Britain’s oldest synagogue, the Grade I-listed Bevis Marks in the City of London, has been awarded £221,100 from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The grant will cover two-thirds of the initial planning costs of a scheme to secure the site’s future as a living synagogue, which is projected to run to £4.6 million.

The S & P Sephardi Community hopes the HLF will commit to meet two-thirds of the project cost in spring 2019.

Alison Rosen, chief executive of the S&P, said: “Bevis Marks has been both a religious centre and heritage site for over 300 years. With this grant we hope to be able to both preserve and increase its presence and functionality for another century and more.”

The community’s senior rabbi, Joseph Dweck, said the grant offered “huge encouragement”. 

Bevis Marks “expresses the beauty and grandeur of our history in Britain. With the HLF grant, we will be able to showcase the many personalities, artefacts and stories that form the fabric of Sephardi Jewry in the United Kingdom and that laid the foundations of Jewish life here. The story of the Jewish people in the UK begins at Bevis Marks and every British Jew should see it at least once.”

The development plan is intended to increase visitor numbers, provide an education programme for those living and working in the area and ensure the continuity of the synagogue as a regular place of worship.