What’s your favourite Welsh church?

Members of the public have until August 31 to vote for Wales’s favourite church or chapel. sacred Wales—cymru sanctaidd has been launched by the National Churches Trust both to celebrate the country’s religious heritage and raise awareness of the danger that a shortage of volunteers, skilled workers and funding poses to these historic buildings.

Of the 4,500 churches and chapels in Wales, 45% are listed, ‘however, with declining congregations, their future is not guaranteed,’ says National Churches Trust CEO Claire Walker. A new survey shows that 60% of churches and chapels in Wales need external funding for repair and maintenance, but 28% have no experience at all of making funding applications and 54% very little.

she continues: ‘In the past five years, the National Churches Trust has made 37 awards worth more than £450,000 to churches and chapels in Wales. In the near future, we hope to extend our new maintenancebooker (www.maintenance booker.org.uk) service to Wales.’

Choose from the 50 nominated houses of worship—including John Nash’s st Davids Cathedral, Pembrokeshire, Llandaff Cathedral in Cardiff (above) and st Winefride’s Well, Flintshire, a shrine marking the spot where st Winefride’s head was chopped off in the 7th century (she was miraculously restored to life thanks to the prayers of her uncle), one of the oldest continual pilgrimage sites in britain—and cast your vote at www.sacredwales.org.uk