Broadcaster and journalist Huw Edwards has expressed his delight after a Newtown church secured a grant to build a new kitchen and accessible toilets.

All Saints' Church in Commercial Street has received a £10,000 National Churches Trust Cornerstone Grant to help fund the work and keep the church at the heart of the local community.

Huw Edwards,vice president of The National Churches Trust, said: “This gift will safeguard unique local heritage and help All Saints continue to support local people as we begin to emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic.”

The new meeting space at All Saints will be reconfigured to accommodate the community’s needs including a new level floor. In addition, a new extension will be built for accessible toilets and a kitchen.

There is a high demand for these facilities from the community, which will widen All Saints’ community engagement.

Rev Canon Nia Wyn Morris, Rector of Newtown who is overseeing the restoration project with local architect Charles Cowan on behalf of the Church Committee, said: “We are truly grateful to the Trustees of National Churches Trust for this Cornerstone Grant as this will be invaluable to completing this realistic and exciting project.

"The boost to moral it gives our volunteers and this community cannot be stressed too highly.

"The completed project will provide all its users with a welcoming, modern and usable facility, for now and for future generations. As we say in Welsh: Diolch o galon / A heartfelt thank you.”

All Saints’ Church was built between 1887 and 1890 to accommodate a large population of textile workers who worked in the town.

A total of 52 churches and chapels in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland will benefit from the latest grants from the National Churches Trust, the charity supporting church buildings of all Christian denominations across the UK. £111,000 of the grants has been provided by the Wolfson Foundation.

This is the second round of grants made by the National Churches Trust in 2021, bringing the total support provided to the UK’s churches this year to £944,000. Last year the Trust awarded, or recommended on behalf of other funders, 260 grants amounting to £1.7 million.