Businesses volunteer help St John the Baptist Church, Penymynydd

A CHURCHYARD which had fallen into a state of disrepair has been given a new lease of life thanks to local businesses.

When the pathways at St John the Baptist Church, Penymynydd, churchyard became impassable the church struggled to find funding to restore the hazardous paths.

Church warden Andrew Bronnert said: “It is rare for there to be a churchyard still open for burials but the old pathways have made access difficult for people visiting and tending graves.

“The ground has also caused damp in the church building itself.”

Nearby Hanson Cement, formerly Castle Cement, stepped in and donated cash for materials to get the project up and running.

Work started in the grounds of the grade two listed church to replace the paths, improve the drainage and alter the ground to prevent further damage.

As word spread, Marshall Paving, Travis Perkins, Read Construction, AH Plant Hire, Scarfo & Sons and DP Williams all came forward to offer their help.

Vicar, the Rev Paulette Gower held a special service recently to thank the local businesses for their generosity.

I've taken the unusual step of copying all this story from The Evening Leader website instead of pointing you in the direction of their pages. The Leader are currently struggling to get their new website up and running, this is from a temporary blogging site they have set up. Hope you get it sorted shortly Leader. The sort of stuff they must be involved in changing must involve tens of thousands of files, plenty of programming code change, rocket science stuff.