AN INCREASINGLY popular church in East Cornwall is hoping to provide much-needed toilet facilities and running hot water to the building, which it has never had before.

Planning permission has been granted for All Saints Church in Harrowbarrow to build an extension to the building to house a toilet and a tea point.

The church, which was built in the 1870s, consists of a single aisle with a nave and an apsidal chancel, a lean-to north porch and a gabled vestry. It has been a well used church for more than a century but has only recently been licensed for weddings with its first marriage held last month.

The plan includes a disabled access toilet for everyone’s use and a small tea point area with work surfaces and running hot water.

Calstock Parochial Church Council instigated the plan for the extension, then a group was set up, calling themselves the Friends of Calstock Parish Churches, to help raise funds for the project.

Jenny Snuggs, chair of the friends group, said: ‘We have no proper toilets at the moment and no facilities for making tea or any hot water. At the moment we are taking washing up home with us after events.

‘We are very much developing the church as a centre in the community, not just a church. We are trying to fill a need — the village hall is very popular but not always available.

‘We have a choir that meets once a week, an amateur dramatics group that meets regularly and more than 40 people attend our regular coffee mornings, so we are trying to enlarge its use in the community.

‘We had our first wedding in September and we have three more booked already — it’s going to be used more and more so its really important we have toilet facilities for people to use.’

Now the planning permission has been granted, the Friends group is looking to apply for grant funding and will be holding numerous events in order to fundraise.

Jenny said they didn’t know how much it was going to cost but thought it would be ‘quite expensive’.

‘We’d like to get it done as soon as possible but I know getting grant funding isn’t a quick process. It would be brilliant to say we would like to have it completed in the next 12 months but we can’t guarantee that.

‘The church is being used more and more now so it would be nice to be able to have proper facilities.’

Anyone who would like to help with funding can contact Jenny via email on snuggsjr66@btinternet. com