AN appeal is being launched to raise money to repair an historic altar-piece in a Burnley church.

The reredos - a screen behind the altar - in St Andrew's Church, Duke Bar, is in need of specialist cleaning, repair and restoration.

A former vicar at the church, Canon Bryan Robinson, kicked off a refurbishment fund for the reredos many years ago when he donated back to St Andrew's all the money collected for him to commemorate his silver jubilee as a priest. The money has been tucked away in an account ever since.

Now a group of parishioners has got together with the vicar, the Rev Peter Hapgood Strickland, to form a fundraising committee to get the £13,000 needed to top up this money so the work can be completed.

The group has been working with John Miller, director of Pendle Heritage Centre, in Barrowford, to try to raise the funds.

Mr Miller is a trustee of the Guy Barton Fellowship, which has paid for the survey of the reredos. The piece is special because it was commissioned at the end of the 19th century from the workshop of eminent ecclesiologist Charles Eamer Kempe, who also designed most of the church's stained glass windows.

The piece was carved in the flamboyant Gothic style of the late Middle Ages.

Maureen Nelson, one of the parishioners, said: "The money from Canon Robinson, who was vicar at the church for 32 years, was put aside in a special fund.

"We felt we had sat on it long enough and that the gap between the cost of the restoration and the amount we had in the bank was growing further apart.

"Also there are fewer and fewer people who can carry out this kind of specialist work that we felt it was the right time to set up a committee and get the fundraising going."

The appeal to raise the rest of the money will be launched officially by the Bishop of Burnley, the Rt Rev John Goddard, at the church, in Colne Road, on Friday, September 24, at 7.30pm.

There will be a short service for potential supporters and invited guests who will then get to have a look at the reredos and see the work that needs doing to it.

A charity dinner for the appeal is also being organised at the church hall on Saturday, October 9.

Anyone interested in supporting the appeal can telephone Maureen on 01282 426803 or the church or Rev Hapgood Strickland on 01282 423185.