The Church Treasures Project 

What is the Church Treasures Project?

The Church Treasures Project is a volunteer-led initiative to create and sustain exciting exhibitions at the Bishop’s Palace. It is part of the Palace Trust’s wider ‘Assuring the Future’ development project.

The aim is to seek out and display some of the many wonderful objects located in churches across the Diocese of Bath and Wells. This will enhance the visitor experience to the Palace by promoting learning and providing a though-provoking series of exhibitions which celebrate church treasures across a range of engaging themes.

Collections manager, Felicity Baber, and the team of volunteers are working towards the first exhibition ‘Treasure’ which will open in March 2012.

It is hoped that the exhibitions will encourage visitors from both outside and within the diocesan community, and particularly from contributing churches and parishes. Visitors will also be encouraged to explore the relationship between the Palace and the diocese by visiting the churches and parishes which have contributed to the exhibition.

One of the objectives of the project is to examine and question notions of value and to articulate the Church’s attitude to wealth as represented by its own accumulated property, and also to address misconceptions and to encourage transparency about the wealth of the modern Church.

There are more than 500 churches in the diocese and volunteers have already started visiting them to find out what treasures are out there.

But what is a treasure?

There is no set definition of a church treasure but it might be:

• Made using costly, luxurious materials
  
• Something old, or having a long association with the life of a church community
  
• Something which forms part of the fabric or furniture of a church e.g. a carving, stained glass, a lectern, font or pulpit
  
• Something closely associated with an individual who plays or has played a remarkable part in the life of his or her community
  
• Something which has a special value – symbolic, practical or both – for a church community, and which can in some sense define or represent that community
  
• A crafted, unique object e.g. a painting, a textile, a memorial brass

The venture is very much a community project and as well as attracting visitors to the exhibition there will be opportunities for participation throughout the diocese by involving communities in the display of their treasure. It will also harness the skills of the many experts who are available to the project as volunteers.

If your church has a treasure which you think we would be interested in let us know by completing and returning a Nominate a Treasure Form. Join us in the treasure hunt.

Contact us

Please contact Felicity Baber if you would like to find out more about the exhibition.

If you have an item in your parish which you ‘treasure’, which you would like to suggest as a possible entry for the exhibition, please email the treasure exhibition team telling us what the object(s) is, its history, why you treasure it, and a colour photograph if possible.

e look forward to hearing from you!