Brecon Cathedral, located in eastern Wales, is set to begin a multi-year programme of repairs and visitor improvements after securing £2,041,756 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Combined with £745,000 from other grants, the funding will support an overhaul aimed at protecting the medieval fabric of the building while reshaping how visitors enter, move through, and understand the site.
A major part of the work will focus on urgent roof repairs. Cathedral leaders say the reroofing phase will also include heritage training for 18 young or career-change roofers, tying conservation work to skills development in the region.
Inside the building, planned reordering is intended to create a more flexible communal space for events such as exhibitions, concerts, and plays. Organisers say the reworked layout will also support storytelling about the cathedral’s past and its relationship to Welsh history.
Photo courtesy Brecon Cathedral
“Our home team and consultants are absolutely delighted that our vision for the future of Brecon Cathedral can now be realised thanks to The National Lottery players and our additional funders, says the Very Reverend Dr Paul Shackerley, Dean of Brecon. “Now we can start work, fixing decades of urgent repairs, offering a safe and accessible welcome to all who visit and sharing the excitement we all feel for our history and culture, whilst enhancing our position at the heart of community. The project will ensure the cathedral with its history, heritage and outward facing mission is here for future generations to enjoy as we have.”
Andrew White, Director for Wales at The National Lottery Heritage Fund, added, “Thanks to National Lottery players, this funding will help Brecon Cathedral strengthen its role at the heart of the community, safeguard its heritage and create new ways for people to engage with its story for generations to come.”
The cathedral says work will be phased, beginning in March 2026 with the opening of a new west entrance. Interior reordering is expected to follow, with the south transept roofs scheduled for replacement over the summer. Further roof phases are planned in the following years, with the project due to conclude in 2028.
Photo courtesy Brecon Cathedral
Although Brecon is a cathedral today, its roots lie in the early medieval and Norman period of Welsh history. The church was founded as a Benedictine priory, traditionally dated to 1093, and dedicated to St John the Evangelist. Like many religious houses across Britain, it was reshaped by political and ecclesiastical change: the priory did not survive the sixteenth-century Dissolution of the Monasteries in its original form, but the church continued in use, preserving a long religious footprint on the same site.
Brecon became a cathedral much later, in the twentieth century, when it was made the seat of the Diocese of Swansea and Brecon. But the building that will now be repaired and re-presented to visitors is the product of centuries of medieval worship, rebuilding, and adaptation—exactly the sort of layered heritage the new project is intended to protect.
Brecon Cathedral, located in eastern Wales, is set to begin a multi-year programme of repairs and visitor improvements after securing £2,041,756 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Combined with £745,000 from other grants, the funding will support an overhaul aimed at protecting the medieval fabric of the building while reshaping how visitors enter, move through, and understand the site.
The project, titled ‘People | Passion | Priory: Brecon Cathedral, The Heart and Soul of Community’, includes the creation of a new fully accessible entrance, changes to the piazza area outside the cathedral, and new approaches to interpreting the interior for visitors.
A major part of the work will focus on urgent roof repairs. Cathedral leaders say the reroofing phase will also include heritage training for 18 young or career-change roofers, tying conservation work to skills development in the region.
Inside the building, planned reordering is intended to create a more flexible communal space for events such as exhibitions, concerts, and plays. Organisers say the reworked layout will also support storytelling about the cathedral’s past and its relationship to Welsh history.
“Our home team and consultants are absolutely delighted that our vision for the future of Brecon Cathedral can now be realised thanks to The National Lottery players and our additional funders, says the Very Reverend Dr Paul Shackerley, Dean of Brecon. “Now we can start work, fixing decades of urgent repairs, offering a safe and accessible welcome to all who visit and sharing the excitement we all feel for our history and culture, whilst enhancing our position at the heart of community. The project will ensure the cathedral with its history, heritage and outward facing mission is here for future generations to enjoy as we have.”
Andrew White, Director for Wales at The National Lottery Heritage Fund, added, “Thanks to National Lottery players, this funding will help Brecon Cathedral strengthen its role at the heart of the community, safeguard its heritage and create new ways for people to engage with its story for generations to come.”
The cathedral says work will be phased, beginning in March 2026 with the opening of a new west entrance. Interior reordering is expected to follow, with the south transept roofs scheduled for replacement over the summer. Further roof phases are planned in the following years, with the project due to conclude in 2028.
Although Brecon is a cathedral today, its roots lie in the early medieval and Norman period of Welsh history. The church was founded as a Benedictine priory, traditionally dated to 1093, and dedicated to St John the Evangelist. Like many religious houses across Britain, it was reshaped by political and ecclesiastical change: the priory did not survive the sixteenth-century Dissolution of the Monasteries in its original form, but the church continued in use, preserving a long religious footprint on the same site.
Brecon became a cathedral much later, in the twentieth century, when it was made the seat of the Diocese of Swansea and Brecon. But the building that will now be repaired and re-presented to visitors is the product of centuries of medieval worship, rebuilding, and adaptation—exactly the sort of layered heritage the new project is intended to protect.
Top Photo: Philip Pankhurst / Wikimedia Commons
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