Appeal update from Chief Executive Matthew Butler, June 2009

As a supporter of Canterbury Cathedral, I thought you might like a mid year update on our progress with vital conservation work.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to thank you again for your kind donations, gifts which means so much more given the financial uncertainty facing us all at this time. Your contribution is incredibly important to us.

The releading of the South East Transept roof has been completed and the project to repair other parts of the same Transept is going well. This includes work on the staircasetower,once known as Anselm’s Tower. This work is particularly timely when just last month the Cathedral celebrated the 900th anniversary of the saint's death.

Canterbury Cathedral has more than 400m²of early medieval glass, by far the largest collection in Britain, and in the next couple of months work will begin on the major task of repairing the glass from the South Oculus Window.

A generous grant of £230,000 from The Wolfson Foundation and English Heritage for the conservation of the Howley Library has been matched by an equally generous gift of £230,000 from The Friends of the Cathedral, enabling work to begin. A key issue will be the safe storage of the priceless books and manuscripts while the work takes place.

Scaffolding has recently been put up on Christ Church Gate, for centuries the main entrance to the Precincts for visitors and pilgrims. The current work will result in a full report outlining the conservation needed on the stonework, and on the wooden gates themselves, believed to date from the 17th Century.

The urgency of much of this work means fundraising must go on despite the recession. In April, the Cathedral Choir toured the United States, giving concerts in 11 cities in just 15 days. Every performance received a standing ovation and we continue to grow support for Canterbury Cathedral in America.

As I have mentioned, one of the projects going on at the moment is the conservation of the staircase tower of the South East Transept, once known as Anselm’s Tower. A very effective way of supporting this project is to sponsor a stone in the Cathedral. Since its launch, our Sponsor a Stone scheme has proved incredibly popular and has raised more than £70,000. The new stones, many from the original source in Normandy, are worked largely by hand by the Cathedral’s own stonemasons using traditional methods handed down from one generation to the next.

Sponsorship starts from as little as £5 a month and you will receive a very special certificate plotting exactly where your stone is on the Cathedral. You can also choose to have your donation recognised on our online Roll of Donors. Please take a moment to read the information we have sent you about this project.

Thank you once again for your continuing support of this great and unique Cathedral, and everything that it stands for. You are a vital part of the Canterbury family, a large and far-flung community of like-minded people who care about the Cathedral and are working together to ensure it remains an inspiration for future generations. I do hope you will have the opportunity to visit us over the summer to see some of the work that is taking place and, perhaps, to join one of the daily services of Worship.

Matthew Butler,

June 2009