01 · Fabric
A roof in working order
The first object of the trust, set down in plain language: to pay churchwardens for the maintenance and ordinary repair of the fabric. In practice this is roofs, gutters, masonry, leadwork.
Reg. Charity 220030 · Est. 1891
We have kept the lights on at St Margaret's for a hundred and thirty‑four years, quietly, in good weather and in bad.
Great Barr Church Lands is the small parochial trust that maintains the fabric, furnishings and graveyard of the Parish Church of St Margaret, Great Barr. We are eight trustees, ten volunteers, one part‑time parish clerk, and a small endowment carefully tended since the original Scheme of .
Year ending 31 Dec 2024
£83,458
Total income — interest, modest fundraising and the Wassail Box
A quiet tagline
'A small trust, a long fidelity.'
— from the 1966 Scheme of Variation
Our work in figures
0 yrs
Since the founding scheme
£0
Granted to St Margaret's since 2014
0
Volunteers · 2025 working roll
0%
Of expenditure that reaches the fabric
What the trust is for
Five small intentions, set down in 1891 and lightly redrawn in 1966 — still the whole of the work.
Our charitable objects, as registered, are narrow on purpose: to keep the parish clerk in post, the fabric of the church sound, the graveyard tended, the services properly provisioned, and the rest of the small annual surplus directed to the ecclesiastical purposes of the Church of England. The values below are how we read those objects in 2026.
02 · Custody
A graveyard that remembers
The 1891 Scheme names the maintenance and enlargement of the graveyard. We read the names in November and we mow in May and we let things grow tall in July.
03 · Office
A parish clerk, in post
The original Scheme requires us to support a Parish Clerk to serve in the church. The clerk keeps the register, the marriage book, the burial book, and the printed pew sheet.
04 · Service
The provisioning of worship
Beeswax candles, cassocks brushed, the Communion linen laundered, the Easter Garden built. Not glamorous; quite weekly. Listed in the objects as 'expenses incurred in the performance of Divine Service'.
05 · Reserve
A long memory of saving
The trust keeps a Restoration Reserve so that when a tower needs re-pointing or a window re-leading — work that cannot be done annually — the money has been quietly accumulating for a generation.
Six named programmes
The work, given names so we can talk about it.
Object I · Fabric
The Fabric Fund
The trust's primary annual disbursement. Stone, lead, slate, timber. Specifications by the Diocesan Advisory Committee architect, work tendered to two craft firms in the West Midlands.
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Object VI · Graveyard
The Graveyard Trust
Monthly mowing from April to October, an autumn working party, and an annual programme of headstone-righting and lichen survey, in tandem with the Sandwell Burial Records project.
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Object I · Office
The Parish Clerk Stipend
A modest stipend, paid quarterly, to the lay clerk who keeps the registers, marries the diary to the rota, prints the pew sheet on a Friday afternoon and unlocks the church on a Sunday morning.
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Object IV · Furnishings
Vestments & Furnishings Grant
Small grants — typically £200 to £1,500 — for the cleaning, repair or replacement of frontals, copes, chasubles, kneelers and altar linen. Work let to recognised textile conservators where the piece is over fifty years old.
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Object V · Service
The Divine Service Fund
The weekly housekeeping of worship — beeswax candles by the gross, communion wafers, laundering of linen, replacement of hymn books, sheet music and the printed liturgy. About £4,200 a year.
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Object III · Reserve
The Restoration Reserve
A long-horizon fund for work the trust cannot meet from one year's income alone: tower re-pointing, full re-leading of an aisle, the quinquennial inspection consequents. Currently £148,200, ring-fenced.
Read more
Above · South aisle, lead-sheathing renewal, March 2026
Active campaign · 2026
The South Aisle Roof Appeal — a hundred yards of new lead, before the next wet winter.
The quinquennial inspection of identified eleven leaking laps on the south aisle. The Restoration Reserve will carry two-thirds; the trustees are asking the parish to bring the rest. A roof keeps a church standing. We have until November.
£26,840 of £40,000
67%
Beneficiary · the worshipping congregation and the families who visit graves in the south churchyard. Funded so far by 184 gifts ranging from £5 to £2,500, including a quiet bequest from a Hamstead family.
Volunteer roles · 2026
We do not need many people. We need the same few, often.
A small charity does not have a volunteer 'team'. It has neighbours who turn up — to mow a strip, to ring a bell, to count the collection, to record an inscription. Three open roles, as of :
Saturdays · 09.00–12.00
Churchyard mower
One Saturday in three, April to October. Strimmer and ride-on mower provided. We pair newcomers with a more experienced volunteer for the first two visits.
Read the roleTuesdays · 19.30–21.00
Beginner bell-ringer
Eight bells in the tower, recast 1922. The tower captain runs a friendly Tuesday practice; no experience needed. Visitors very welcome to come and listen first.
Read the roleQuarterly · 2 hrs
Burial-records transcriber
Reading photographs of headstones and entering them into the public Burial Records database. Done from your own kitchen table with a laptop and a cup of tea.
Read the roleThree small stories
The work, retold by the people who carry it out.
Story · Pheasey
Margaret, 78 · 'The lamps were dim long before I noticed.'
For thirty years Margaret folded the vestments by the light of a single tungsten pendant. A small grant from the Vestments & Furnishings Fund put that right in 2025.
Read the story
Story · Newton
Edward, 64 · 'We read the names out, every one.'
Edward has helped run the Annual Naming for nine years. The Graveyard Trust pays for the printed cards, the candles and the small refreshment in the parish room afterwards.
Read the story
Story · Streetly
Thomas, 67 · 'I came for the bells. I stayed for the tea.'
A small grant in 2022 helped the tower replace three sallies. Thomas has been ringing here ever since — and recruiting friends from Streetly.
Read the storyA small history of giving
Annual grants disbursed to the work of St Margaret's, 2018 to 2025.
Trust expenditure rises and falls with the church's needs and with the markets we invest in. We do not aim to grow; we aim to keep faith with seven plain objects.
Source · Trustees' Annual Report and Accounts, Charity Commission filings 2018–2025
Coming up
Three gatherings in the parish diary.
Jun
17
2026
Wed · 19.30 · St Margaret's, Great Barr
Choral Evensong with the Lichfield Quires Visiting Choir
A sung evensong with music by Howells, Stanford and a new setting by a Lichfield composer. Retiring collection for the south aisle roof.
Jul
04
2026
Sat · 10.00–16.30 · Churchyard
Annual Graveyard Working Party & Summer Tea
Strimming, kerb-righting, bramble-cutting; an open invitation. Tea and Madeira cake from 14.30. Children welcome with a parent.
Sep
12
2026
Sat · 11.00 · Lych-gate
A Walk Through Six Stones — graveyard heritage tour
A ninety-minute walk led by lay historian Jane Wittall, attending to six markers from the 1790s to the 1980s and the families they remember.
Latest dispatches
From the parish newsletter.
· Fabric
A light that warmed the vestry
After thirty years under a single tungsten bulb, the vestry receives its first conservation-grade lighting scheme — a quiet but consequential gift.
· Graveyard
The graveyard that remembers
Notes from the Annual Naming, our long-running All Souls' service, when every burial of the previous twelve months is read aloud beneath the south yew.
· Bells
Sunday bells and Tuesday mornings
The tower's beginner band has trebled in eighteen months. Thomas, the captain, explains why a small grant for new sallies was the start of it.
From the parish
Quiet voices, in no particular order.
In good company
Bodies the trust works with, openly and on the record.
Quarterly dispatch
A short letter from the parish, four times a year.
We do not send promotional email. Once a quarter, on a Wednesday in late afternoon, a short letter on what we have been mending, restoring, learning. Yours to keep, or to delete.