How has the WMF Watch helped:
Watch nominator Elaine Griffiths MBE, tells WMF how Watch listing helped secure the future of Gorton Monastery
Elaine Griffiths MBE, Chief Executive of the Monastery of St Francis and Gorton Trust, has been involved with Gorton Monastery since the inception of the Trust in 1996. It was established as a building preservation trust to find new sustainable uses for Gorton Monastery and to support wider community work in Gorton.
Soon after Elaine’s involvement, she relinquished her career as a marketing executive within the food industry to champion full-time the cause of the rescue and regeneration of the Monastery. After many years’ struggle and the successful regeneration of the Monastery, her contribution to the North West was recognized in 2007 by the award of an MBE for services to heritage.
In 2008, Elaine and her husband, Paul (co-founder of the Monastery Trust), were recognized by the UK’s Business in the Community in their winning of the Sieff Award, celebrating outstanding community individuals who have successfully generated support from the corporate sector to benefit both society and businesses.
Address the Threats?
“The Monastery is situated in Gorton, a suburb of Manchester which faces multi-layered social exclusion – it is in the top 5% of deprived neighbourhoods in Europe – and following the departure of the Franciscans and the collapse of the local economy, the future for the magnificent buildings looked bleak. Inclusion in the WMF’s list of sites earned the Monastery the title of the “Taj Mahal of Manchester” and enabled the Trust to construct a package of funding with a number of partners to complete the first phase of conservation of the former church and friary and bring them back into economic and cultural use. The Trust is currently embarking on a further fundraising project to realise the “missing £1m” to complete conservation of the former sanctuary area, Lady Altar and other areas of the Church.”
Raise Advocacy?
“Having purchased the buildings – and liabilities – for £1 in 1997, the Trust had an early success in being included on WMF’s Watch in 1998. This helped raise the profile and serious plight of the buildings and was one of the most significant pieces of advocacy received through the project.
The listing helped maintain momentum for the Trust’s work and provided excellent publicity and financial support to enable the Trust to develop costed plans for the conservation of the buildings for support by our partners.”
Raise Funding?
“Having been listed in the Watch for a second time in 2000, the Monastery Trust was fortunate in 2001, through the World Monuments Fund, to receive support of over £12,000 from American Express and further support of £112,000 from the Wilson Challenge Fund in 2001. These funds enable the Trust to work up detailed plans for the rescue of the site when no other sources of revenue funding were available.”
Grants and donations received “The £6.5 million conservation package was funded through grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund (almost £4 million), a significant grant offer from the European Regional Development Fund, finally amounting to just over £2.15 million, and partnership funding of almost £440k from English Heritage and £330k from the North West Development Agency. The Trust also received significant support from the Architectural Heritage Fund as well as grants from a number of charitable trusts to fund community and outreach work.
Work on the conservation / restoration project started on site in late 2005 and was largely complete by July 2007, although the Trust currently has a campaign to raise the “missing £1m” to complete conservation work in the former Church building.”
The Community?
“For over 100 years, Gorton Monastery was home to a vibrant Catholic community in Manchester and played a very important part of the local community, with schools, clubs, amateur dramatics, a band and other church and community activities. When the Monastery of St Francis and Gorton Trust was established, the Trust was clear that the project needed to be linked closely into the community (hence the “and Gorton” in the rather cumbersome title). Beyond finding a sustainable use for the buildings, the Trust set as one of its key objectives the use of the Monastery and the surrounding site for the benefit of local people to stimulate interest and participation in the area and act as a focus for community engagement and development.”
Early on, the Monastery Trust established “The Angels” as its community development arm. In 2005, the Trust secured a five-year lease on a disused primary school building opposite the Monastery. The building, named ‘The Angels’, provides a base at the heart of the local community from which a programme of services can be delivered. The Angels is home (among other things) to an Art Group, a community choir, Tai Chi and Yoga classes, affordable complementary therapies, as well as being the office location for, among others, the local Sure Start and City Council’s Local Education Team.
Now that the Trust has re-occupied the former Friary and Church, the community activity is shared across the two sites. The Angels is also the co-ordinating hub for “community payback” (work of those within the probation system) in this part of Manchester and negotiations are underway for the Angels to become a hub for a community legal advice service (provided by the legal community in Manchester in partnership with Manchester University).
Renewal
“The regeneration of the Monastery and Friary, so long a symbol of the wider decline of east Manchester, has brought hope and renewed aspiration to local people and through successful partnerships has demonstrated how a heritage building can be a catalyst for positive change – the heritage dynamo in action.”
