Northamptonshire Historic Churches Trust

Ride and Stride 2025

13th September 2025

Thank you to all Local Organisers ...

and especially those who had their churches open with a warm welcome and persuaded Riders and Striders to take part.

Ride and Stride Day dawned with bright spells and showers. Number of visits to churches was slightly up on last year last year but more churches are trying unusual ways of raising money which doesn’t show on most registers.

St George's Church Evenley (the ones who wore the hats last year) had another novel way of raising money this year.

The Theme was “Get yourself sponsored for ride and stride or else please give a donation for a breakfast fried.”

25 had a cooked breakfast in church, which went down very well.

Area / County Organisers

We are grateful to all our Area Organisers whose help is particularly useful when checking how churches will take part in the event each year and updating new contact details.

We gained a new Area Organiser in 2025, Bob Smith, who has kindly said he will take over half the Northampton Deanery churches which Jonathan Stuart will be relinquishing as he is moving from the area. We thank Jonathan for his efforts over the past few years.

Thank you to Area Organiser, Judy Stroud, who has moved to Scotland but is still willing to look after churches in parts of Corby, Oundle and Kettering deaneries. Thank you also to Viv and Andy Hartley who have moved to Shropshire but have kindly said they will continue to look after ten Daventry churches. And grateful thanks to Rosalind Willatts who has continued to contact Corby churches despite her illness. Ros has been awarded the BEM in the recent Honours for services to her local community. As we had not managed to get a new AO to look after Methodist churches, they have been moved back into the appropriate deanery so adding slightly to the workload of the existing AOs.

We welcome Anne Sauntson as a Joint County Organiser. Liz Doherty is taking a back seat at present.

We still need to recruit quite a few more people as Area Organisers as we are trying to reduce the number of churches each one looks after, both to make it easier for them and also to make it easier for us to replace them when they retire. Please contact us if you would like more information. You don’t need to live in the area you cover but internet accessibility is essential.

Thank you - to everyone else who helped to make the day such a success: the numerous Riders and Striders and Church sitters and their generous Sponsors, and of course Michael Moore, our Treasurer, who coordinates the sponsorship money and writes the return cheques to the churches.

Churches that opened (2024 in brackets)

Of the 324 (328) churches taking part, 174 (183) were manned for at least part of the time, 127 (121) were open with a register available and 23 (24) with just a register outside. As in 2024, the Open Churches list included churches which were not taking part so that participants could visit the outside of these if they wished.

Click the pictures to go to related web sites.

Income this year

Sponsorship is slightly up from last year’s figure of £37,905 at £39,109 to date. Six churches raised £1000 or over, a wonderful achievement: East Haddon St Mary; Hinton-in-the-Hedges Holy Trinity; Walgrave St Peter; Wellingborough All Hallows; Welton St Martin; Weston Favell St Peter. We are extremely grateful to all the church communities which have raised money and of course, a special thank you to these six.

News from the Riders and Striders - 2025

All Hallows’ Wellingborough

There was certainly a lot of excitement from the "All Hallows" team regarding their sponsored Ride & Stride, which took place on 13th September. Besides a team of 3 riders, covering a distance of 26 miles and visiting 9 churches on their route through the Northamptonshire countryside, a further member of the team strode around Nottingham on a 12 mile walk!!

The reason for the excitement was the £1,300 raised!! A record figure for the Wellingborough church and drew loud applause from the congregation the Sunday after! We are very proud of Justin, Mark and Matt for riding and Michael, one of the churchwardens at All Hallows’, for walking such a long distance and visiting churches in the Nottinghamshire area. None of the riders are experienced cyclists and obviously at times the going was hard but they all enjoyed the ride and visiting the churches, most of which were staffed and the refreshments were most welcome! At each church visited there were some very interesting history features and one in particular caught their eyes - a plaque on the wall of St Mary's Church Wollaston. It's a memorial to two local boys lost on the Titanic!

We look forward to our church name being included in the forthcoming annual report, as any church that reaches a £1,000 or over gets a mention and last year there were only 3 that achieved that sum, so we know we are in heady company!!

A big thank you to our sponsors who backed the 4 participants with enthusiasm. We know that figure will be hard to beat but we are determined to try and go beyond this sum next September! Watch this space!

NB Thanks are due to Steve and his family for their support of this event year on year, as active participants on the move or encouraging friends to be generous. Thank you also to Michael who, in the wilds of Nottinghamshire, caught up with ‘old friends’ at Strelley and encountered Mark, a member of All Hallows’, on a tour of historic churches.

Christine Thompson, Local Organiser

A friendly welcome at St Romwold Strixton
St Romwalds Strixton - Matt Langley, Kathy Hutson (Churchwarden), Jo Folkes, Mark Tebbutt
Roadster at St Lawrence, Towcester
St Mary’s, Grendon – Justin Cavender, Matt Langley and Mark Tebbutt
Val's Day

I had a really enjoyable day on Saturday 13th September with only a brief rain shower mid-afternoon. I divided the visits into four separate walks so I could visit ten churches without having to walk a vast distance and started by parking at Weedon and walking to Flore. On the way I met eighteen people with twelve dogs! I was welcomed by a friendly young man at Flore then retraced my steps back across the fields and the infant Nene to Weedon church where I had a chat with Isabella Masters. She was being sponsored to sit in the church all day and had her exercise pedals with her. (See separate report)

I then drove to Church Stowe where I had a chocolate bar and a brief Hello to Angela Brodie who was on her bike and is the Local Organiser for both Church and Upper Stowe. After walking down and up on the field footpath to Upper Stowe I met her again on her bike. She was being sponsored for visiting churches. I sat in the church at Upper Stowe for a while then retraced my steps (down and up) to Church Stowe.

I parked in Astcote and walked the short distance to Astcote Methodist church where there was a coffee morning and a friendly welcome from two ladies who were happy for me to eat my lunch sandwich there along with a slice of one of their cakes and a cup of tea. They are planning on applying to NHCT for a grant towards a stair lift as they are going to use an upstairs room for worship in the winter to save on heating costs. I set off through fields to the A5 which I crossed then more fields including one where the sheep thought I was the farmer bringing some food and looked somewhat disappointed when I continued walking.

This brought me to Cold Higham church where there is always a good selection of refreshments. It was quite busy as there was a group of cyclists raising money for Silverstone church, then my husband Richard and friend arrived in his 1966 Triumph Vitesse. They had visited the four churches in Towcester and Easton Neston in his 1947 Triumph Roadster, before transferring to the Vitesse which would be better in rain, visiting a further thirteen churches including Cold Higham.

Vitesse at Newnham Roadster at St Lawrence, Towcester

There was a shower as I approached Pattishall church which continued while I was inside. I was sitting having some orange squash and a chocolate biscuit when a lady arrived and chatted as she was going to sit in the church for the next hour. I then walked back to Astcote and drove to Towcester.

Here I managed about twenty minutes at home then visited Towcester Methodist church which had a register outside and continued to St Thomas More Roman Catholic church where I went inside and also had a peep at the garden which I had never been in before and a chat with a lady who looks after the garden and was setting up for a drinks party that evening. I also saw Father James briefly; he is leaving to return to the High Wycombe area and a priest from there is coming to Towcester.

I then finished my day at St Lawrence church, relieving Judith Edwards who had been there since ten apart from an hour when another lady kindly looked after visitors. Judith had made a cake and provided other refreshments. She had to go home to take the dog for a walk and I stayed until 6pm. There were no more participants but quite a few visitors just popping in including a group who had been invited to a party at the dog track but had found that it didn’t open until 6.45pm.

Thanks to generous sponsors, we raised £500 for St Lawrence, Towcester and NHCT.

Val Hartley

St John the Baptist, Chelveston

Sue Wager cycled round most of Higham Deanery, about 17 churches, on Sunday 14th as she was busy on the Saturday. Unfortunately the weather was not as good as on the actual Ride and Stride day. She covered over thirty miles and was really grateful to her husband who brought her a hot drink when he collected her and the bike in the car as she was cold and wet. Sue raised over £700 in sponsorship.

Sue Wagner at Chelveston
St Peter and St Paul, Weedon

Isobella Masters welcomed participants to St Peter and St Paul Weedon and took her exercise pedals as a way of raising money. She raised over £200.

Isobella Masters
Kettering - St Peter and St Paul

Linda Noble visited 29 churches, most with her friend Jo who also accompanied her last year although she is not a member of the church. Then her daughter Mairi cycled with Linda to a few of the closer churches along with another friend's son Thomas who is a member of her church. Linda started before10am at Thorpe Malsor and signed in at the last church, Kettering Christ the King, at 5.45pm. She raised over £700 to be shared between NHCT and Kettering St Peter and St Paul.

Hinton in the Hedges

Three of the eight participants (plus dog) who raised £1000 in total for The Most Holy Trinity, Hinton in the Hedges and NHCT.

The Most Holy Trinity, Hinton in the Hedges
(L to R) Sam Mainds, Clive Bairstow and Anthony Byrne in Kings Sutton church
St Matthew’s church Northampton - Dorrie Parker

On Saturday 13 September St Matthew’s took part in the annual ‘Ride+Stride for Churches’, organised by the county Historic Churches Trust – voluntary organisations that raise money for the restoration and maintenance of historic churches and chapels, supported by the national Churches Trust.

Roger, Tony and Dorrie manned St Matthew’s over the four hours we were open, from 10am to 2pm, to record the riders and striders who came through our doors doing their bit to raise money on behalf of their own churches. All churches taking part get half of the sponsorship money back from the Trust.

Our first visitors were as usual hot off the mark, from Kingsley Park Methodist Church across the road, who always come in a group – five of them this year. Some years people have been queuing at the door waiting to be let in! People normally turn up usually in groups of two or three, and tend to be in, get registered, and out – there is a desire to get to as many churches as they can while they’re open. Some support their own church alone.

Not many actually want to have a look around, but we always offer them our Welcome leaflet, which they often willingly accept anyway. Regular visitors I guess have already been here, done that, bought the T-shirt! They all stop for a chat though, and many say how much they always enjoy the day and what a good cause they are pleased to do it for. Some are quite colourful characters; we had one man in his 70s who had started off at Moulton Church to enjoy their 8am Men’s Breakfast (he had walked from his house in The Headlands), then walked back into Northampton and was still going strong when he came to us at 12.10pm. He stayed chatting until 12.30pm (not even sitting down) before moving on to get more churches in… we recommended that when he had done his last church he should get the bus home from there – no need to walk after he’d finished!

As the time goes on the visitors tend to thin out, and after 1.15pm we thought we’d seen the last visitor. On the stroke of 2pm Dorrie approached the front door, keys in hand to lock up, and another four people arrived! So of course they came in, very apologetic for it being so late, and these people did want to have a look around – they had travelled from Bedfordshire and specially wanted to see St Matthew’s.

This year we had 25 visitors at St Matthew’s – of course, you choose which churches to visit, there is not a set route to follow, and as many or as few as you are able. Disappointingly, no-one had volunteered to ride or stride for us though. Before arthritic knees etc called time on us, we had a little band who enjoyed the social aspect of going for a walk on a Saturday with church friends and raising money at the same time, seeing inside churches that may not be open otherwise apart from services. They are all interesting and different. We had a coffee and cake stop further down the Kettering Road, and a lunch break in town. From that Happy Band, just Roger and Dorrie are still going strong, but now in a sitting-down role. There is the NHCT Annual Report in the bookstall area, highlighting various churches/chapels and why they have received their grants over the past year, and at the back details reports from various churches from last year’s event, and includes one from our own Nick Bailey. Do have a look and maybe be inspired to give it a go next year?

They raised over £300 in sponsorship manning the church to welcome visitors.