WORSHIPPERS at a Victorian Wye Valley church are celebrating the start of repairs on their crumbling building thanks to a succesful £175,000 appeal.

St Matthew’s Church in the small hamlet of Marstow near Goodrich was placed on the Historic England ‘At-Risk’ register two years ago, and the award of a £105,000 Heritage Lottery grant, combined with parish fundraising, saw work begin at the end of February.

The 164-year-old building’s crumbling stonework needs vital structural repairs, while the cash will also help reorder the nave to cretae a new community space.

Repair work is expected to take about seven months, and when finished the church will also be able to host social and educational events, meetings and hold displays for local historical and environmental information.

The church will stay open during the renovation for its regular service at 9.30am on the first Sunday of every month and Communion at 9.30am every third Sunday.

Special services, baptisms, weddings and funerals will also be held.

Fundraiser Sue Rolfe said: “We can now look forward with confidence to a repaired and watertight building and a community space for us all to enjoy.”

Work started on building the church in 1855 and it was consecrated in 1857.

But it hit the headlines in 1912, when it was discovered that all weddings since its opening were invalid owing to an oversight.

However, a hurried Act of Parliament quickly put this right, so that couples who wed there and their descendants could be legally termed married.