The Save St Magnus Appeal

When the west end of the Cathedral was at risk of structural collapse in the 1970s, the Friends launched a major appeal that raised around £300,000, enabling vital works that safeguarded the building for generations to come.

about this project

Saving a Cathedral on the Brink

In the 1970s, St Magnus Cathedral faced a structural crisis that threatened the building’s very survival. Survey work revealed that the cathedral was moving westwards, and that the west end (one of the finest examples of Romanesque architecture in Scotland) was at serious risk of collapse. Without urgent intervention, nine centuries of history stood in jeopardy.

The Society of the Friends of St Magnus Cathedral responded by launching a major public appeal on 18 January 1972. Through the extraordinary generosity of supporters across Orkney and beyond, the campaign raised around £300,000 (a remarkable achievement for the era) enabling vital structural works that stabilised the building and secured it for future generations.

Fundraising

£k

Raised by the Friends and supporters

Decade of the appeal and works

Of the appeal target reached

PHOTOGRAPHS

7 IMAGES – CLICK TO ENLARGE

Men working on fibreglass ceiling panels during the 1970s restoration

Scaffolding poles rising at the west end of the nave

Scaffolding in the crossing during the strengthening works

The nave attic, lined and criss-crossed with steel girders

Workmen fitting a fibreglass panel to the nave ceiling

+2 more

The photographs of the works were taken by Phoenix Photographs, almost certainly in 1972, and are held by Orkney Library and Archive. Copies can be ordered from the Archive using the reference numbers given with each photograph.

Launch Day, 18 January 1972

Gladys Leslie was Secretary to the Appeal. Working evenings in a room lent by Foubister & Bain, she typed the thank you letter and receipt that went to every single donor. At the Society’s fiftieth anniversary AGM in 2008 she recalled the launch, and how the word was spread:

“No business man, no local dignitary, no journeying Orcadian, was permitted to leave Orkney without appeal leaflets in his brief case or wallet, and that was how the word was spread.”

On launch day, journalists from the New York Times, the Guardian, the BBC and other papers flew in on a chartered Loganair Skyvan through a January gale. Lord Birsay’s opening address had to move inside the cathedral, with the floodlights on the cracks in the vaulting of the nave. Orkney had been asked to give first, and by the press conference that afternoon almost £5,000 had come in. When Colonel Macrae later asked for a list of donors, the Treasurer, David Kemp, told him it ran to 86 foolscap sheets: 2,552 names in all.

Read Gladys Leslie’s account in full

“The response from Orcadians and friends of the cathedral across the world was extraordinary. It showed that this building is not just stone and mortar, it is the heart of Orkney, and people understood what was at stake."
Former Chairman, Friends of St Magnus Cathedral

Full story

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The complete account of the Save St Magnus Appeal: background, the works carried out, and how the funds were raised.

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