Your chance to win a painting by Maggi Hambling!

Logo for our 'Help heat our church' appeal

Following on from the recent success of our Heritage Morning in the church (held in November 2025), in starting to raise funds for our ‘Help Heat our Church’ Appeal, we launched a Prize Draw in December, to win a painting by Maggi Hambling. The Suffolk artist is a patron of our Building Project Appeal, and generously donated ‘Fireworks above the sea,’ one of the paintings from her ‘fireworks’ series, to help boost our appeal.

'Fireworks above the Sea,' Maggi Hambling, 2025

As soon as we shared details of the Prize Draw on Facebook, the story was spotted by BBC Suffolk, who then interviewed Nick Cottam, Chair of the Friends of St Mary’s, and the article appeared online and in print the next day. It immediately raised our profile and generated an enormous amount of interest in a very short time. We are astonished at how many people have entered the draw already, and grateful for their support and all the kind messages wishing us success. From a starting point of just £160, the campaign quickly realised over £6,000. You can read the BBC Suffolk article here.

Shortly thereafter the East Anglian Daily Times & Ipswich Star took up the baton, and interviewed Fr Nigel. Their article (read here), together with subsequent television coverage on ITV Anglia just before Christmas, continued to raise more interest and donations. By Christmas Eve the total had increased to £10,000.

We are extremely grateful to the local media and to everyone who has supported us by entering the draw, which will remain open until 2^nd March, with the winner to be announced on 5^th March 2026. At the time of writing (January 2026) the appeal has raised £12,740 (including some offline entries).

Since our church gas boilers failed, and spare parts are no longer made, the Rector, Friends of St Mary’s, and other volunteers have been hard at work investigating the options available, and trying to access grant funding to add to our existing funds, to replace them with an eco-friendly heating system. It’s a time consuming and complicated process, and the final solution is likely to cost around £250,000 (£150,000 of which we need to meet through grant applications and fundraising).

A chilly church has affected not only our congregation, but visitors, Christmas services, school carol services, and concerts. It’s difficult to sing well when you’re cold!

If you would like to ‘help heat our church’ all donations are welcomed, and to enter the prize draw please visit https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/maggi-hambling-painting-prize-draw-st-marys. Thank you.