A priest turned curator when his church was given a £25,000 makeover to restore it to its former glory.

And Father Nigel Worn said he could not be happier that St Anne's Church, a Grade II listed building on Kew Green, was finally benefiting from some much-needed repairs.

He said: "The need to restore the church came about because it will be 300 years old in a few years time and the current congregation wanted to make sure it was preserved for future generations.

"Everyone was motivated to see the church restored before it was too late so we have done a phased program of restoration.

"Everyone is absolutely delighted. The church receives no funding from the state to maintain this old building so the responsibility is on the congregation to maintain it, it is quite a responsibility and sometimes as a parish priest I do feel more like a curator."

St Anne's, which was originally built in 1714, recently went through the first stages of restoration works, including repairing the forecourt to stop flooding and fixing stone works and roofs.

At a special service on Sunday, parishioners celebrated the achievement of their year long fundraising, with money coming from events such as the Kew autumn ball and the Richmond river run, as well as a charitable grant from waste management company Veolia.

Father Worn said: "The current part of the project has taken six months and the total cost was just under a quarter of a million pounds.

"We were initially raising the money to do the work and were given £60,000 by Veolia as we are within a mile of a landfill site so were eligible to apply for a grant from the tax the Government charges for dumping waste. The rest of money was raised by the congregation.

"It is a delightful building to be a part of and worship in, we are very lucky to have it.

"Everyone feels a responsibility to ensure the next generation will not be burdened with enormous costly programmes which so far we have managed to do so we are delighted."