Trustees
Current Trustees:
Chair: Tim Bridges
Tim has lived in Worcestershire for most of his life. He was educated at the King’s School, Worcester. After university he worked as a curator at Worcester City Museums.Since 2006 Tim has worked as part-time Conservation Adviser to the Victorian Society in Birmingham and the West Midlands. He was also Church Buildings Support Officer for the Diocese of Hereford. Tim lectures on architecture and history and leads guided visits to churches of all historic periods and denominations. The author of Churches of Worcestershire and Churches of the Black Country, Tim has also written on the Victorian architect J.A.Chatwin. Tim was admitted as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 2024. Tim has been a trustee of the Worcestershire and Dudley Historic Churches Trust since 1996 and chairman since 2010.
Secretary: Dr Elaine Drage
Secretary of the WDHCT, Elaine studied history at university, has a doctorate in palaeography and a lifelong interest in, especially medieval, churches. She has professional experience of project management, policy and governance issues and was previously Chair of a carers charity for 10 years.
Treasurer: Michael Howard
Treasurer of the WDHCT. He is also a Trustee of two other Worcestershire charities and a Treasurer of one of them.
Charles Caddick
Charles spent his career as a chartered surveyor in Worcestershire and the Dudley area. His professional experience with old buildings is helpful to the Trust in considering whether it is appropriate to grant monies for the repair and rebuilding of the fabric of churches who have submitted grant applications.
Philp Jones
Philip Jones KSS is a retired Chartered Surveyor who worked throughout the UK and for a limited time in the USA. He has lived in the county all his life. He was awarded a Papal Knighthood by His Holiness Pope Francis in 2024 for services to Ecumenism and Charities. He serves as the representative of RC Church on WDHCT.
Annette Leech
Annette became a trustee due to her long-standing interest in Worcester’s non-conformist history, particularly the history of Quakers in the city. She created and administered the website for the Trust for many years. She is still an active local history researcher.
Claire Strachan (Social Media officer)
Claire has been a trustee of the Worcestershire and Dudley Historic Churches Trust for around five years. She organises the Trust’s annual tour of churches and helps manage its social media presence. In her professional role, Claire has served as Church Buildings Officer for the Diocese of Coventry for 17 years, working closely with PCCs on developing repair and development projects with a focus on enabling church buildings to serve both as tools for mission and as valuable community resources. She has two children who are regularly roped into visiting churches and who have helped to inspire in her a love for the amazing biodiversity we find in our churchyards.
Rev’d Dr Tobias Thornes (Ride & Stride and website coordinator)
Tobias has lived in Worcestershire all his life and has a particular passion for the countryside, as well as a great love for his own parish church of Oddingley. He became a trustee in 2019, having been a ‘Ride & Stride’ participant for many years, and since then has been our coordinator for Ride & Stride. Since 2024, he has also manged our Website. He was recently ordained deacon in the Church of England and is serving in the Muddy Boots Mission Area, living in Abberley.
David Thorpe
David has a longstanding interest in both photography and church architecture and of churches’ need for constant repair (and congregations’ difficulties in doing so!). He attends a Methodist church and has helped to prepare both a leaflet for a Methodist Trail in Worcester and one for Anglican churches in Malvern Link. He has also been a Friend of Worcester Cathedral for nearly 50 years, including a stint as a trustee.
The Venerable Mark Badger
Mark was ordained in Worcester cathedral in 1996 and served at St Stephen’s and St George’s churches in Worcester. He then left the area briefly to work as chaplain at Thames Valley police before returning to Worcester to head up “Motov8”, a charity he had founded which supports young people who struggle in mainstream education with their personal and social development. He returned to full time parish ministry in 2012 as Rector of Kempsey and Severn Stoke and Area Dean of Malvern and Upton. He was licensed as Archdeacon of Worcester in December 2023, part of which role is to oversee any changes in Anglican church buildings over much of Worcestershire.