Ranmoor Church: Public urged to donate to £1m campaign to save tallest parish church spire in Sheffield

St John’s Church, in upmarket Ranmoor, Sheffield, needs a seven-figure sum to stop it collapsing.

At 190ft, it is the tallest parish church spire in Sheffield, according to the Diocese of Sheffield.

It is also the second tallest spire in the city, just 5ft lower than the Catholic Cathedral Church of St Marie in the city centre.

A spokesperson for St John’s said the appeal total was £163,000 so far including £63,000 from pledges and Gift Aid and £100,000 in grant funding.

They added: “The next steps focus on further grant funding, we're planning to submit over £600,000 in grants in the next few months.

“We're also developing our community fundraising appeal, we've already had a couple of successful small fundraising events and have a large summer fayre planned for Sunday 6th July. There will be more events in the next academic year.”

The spire is on Historic England’s 'heritage at risk' register.

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The spokesperson added: “In terms of the work itself, we've not been given a definitive deadline for the repair - the condition of the tower and spire continues to be monitored by our architect and structural engineer.

“The PCC (parochial church council) has determined that this work is our immediate priority and we would very much like to have raised the funding to commence the tower and spire works within the next year.

“We'll then continue our appeal to enable us to install the kitchen servery and vestry reordering to create additional toilet facilities - with all of these works to be completed by 2029 - the 150th anniversary of St John's Church.”

In November, vicar Matthew Rhodes said the problems were due to chemical reactions in the stone.

He said: “St John’s opened in 1879, and the spire was built of two types of stone, which makes it very attractive, but there’s a chemical reaction going on between the two types of stone, and it’s causing it to shatter on the inside.”