A VICAR today warned parishioners of a leafy village church -- you could lose it within a year.

The Rev Mark Cannon (pictured), hopes his shock announcement will encourage the congregation of St James' Church, Brindle, near Blackburn, to dig deeper and help cover the £500 loss the 811-year-old church is recording every month.

In a stark letter in the parish magazine, he writes: "If we do not start to cover our debts by raising more money the front cover of this parish magazine could soon read: RIP St James' Church, 1190-2001."

The church is one of the oldest in Lancashire, needs to raise around £2,000 a month to cover costs and help pay for repairs.

That sum is also needed to help pay the £18,000 a year requested by the diocese of Blackburn, which in turn provides the parish with a part-time vicar -- Mr Cannon.

Mr Cannon, who moved to Brindle last year, said: "It isn't as if we can hold off paying the diocese, because we re already in arrears by several thousand pounds.

"We need to pay them because they obviously need the money to do their work and also so they can put a vicar in here.

"That post is already part-time and as vicar, I perform another role within the diocese when I am not here.

"An assessment of this parish resulted in us being given a set figure to pay each year to the diocese. It is a high figure for such a small parish."

The parish already has an active fund-raising group which raises, on average, £2,000 a year for specified projects.

During its 800-year history, the church has survived Henry VIII's reforms, as well as the Civil War.

Mr Cannon hopes the shock statement in the parish magazine will urge parishioners to set up regular donations to the church or put a bit more in the collection plate each week.

Mr Cannon added: "I don't think this problem has arisen because the people here are any less generous to their church than elsewhere but maybe they don't fully appreciate the extent of the problem.

"Quite simply, we cannot afford to carry on running the church while making a £500 a month loss.

"There are repairs which need doing and facilities which need improving to bring the church up to standard, such as the installation of a toilet and better heating, but we can't even look at things like that until we have sorted out our debts.

"It is not an exaggeration to say that this church will have to close soon if things continue as they are."

A spokesman for the Blackburn diocese said it was a difficult situation. He said: "The Bishop of Blackburn has underlined in the past the need for each parish to pay its way both to meet the costs of its own clergy and to support the work of the Church of England across Lancashire."