A CHURCH congregation is celebrating after learning that it is well on the way to its target to save its crumbling tower.

The National Lottery Heritage Fund is to make a £62,500 donation to St Cuthbert's Church fund, to repair its weathered tower, a landmark in North Road, near County Hall, Durham.

Having raised £85,000 in the past year through their own efforts, parishioners are confident the £250,000 target is achievable in the foreseeable future.

The Reverend John Bell passed on the good news to churchgoers arriving at St Cuthbert's for Sunday services.

He said: "Everyone was extremely pleased. They have put in a lot of effort to get us this far, both here and at the other church in our parish, at St Aidan's, at Framwellgate Moor.

"It's very encouraging. This means we will just about be touching £150,000, and it also means we can start applying to other grant-making bodies, who will see the cause has been backed by English Heritage, which is quite an endorsement.

"We only realised the seriousness of the structural condition about a year ago.

"While the tower is not going to fall down in the near future, the sooner we reach the total, and get on with the work, the less it will deteriorate."

St Cuthbert's dates from the 1870s, and is one of the few churches in this country styled on those in the Normandy region of France, with a pitched roof and rounded apse at the altar end of the building.