06 Aug 2024
When you are responsible for the very biggest and oldest building in St Albans, hefty bills are a way of life. That’s when you need good Friends.
It costs £6,000 a day to keep the Grade I listed St Albans Cathedral open and continuing to do the job it has done for almost a thousand years.
With calculator in hand, that’s well over £2,000,000 a year, and a big headache for the Cathedral’s finance department.
But help is at hand in the shape of The Friends of St Albans Cathedral, whose primary function is to financially support various projects and improvements to the Cathedral building and environs, some of which you may have noticed recently.
Hazel Ireson is the Friends’ membership secretary: “We’re an independent, non-religious charity providing financial and practical support to St Albans Cathedral,” she says. “Every year well over half a million visitors are welcomed through the Cathedral’s doors completely free of charge, unlike many other cathedrals, and the Friends play a part in helping this policy to continue.”
The extensive landscaping of Sumpter Yard was a project supported by the Friends too, as were the interior wall painting illuminations. The spectacular and nationally recognised annual Alban Pilgrimage Procession through the city centre is another element of the Cathedral’s life that the Friends are able to contribute towards.
“You might be surprised to know that just keeping the flag flying on top of the great Norman tower costs £1,000 a year,” says Hazel. “The Cathedral faces huge annual bills, and the Friends are always delighted to be able to help out, whenever we are asked, with improvements though not with running costs.”
In the last 20 years alone, the charity has donated over £1,000,000 to support initiatives that enrich and enhance the work of the Cathedral.
The Friends of St Albans Cathedral have their origins in the Middle Ages when donations of money and gifts to the medieval Abbey were commonplace and often of spectacular value. Benefactors then included royalty, popes, bishops andnoblemen, enabling the Abbey to amass very considerable riches.
The Cathedral’s ancient Book of Benefactors reflects in detail those donating and the sums involved.
But then, of course, there was hard-up Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539 and the speedy transfer of all that opulence and wealth into the King’s accommodating coffers.
“And, as a result,” says Hazel, “no more Friends of St Albans Abbey. And there wouldn’t be again for 400 years.”
Not until 1949 in fact, when St Albans Cathedral found its accounts in a somewhat dire condition following the Second World War. With enduring post-war austerity and the Cathedral’s seriously accumulating deficit, a revived Friends organisation was established. And they have been doing what they do best ever since.
Now, 75 years later, the Friends have decided to celebrate their milestone anniversary in style with a candle-lit evening of medieval entertainments in the beautiful surroundings of the Cathedral itself. And you are invited!
Hazel said: “We are planning a wonderful evening showcasing dancers, singers, trumpeters, and a masque play, with a reception on arrival offering medieval-inspired delicacies and drinks.
“During the evening you will find out about the work of the Friends in caring for our Cathedral dedicated to Britain’s very first martyr and saint and see for yourself the numerous projects around the building that the Friends have helped to make possible.
“So, if St Albans Cathedral is important to you, and you would like to play a part in its preservation for the generations to come, then you are most warmly invited to join us,” Hazel adds.
The celebrations take place on Saturday October 12, beginning at 7pm.
Tickets cost £20 and are available now from the Cathedral website at stalbanscathedral.org, by phoning the box office on 01727 890290 or calling in person at the Cathedral shop during opening hours.
Photos by Toby Shepheard, Arun Kataria and Luke Watson.
