THE congregation of St Mary’s Church in Great Sankey have taken part in their final sponsored walk in aid of the church tower.

The church members have been participating in annual walks for the past 10 years in a bid to repay the interest on a £60,000 loan that had to be taken out when the tower on the listed building was discovered to be in a dangerous state of repair.

Twenty of the congregation, aged from 15 to 67, took part in the eight mile walk on May 23 starting at the Geogian church before heading to the Fiddler’s Ferry pub in Penketh and back again.

John Lawrie, who has organised the series of sponsored walks with his wife Ros, said: “The history of the walks began when we wanted to get the clock on the tower working again to bring in the year 2000 and in that process they found that the 100-year-old tower was rotten and falling down.

“It needed £60,000 to fix it so the sponsored walk was born on April 8, 2000. It was 18 miles long from the church to Walton Gardens and it took 35 walkers from 10am to 5pm to complete and raised £3,500.

“Since then we have raised more than £10,000 and I would like to say thank you to all the people who have taken part in the walks in the 10 years and to everyone who has sponsored them.”

A chapel has been at the site of St Mary’s on Liverpool Road since around 1640 and was rebuilt twice before the current church building was consecrated on June 11, 1769.