Church Saved from Closing After Stash of Gold Coins Found Under Altar

A tiny 14th-century church in England that was on the brink of shutting its doors has been given what its vicar is calling a miracle — after a hidden stash of gold coins was discovered beneath the altar.

St. Wilfrid’s Church in Melling, a small village in Lancashire, had been facing a bleak future after roughly 700 years of worship. The Anglican church, which now has a congregation of only about five people, was struggling to raise the massive £750,000 needed for essential repairs to the historic building.

Then, just as Rev. Jane Lee was preparing for what she feared could be the church’s final Good Friday service before Easter, she noticed something strange tucked beneath the altar.

“As we took the altar frontal off, the wedding kneeler was underneath and I noticed a plastic bag sticking under it,” Lee, 54, told The Times. “When we took it out, there was a box in it with a note.”

Inside the box was a stunning surprise: nine one-ounce gold Britannia coins and a handwritten note dated July 16, 2022.

“Hi there, I’d like to donate these nine gold Britannias to Melling church,” the note read, according to The Times. It was written on Salvation Army paper and signed, “James, servant of the living God.”

The coins, which bore markings showing they were produced by the Royal Mint in 1999, were later sold for nearly £30,000 — more than $40,000 — according to The Times and the BBC.

For a church desperately trying to survive, the discovery was overwhelming.

“We were both absolutely flabbergasted. We couldn’t believe it. We both burst into tears. You know, it was just like a miracle,” Lee told The Times.

The mystery only deepened from there. According to the outlets, other churches in the surrounding area received similar anonymous gifts in 2022, but the donation left for St. Wilfrid’s remained hidden until April, when Lee finally spotted the plastic bag beneath the altar.

The timing may have made the gift even more meaningful. Lee told the BBC that the church now has stronger support from the local community than it did several years ago.

“For me, it’s significant because we’ve got more community backing now to the church, whereas four years ago we would have probably just spent it on the day-to-day running of it,” she said.

St. Wilfrid’s is not just any small village church. The building sits on a site where a Norman-built church stood for 150 years before it, and the current church is Grade I-listed on England’s National Heritage List.

Among its historic features is a clock made by Edward John Dent, the same clockmaker behind the clock face for London’s famous Elizabeth Tower, better known to many Americans as Big Ben.

Now, after years of uncertainty and fears that the centuries-old church could be forced to close, a mysterious donor’s hidden gold has given St. Wilfrid’s a new chance to survive.