A BELATED Burns Supper and Ceilidh was hailed a great success after raising more than £1,300 for the Frensham church tower appeal.

The traditional Gaelic gathering held at the Marindin Hall in Frensham treated visitors to an evening of music from Roughditch, the Rowledge folk band, and satisfied their inner needs with an array of scrumptious food and mouth watering drinks.

Jill Mckenzie commented on the evening: “The Ceilidh was a great success. The Roughditch band were fantastic and got everyone dancing all evening. Seventy tickets were sold and they all enjoyed a traditional Burns supper of haggis, neeps and tattles followed by a Cranachan.

“The amount so far raised from the evening is over £1,300 to go towards the Frensham tower restoration. The next fundraising activity will hopefully be a jigsaw festival [which will likely take place at the end of April or beginning of May).”

The church has raised around £25,000 to £26,000 out of the £30,000 target.

The work planned originally was undertaken between September and December 2015, and has been completed with the ‘shortfall’ in funding being met (temporarily) from the church’s reserves, these borrowed funds will be paid back in due time.

However, the stone work of the west window in the tower is in a poorer state than originally envisaged so its repair will be another running into many thousands of pounds.

The essential repairs included the refitting of the weathervane which has been repaired and refurbished by John Cooksley and Nick Murray and gilded by Gerald Whittaker.

Photo: David Moore