A CROWDFUNDING campaign will be launched to help raise £235,000 to buy and restore one of Abergavenny’s most important buildings.

The Welsh Georgian Trust has just six months to raise the cash to buy the 17th century Grade II* Listed Gunter Mansion on Cross Street.

The Monmouth-based trust, which specialises in rescuing endangered treasures, will launch its crowdfunding scheme to coincide with World Heritage Day on Monday, April 18 in a bid to raise £50,000 of contributions from the public.

It is hoped that the rest of the funding will come from various grants. The aim is to restore the building which boasts one of the best preserved recusant chapels in the UK and the only one in Wales.

The trust has reached an agreement with a Cardiff-based property firm to buy the building for £150,000.

Saint David Lewis, an Abergavenny man executed for high treason, built a secret chapel in the attic to hold services for Catholics when the religion was outlawed. He was born in 1616 and raised a Protestant, but later converted to Catholicism and became a priest. He was convicted of high treason and executed in Usk in 1679, and was canonised by Pope Paul VI in 1970. The secret chapel, measuring 23ft by 10ft, remained undiscovered until 1907.

At the time the property was owned by Thomas Gunter, a local attorney and ardent supporter of the Catholic faith.

A number of retail units now occupy the ground floor of the mansion which once contained the chapel in its attic.

The trust needs to raise £200,000 to buy the building and to carry out immediate urgent repairs.

Once the restoration work is complete, the bulk of the building will remain retail to ensure it has a viable economic future, which, it is hoped, will be an opportunity to help in the regeneration of that part of the town centre.

The trust wants to see the chapel opened up to the public, and one possibility is to create a small centre celebrating the history of Catholicism in Wales.

The trust’s chairman, Andrew Beckett said the building is in a poor state of repair and the surviving historic elements are in danger of being lost.

“Once the building has been acquired and stabilised, we intend to undertake a Heritage Lottery Fund Enterprise scheme to fully restore the building and make it accessible to the public,” he said.

“The project will remain in the long-term care of the Welsh Georgian Trust and it will be the guarantor of its care.”

To find out about the project visit welshgeorgiantrust.org.uk or email info@thegunterproject.org.uk.