Silver Jubilee
(the St Mary's Centre Lichfield)

by
Dianne Mannering and John E Rackham TD

In the mid 1970's the parish church of St Mary's in Lichfield's Market Place which had  a capacity to hold 900 worshippers was reduced to a congregation of less than a dozen and a bucket in a pew catching the rainwater drips from the roof.  Numbers had been dwindling since the 1920's but now the situation could no longer be ignored and in 1978 the diocese decided that the church should close.  Within months of this decision the Co-op submitted a planning application to build a supermarket on the Market Square. Lichfeldians were up in arms, a steering committee was hurriedly formed to discuss ways of saving the Church.  There had been a St Mary's church in the market square since at least the 14th century the general opinion of the steering committee was that whatever happened, the building must be retained as a community base.  With this decision made, the steering committee handed over to a project committee and an ambitious fund raising scheme was launched at Guildhall with the objective of attracting and earning sufficient funds to convert St Mary's into a Heritage Centre.  This, though, was to be more than just a Heritage Centre, there was to be a social centre, a gift shop, a coffee shop, the heritage exhibition was to be housed on a mezzanine floor and at the east end of the building, a truncated church was to remain as the St Mary's parish church. The scheme was considered 'a bridge too far' by the archdeacon, but eventually, determined and dedicated men and women proved that their vision was viable and the diocese agreed to rent St Mary's to the Project Committee for 5p a year.  Although this seems rather generous, there was something of a catch in the fact that St Mary's church was a 150 years old Grade II listed building with a 200ft spire and a dodgy belfry.    Eventually the Project Committee's efforts bore fruit and in 1981 the late Earl of Lichfield opened the St Mary's Centre.  Twenty five years later in 2006 the Centre celebrated its Silver Jubilee and the book tells the story of those 25 years.