Eloise takes up new role to preserve historic buildings

Eloise Limmer has been appointed as Historic Churches Support Officer, a new role within the diocese supported by Historic England.

This is a three-year, part-time post focused on the listed churches within the diocese. Eloise will be working closely with parishes responsible for listed churches to help them to develop a deeper understanding and appreciation of their historic church buildings. This will build on the work completed as part of the ‘Taking Stock’ review which created a catalogue of the churches within the diocese describing their architectural details and highlighting features of significance. The review can be accessed here. Eloise will also support parishes in developing effective maintenance programmes and organising major repair projects alongside helping them through the relevant faculty, planning, and grant applications.

Eloise has an undergraduate degree in Archaeology and Anthropology from University College London and a Masters degree in Historic Building Conservation from the University of York. She comes from a local authority background, having worked first at Cambridge City Council as a Planning Officer before moving to East Suffolk Council as a Conservation Officer and most recently South Norfolk and Broadland as a Heritage Officer.

She has a lot of experience working with listed buildings and advising their owners on maintenance and sensitive changes. She applied for the Historic Churches Support Officer role because she wanted to work on a longer-term project that allowed her to focus on a small number of buildings and work closely with the communities that use them. “There is such a diversity of architectural styles and features in the churches within the diocese,” she writes, “each has its own unique opportunities and challenges.” 

Eloise grew up near Mildenhall and her family attended St John the Baptist, Mildenhall. She went to school through the Catholic pyramid: St Louis Primary in Newmarket, St Louis Middle and St Benedict’s Upper in Bury St Edmunds. She now lives with her husband Isaac and two cats in Ipswich although they are in the process of selling their house and moving to Norwich to be closer to family and friends.

She started on June 1 and will spend the first few weeks getting up to date with all the reports and information available about the listed churches. Once she has done this, she will be getting in touch with the parishes to arrange to visit the churches and meet the people involved with looking after them to understand from them what the key opportunities and challenges are. 

Eloise works Tuesdays-Thursdays and can be contacted at historicchurches@rcdea.org.uk

Pictured above is Eloise Limmer

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