On 4 December Rochester Cathedral Trust was delighted to have our Royal patron, HRH The Countess of Wessex, join us for a very special fundraising luncheon at the Mansion House in London. The Lord Mayor of London, William Russell and The Lady Mayoress hosted the event at which we were so thrilled to have Joanna Lumley as our guest speaker. She gave a very interesting and amusing address to the group and finished by saying it was time to shine a light on Rochester! We all agree with that!

It was a gathering of 40 people, almost all of whom either live or work in London and generated much needed funds for the Cathedral fabric. We are very grateful to our new donors who gave over £25,000 on the day. The event was sponsored by our Trustee, Mr Lars Lemonius, and we were so pleased he was able to help us in this way.

While the Countess of Wessex was at Mansion House she took the opportunity to sign a Book of Remembrance put in place for the attack outside the Fishmongers Hall.

Project update

Since our Mansion House luncheon we have been able to generate some large gifts dedicated to the fabric of the cathedral.

The first was from Mr Tim Bull who donated £110,000 which was gift aided to make the amazing sum of £137,500. This gift was dedicated to the South Quire Clerestory, Quire Vault and North Transept project. We are very pleased that we will be able to make the high-level repairs and the netting can at last come down! This gift has been added to the £45,000 that The Headley Foundation gave us last year together with gifts of £2,000 and £500 making it possible for us to start work in the next couple of months.

The second very large gift is from a private donor and is for £250,000. This is an amazing gift and we are delighted to receive it and continue the works on the badly damaged glazing and ferramenta.

We have received a gift of £10,000 from Mr Paul Auston of Checkmate Limited which will be used to repair the damaged railings and we can start on some health and safety repairs which are badly needed.

You may remember that we have an art project for a Triptych to be painted and installed in the Lady Chapel showing some of the Lady Martyrs. Joanna Lumley is very interested in this project and has donated £10,000. This has been added to by John Guthrie who donated £5,000 last year and our Cathedral Trust Chairman, Richard Oldfield, who on behalf of the Henry Oldfield Trust, has match funded the remaining £15,000.

We have also received an undedicated gift of £5,000 from James Loudon.

A really good year of fund raising from Rochester Cathedral Trust, with an amount of £667,000 (including pledges) being raised for the year! We thank all our supporters whose gifts enabled this work to happen, including those who wish to remain anonymous.