Jill Gabriel Anne Mary Hughes
[email protected]A retired district nurse and parishioner of long standing, Jill chairs our quarterly meetings and signs the grant letters. She keeps the minute book by hand.
About the charity
A small endowment, five trustees, and one parish — held together by an old promise.
We are the legal vehicle that pays out two slim seventeenth- and nineteenth-century bequests, year after year, into the lives of neighbours in Aubourn with Haddington.
Our founding story
The Nevile fund and the Summers fund, joined together in 1964.
The Nevile family has held Aubourn Hall, on the south bank of the Witham eight miles south-west of Lincoln, since the seventeenth century. Parish memory holds that Sir Christopher Nevile, the first Nevile baronet of Aubourn, left a small annual sum upon his death in 1693 for the poor of the parish — a few pounds a year drawn from the rents of the estate to be distributed at Christmas and at Lammas by the churchwardens of St Peter's. That endowment, plain and modest, has been paid out without interruption for over three hundred years.
The Summers fund is younger. Parish records suggest it was set aside by a Mr Summers of Haddington in the late nineteenth century, with a particular concern for young people from the parish leaving home to take up trades. The bequest was small and tied to specific purposes — apprenticeships, tools, books and bus fares — and it sat alongside the Nevile fund in the parish chest for many decades.
In 1964, on the advice of the new Charity Commission and under the Charities Act 1960, the two endowments were formally amalgamated into a single registered trust — the Estate Charity of Sir Christopher Nevile, charity number 219964. The new trust was registered on 11 February 1964. The trustees were the rector of Aubourn, two churchwardens, and two parish-elected lay members. The structure has not changed materially since.
Today we are five — Jill Hughes (Chair), John Mosedale, Julie Plackett-Smith, Lynne Rocks and Susan Stentiford. We meet four times a year in the back room of Aubourn Village Hall, or in someone's kitchen if the heating in the hall has gone. We keep a single hand-written minute book and a single bank account at a small Lincolnshire branch. Our income last year was £1,051; our expenditure was £1,586. The difference is paid out of reserves built up in the quieter years.
A long parish memory
Eight moments from three hundred and thirty years.
Dates before 1964 are taken from the parish chest at St Peter's, Aubourn. Dates from 1964 onwards are taken from our minute book.
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1675
Sir Christopher Nevile is created 1st Baronet of Aubourn.
The Nevile baronetcy of Aubourn is established in May 1675. The family is already long-settled at Aubourn Hall, the present house having been built by an earlier owner between 1587 and 1628.
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c. 1693
A small annual sum is left for the poor of the parish.
Parish tradition holds that on his death Sir Christopher provides for a Christmas and Lammas distribution to be made yearly to the parishioners of Aubourn from the rents of the estate.
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Late 19th c.
The Summers bequest is added to the parish chest.
A Mr Summers of Haddington leaves a small fund directed towards apprenticeships, books and tools for young people of the parish. The two funds are administered side-by-side by the churchwardens.
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11 February 1964
The two funds are amalgamated and registered as a single charity.
Under the Charities Act 1960, the Estate Charity of Sir Christopher Nevile is registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales as charity number 219964. The rector and the churchwardens sit as ex-officio trustees.
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1979
A new scheme of administration is approved.
The Charity Commission approves an updated scheme moving the charity onto a wholly trustee-elected model. The area of benefit is clarified as 'the ancient parish of Aubourn with Haddington and the immediate surrounding parishes.'
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2001
Working name 'Aubourn Charity' adopted for parish use.
For day-to-day matters the trustees begin signing as the 'Aubourn Charity' on grant letters and door-to-door notes, retaining the full name on formal accounts.
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2021
Jill Hughes is elected Chair; the present board is formed.
Jill Gabriel Anne Mary Hughes is elected Chair on 10 December 2021. John Mosedale joins the same day. Julie Plackett-Smith joins in June 2022; Lynne Rocks in April 2023; Susan Stentiford in October 2023.
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2024–25
Twenty-seven households reached, accounts filed on time.
Income of £1,051 and expenditure of £1,586, with reserves used to bridge a quiet year. Reporting up to date with the Charity Commission. New Kitchen-Table Grants pot opened in November 2024.
The trustees
Five neighbours who meet four times a year.
All five trustees live within a short walk of Aubourn Village Hall. None of us is paid. None of us claims expenses. We do this because someone has to.
John Mosedale
[email protected]A semi-retired chartered surveyor, John keeps the accounts and prepares the annual return for the Charity Commission. He has lived in the parish since 1989.
Julie Ann Plackett-Smith
[email protected]Julie leads on the Summers Bursaries. A former secondary-school deputy head, she reads every bursary application personally and writes the offer letters.
Lynne Rachel Rocks
[email protected]Lynne convenes the Quiet Hour programme. She co-ordinates with St Peter's and the village hall to keep an unobtrusive eye on older parishioners.
Susan Stentiford joined the board on 30 October 2023 and leads on the Parish Wellbeing Fund. Portraits above are studio reconstructions taken for the village hall display; please write to [email protected] with corrections or omissions.
Governance
How the charity actually works.
We are a small, single-trust endowment governed by a 1979 scheme of administration approved by the Charity Commission and registered as charity number 219964. We have no staff, no premises and no land. The charity holds a single bank account at a Lincolnshire branch of one of the high-street banks and a small investment portfolio managed by a regulated discretionary manager whose fees we publish in our annual accounts.
The board meets four times a year — March, June, September and December. Meetings last about two hours. Decisions are made by consensus where possible and by majority vote where not. The Chair has a casting vote. Minutes are kept by hand in a single bound book that lives in a deed-box at the Old Vicarage, and they are typed up afterwards for filing with the Charity Commission.
Grants to individuals are decided at the quarterly meetings. In urgent cases — a boiler in February, a funeral in August — the Chair and one other trustee may approve a grant of up to £250 between meetings and report it at the next sitting. Anything larger waits.
We do not solicit donations door-to-door. We do not employ professional fundraisers. We have never used third-party online fundraising platforms. Our donate page on this website is a polite suggestion for old friends of Aubourn and former parishioners; it is not where our income mostly comes from. Most of our income is the modest yield of the investment portfolio.
Policies
- Safeguarding policy (children and vulnerable adults) — adopted 2022, reviewed annually.
- Conflicts of interest policy — trustees recuse themselves from grant decisions involving family members or close neighbours.
- Reserves policy — minimum reserves of £8,000 to cover three years of typical expenditure; current reserves above policy.
- Investment policy — capital preservation, modest income, no extraction of capital except by approved scheme amendment.
Headline accounts · year to 31 March 2025
£1,051 in. £1,586 out. Twenty-seven households reached.
Filed on time with the Charity Commission for England and Wales. Full annual report on our reports page.
£1,051
Total income
Investment income, small donations from old friends of Aubourn.
£1,586
Total expenditure
Grants to individuals, two governance costs, audit fee.
27
Households reached
Across Aubourn with Haddington and the immediate parishes.
0
Paid staff
All trustees serve unpaid. We claim no expenses.
Read our annual reports, or come to a trustee surgery.
Reports back to 2018 are on the site. Surgeries are the first Saturday of the month, 10.00–12.00, at Aubourn Village Hall.