WORK has begun on the restoration of an historic Widnes church that was awarded the biggest English Heritage grant of its kind for any church in the north of England.

St Mary's Church, in West Bank, received a grant of more than £300,000 from English Heritage and a further £10,000 from the Historic Cheshire Churches Trust.

Church warden Dave Angus said: "We'd like to say thank you to English Heritage for their funding of £314,000.

"We were promised funding 18 months ago but that was conditional.

"We had a 12-month development phase to make sure when they got on the site there was nothing unexpected and to make sure funding was sufficient.

"It wasn't until August this year we found out for definite and everything was in place by August 8."

Lambert Walker Conservation Restoration is carrying out the development, which is expected to take 32 weeks to complete.

Site supervisor Michael Goulding said: "Stonework was peeling off like skin."

Mr Angus added: "The main safety issue that we faced was that the stonework was going to fall off eventually.

"At best it could cause damage to low roofs but at worst it would end up killing somebody."

The project is due to be completed in late spring.

james.hanley@worldgroup.co.uk