The Appeal so far...
Appeal Update – 75% raised to Save Our Spire - 29th September 2026
This week we have announced a major new milestone in the fundraising for the ‘Save Our Spire’ appeal. We have been granted £250,000 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, bringing the total raised for the Save Our Spire appeal to just over £750,000. We need to raise just £250,000 to meet our fundraising goal and ‘Save Our Spire’ and for generations to come.
Alongside The National Lottery Heritage Fund, we’ve received significant grants from The Sheffield Church Burgesses Trust and The Benefact Trust, with more applications still to be reviewed.
Our community has also been actively fundraising and donating to the appeal, for which we are hugely grateful. Most recently the ‘Sheffield Ten(or)K’ team of Joe, Chris and Ben ran the Sheffield 10k yesterday with alto Lizzie and bass David to raise over £1100 to Save our Spire.
More fundraising events will be taking place over the coming months. In October our choir will be taking requests in a
Choral Jukebox event and in November proceeds from our
wreath making event will contribute to the appeal.
Thank you to everyone that has already supported the appeal. Our fundraising continues and we hope, before too long, to begin work to ‘Save Our Spire’.
28th September 2026 - National Lottery Heritage Fund - We Did It!
Using money raised by National Lottery players, The National Lottery Heritage Fund supports projects that connect people and communities with the UK’s heritage. The Save Our Spire project is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Thanks to National Lottery players, we will be able to protect the heritage of St John's for generations to come.
@HeritageFundUK #HeritageFund #NationalLottery
Download the full Press Release here
Sarah Beardsmore
Steering Group Chair, April 2026
We launched the Save Our Spire appeal last March and we’re incredibly grateful to all those in our church community who have already supported the appeal. To date nearly £275,000 has been raised towards our £1million fundraising target.
The Inspire Project has four phases; repair and restoration of the tower and spire, installation of a kitchen servery in the West End, reordering of the vestries including a new roof and three new toilets, and upgrading of the church’s heating.
The initial priority is the work on the Tower and Spire which continues to show signs of deterioration. In 2025 we undertook our Quinquennial inspection (5 yearly survey of the church building) and found that the work to the spire is increasingly urgent. In the summer last year, we received our faculty (church planning consent) for the proposed works, so we will be able to proceed with tendering for a contractor as soon as we have raised sufficient funding.
In 2025, we also received a significant legacy from the estate of Bryan Beedham, a former member of St John’s. The legacy will cover the cost of the kitchen servery. In the autumn a brief was sent to our architects at Buttress and initial plans have been developed. We hope to have a kitchen in St John’s by the autumn – this will be a huge achievement for the project and will make a significant impact on how we use our church building.
Fundraising remains a key priority and challenge. Last year we unsuccessfully tendered for a consultant to help us with our fundraising, so a small team from the Steering Group have been working on funding bids. We have four large bids underway at the moment and would appreciate prayers for their success. Alongside our grant fundraising we have had lots of fundraising events – the summer fayre, ticketed events, our SPS events and quizzes. With thanks to all those who have made those events happen.
The Inspire Project Steering Group has continued to meet monthly to make progress on both the project plans and I am grateful to all those involved in the Steering Group. If you’d like to find out how you can get involved or you have a fundraising idea, then do have a chat with me.
2nd March 2025
Last night St John's Church, Ranmoor launched our Inspire appeal! Brilliant news from Matthew that the Sheffield Church Burgesses have generously granted us £100,000! 🙏 We heard about the need to make our beautiful church welcoming for all our community. The spire needs work to keep it safe and we need more toilets, accessibility and a servery for church and other events. And to improve the heating!!!We aim to raise £1million from grants and local fundraising. Thank you to everyone who came and the choir for singing beautifully…we are so grateful to our church and wider community for support. More information in the comments and coming soon! #inspireproject
