STAFF at Nationwide have been getting their hands dirty for a good cause as part of their community outreach programme.

A team of around a dozen building society employees spent a day at St Mary’s Church, Lydiard, helping with the historic church’s ambitious renovation scheme.

Earlier this year, members of the church were delighted to receive a grant of £131,700 from the Heritage Lottery Fund to go towards revamping the 10th century church.

Paul Gardner, chairman of St Mary’s Building and Conservation Appeal, said: “Following our successful application to the Heritage Lottery Fund in December 2016, volunteers from Nationwide Building Society have been on site clearing the way for a new wild flower bed in the grounds of the church.

“It’s brilliant to have them here. Nationwide is a big company, based in Swindon, and they are giving their full support to the project, and we are very grateful.

“Nationwide is the first corporate team we have had on site and they will be back to paint the railings outside the church in June.”

The church is packed full of splendid monuments and paintings but, as with any building of its age, time has taken a toll.

The ongoing appeal to save it from deterioration has been running for several years now and the securing of Heritage Lottery funding has been a huge boost.

The building society allows staff to engage in a few days of charitable volunteering throughout the year.

Melanie Coleman, leader of the payment strategy team, and head gardener for the day, said: “This is one of the projects Nationwide has decided to support as part of its citizenship scheme.

“The church has just received funding from the Heritage Lottery and they needed volunteers to help them, so we thought we would come along.

“We have spent the morning clearing a flower bed and we suspect there might be a tunnel underneath, but we’re not sure what it could have been used for – it’s an area the church has never used.

“We want to give them a blank canvas to improve the back of the church.

“The work they are doing here is amazing and it’s good to be able to play a small part of that.

“If we can get out there into the community, that’s great. It’s about giving something back to society, which we think is really important.”

Scaffolding will be going up around the church later this year as the next stage of the renovation work gets under way.