps the biggest blow is the hold up to a major funding bid.

“Just as the lock-down started we were in the final stages of having a multi-million pound bid to the Heritage Lottery assessed,” said Mr Carson.“We felt reasonably confident that we would be successful, but the plug was pulled on all new bids, so we shall have to wait until ‘normal service’ resumes and hope that we can resubmit.

“The scope of that bid included major stained glass conservation works in the Chancel, new facilities including a kitchen and four loos, and major investment in augmented reality technology to make St Laurence’s extensive history come to life and be more accessible to a wider community.”

There is some good news with success in getting support from the Lottery’s Heritage Emergency Fund.

“This is providing money for ‘equipment,’ ‘re-opening the church’ and ‘supporting the wider community economy,” added Mr Carson.

“The equipment will enable us to have a high quality streaming facility, streaming events both into the church as well as streaming out.”