Old Village Church News

The Old Village Church on the historic Newbury Common has been an iconic part of Village life since it was built in 1829. The Newbury Woman’s Club assumed ownership of the building from the Troy Methodist Conference in the 1960’s. Since then our mission has been to preserve and restore the structure and offer it to the community for public and private events. Over the decades we have successfully completed several major projects on the building including steeple repair, roof replacement and interior work.

The past couple of years have been both heartening and frustrating for the Old Village Church Committee.  We were very heartened by the public outpouring of support for our fundraising effort in 2021 to repair the front porch of the building and were thrilled to have been awarded a matching grant from the 1772 Foundation in cooperation with The Preservation Trust of Vermont for the work. However, disappointment soon followed brought on by our inability to find anyone to do the work because of pandemic upheavals. Fortunately for us, the 1772 Foundation was very understanding of the situation and gave us a year’s extension to the grant. After a lengthy search, we were incredibly fortunate to find Gary Smith of Warren, NH who managed to fit us into his work schedule. Much to our relief, he successfully replaced the rotting beam that ran across the front of the porch roof and gave us some worry about the potential for collapse.  Though some of the finishing touches will need to wait until warmer weather, the major structural problems have been resolved. Again, our thanks go out to all the community members who contributed to our fundraising campaign, to the 1772 Foundation and The Preservation Trust for their support, and to Mr. Smith for his help with this endeavor.

Want to join our planning committee?  Need more information about our work?  Feel free to contact us using the form below.