CHURCHGOERS are succeeding in their drive to preserve a distinctive building on Durham's skyline.

A shroud has gone round the tower at St Cuthbert's Church in North End, as contractors begin restoring the rotting 150-year-old structure.

Faced with a bill which has now reached more than £300,000, parishioners set about their fundraising task with gusto in August 2000, fearing the tower would otherwise eventually collapse.

Having set out a business plan and drawn in grant funding from a wide range of bodies, churchgoers have also staged the full range of fundraising fares, collections and other functions.

It has left them with just £14,000 to raise, still almost five months before the specialist masonry team is expected to complete the job.

Church warden Bill Dixon, who chairs St Cuthbert's Church Tower Project Committee, praised the generosity of people in the parish.

"It's amazing really, we've raised about £100,000 of it ourselves, which is not bad for such a relatively small parish.

"We've also been helped by large amounts of grant aid, particularly from English Heritage, as well as from bodies like the Historic Churches Preservation Fund, Northumbria Historic Churches, while the Durham diocese gave us substantial help."

Area dean and team rector, the Rev Jon Bell is still able to conduct regular services at the church, despite the disruption of the scaffolding and awning, nicknamed 'St Cuthbert's net curtains' by some regulars in the congregation.

But it is not expected to be until late October that the unusual tower, designed with a pitched roof like those in the Normandy area of France, will be fully restored to its former glory.