Gloucester church with literary links reopens after £2.1m restoration

Banker James Wood, buried in the church, may have inspired Charles Dickens’s Scrooge

A Gloucester city centre church and schoolroom with links to Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson have been given a new lease of life by a £2.1m restoration project.

The St Mary de Crypt church and Old Crypt schoolroom had fallen into disrepair and disuse. A two-year restoration project has finished and the buildings have reopened as a place of worship as well as a creative and community centre, heritage attraction and events venue.

Related: Lost portrait of Charles Dickens to be displayed at writer's former home

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