{"id":33723,"date":"2025-05-13T16:12:58","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T15:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abingdonblog.co.uk\/?p=33723"},"modified":"2025-05-13T16:12:58","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T15:12:58","slug":"abbey-buildings-4-million-restoration-grant-announced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/?p=33723","title":{"rendered":"Abbey Buildings \u2013 \u00a34 Million Restoration Grant Announced"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag25\/2025051301.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nAn announcement was made today at the Abbey Buildings in Abingdon of the award of a \u00a34 million grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Pictured at the event are Felicity Dick, Deputy Lieutenant of Oxfordshire; Gregory Bensberg MBE, Chair of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonabbeybuildings.co.uk\/\">Abingdon Abbey Buildings Trust<\/a>; and Cllr Rawda Jehlani, Abingdon\u2019s new Mayor, elected yesterday.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag25\/2025051302.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nThe grant will fund a three-year project to restore and modernise the 13th-century Grade I listed buildings &#8211; the Unicorn Theatre, Checker, Undercroft and Long Gallery &#8211; making them accessible and usable all year round. Plans include windows to fully weatherproof the Long Gallery, installing a lift, creating level floors, and enhancing facilities including a glass lobby, retractable seating, and disabled toilets in the Unicorn Theatre.<\/p>\n<p>Gregory Bensberg said, &#8216;These buildings are part of Abingdon\u2019s story and central to our community. Making sure that everyone can access these, all year round, is the reason this project is needed.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>The Abbey Buildings Trust, formed from the Friends of Abingdon Civic Society, has already raised over \u00a31.2 million from Abingdon-on-Thames Town Council, the Wolfson Foundation, the Historic Houses Foundation, the Pilgrim Trust and the Oxfordshire Buildings Trust and will now launch a public appeal to complete the funding. Works are hoped to begin in summer 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An announcement was made today at the Abbey Buildings in Abingdon of the award of a \u00a34 million grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Pictured at the event are Felicity Dick, Deputy Lieutenant of Oxfordshire; Gregory Bensberg MBE, Chair of the Abingdon Abbey Buildings Trust; and Cllr Rawda Jehlani, Abingdon\u2019s new Mayor, elected yesterday. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abbey-buildings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}