A church has finally opened its main entrance to funerals, weddings and worshippers after precarious stonework in the lintel made it dangerous to use.

Horrabridge Church has not held a wedding for nine months and funerals staged in that time have been less than ideal or as dignified as desired, because of the need to use a narrower side door instead, with pall bearers not being able to pass through alongside coffins.

For the first time since January St John the Baptist church unlocked the door for a concert. The door is now deemed safe to use, for now at least, after a new temporary wooden arch support, with a ‘roof’ of curved plywood, was fitted last weekend to keep the stones in place.

The Rev Andrew Thomas, West Dartmoor Mission, said: ‘The stone arch above the main door to the church has become perilous over several years to the extent that up until recently we have not been able to use the main door for fear that the stone lintel may fall and seriously injure someone. Consequently, we have been using the side door of the church. This has been less than ideal as it’s a single door and therefore rather awkward and tight to allow a coffin to be carried into church for a funeral.

‘We work very hard at St John the Baptist church to make the funeral of a loved one as dignified and prayerful as possible, in these circumstances this has been difficult.

‘We do now have a wooden support in place, and it is hoped that this will suffice until we can afford to fully repair the door frame. There have been a number of funerals in the last months that this has affected,’

He said there had been very few weddings at St John the Baptist’s, but suspected it was a ‘a growing trend in the village’, rather than a result of the main door being unservicable.

He agreed that the stonework should have been repaired earlier, but said the church faced mounting repair bills, totalling £350,000, with the roof and guttering and the cause of the door stonework problem all needing further financing.

He added: ‘Due to the finances of the ecclesiastical parish this has been difficult. There are a number of ongoing repairs. We are raising money for this work so that the church will remain for future generations, but even with grant applications this is going to be a monumental task for worshipping’

It is thought drain collapse is a cause of the door problem, undermining the soil.