St Walburge’s church statue restoration is complete

The restored statue, and how it used to look Pic: Blog Preston

A statue of the namesake of an iconic church in Preston has undergone a major restoration project.

St Walburge’s Church in Pedder Street, Ashton-on-Ribble, has seen the statue of its patron saint taken away for a £2,900 repair.

The recent restoration of the statue of St Walburge means it now stands in traditional attire where it had previously been painted over multiple times.

The statue has now been given a new sense of life according to regular church attendee, Maria, who told Blog Preston: ”She looked before as if she had make-up painted on which wasn’t realistic…she now looks more lifelike”.

The overall restoration took a few weeks to complete, by the Lewis and Lewis Restorers based in Liverpool, costing £2,900 which was raised by donations from the congregation and a GoFundMe page.

However, she is not yet complete with her halo expected to be arriving from Italy in a few weeks’ time.

St Walburge's Church, Preston. — The newly restored St Walburge’s Church statue Preston.

St Walburge’s roof remains in need of repair

The church is undergoing several restoration projects.

Phase one of the project began two years ago, with the necessary work on the structural areas of the roof.

Duncan Sanderson the architect who is restoring the building said: “They are insulating the church and the slates have something we call nail sickness so slates are falling and dropping off.

“Water is coming into the building which is causing water damage internally potentially causing rot in the structural timber.”

The second phase will aim to restore the tower roof to the sanctuary.

Rector, Canon Gwenael Cristofoli, said: “The roof restoration will cost £461,000, where £80,000 of that is for scaffolding alone.”

Phrase three of this includes repairing the façade from the caber to the tower where previous materials used were inadequate for the buildings structure, however the spine of the church remains in good condition.

The iconic church receives support from various organisation for restoration work, some of them include the English Heritage Recovery Fund, the National Church and a recent funding request has been granted with the amount of £100,000 donated by the Albert Gubay foundation.

You can find their donation page here.

A historic church and saint

The construction of St Walburge’s Church commenced in 1850 and officially opened in 1854.

Originally the church was meant to be named St Joseph’s, however it was named after a nun called St Walburge.

She was born in Devonshire in 710 and sent to Germany in 748 to help St Boniface in his missionary work throughout the churches.

Upon her death in the 8th century, she was first buried in Heidenheim, Germany but later her body was moved and placed in a tomb alongside her brother who was also high in the church.

Since her death, her tomb has reportedly leaked an oil and liquid between the months of October to 25 February which is supposedly the date of her death.

Nuns congregate around the tomb during this period with silver plates collecting the oil and distributing it across churches around the world.

Allegedly the oil is believed to have healing powers after a house keeper at an address in Preston fell down the stairs injuring her knee.

A priest then came to her aid where he dipped a pen into the oil and allowed a few drops to fall on the injured woman’s knee.

In that instance the woman allegedly felt healed and miraculously pain free. This then inspired the church to change its name to St Walburge.

The oil is sent to St Walburge’s church from Germany and a portion of the oil currently remains in the possession of the Cannon at the church who uses the supposed miracle oil to aid those who are ill and injured.

Additional reporting by Bianca Stansfeld-Wright

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