A number of the area's churches are planning large-scale projects to bring their buildings up to date and to provide space that reflects their current role in the community.

However, with many of the buildings hundreds of years old and often with listed status, congregations need to raise large sums of money to fund the work.

A recent five-year inspection of the Grade I listed St Peter and St Paul Church in Seal showed a number of issues, including changing the boiler, lowering a tomb and dealing with death watch beetles in the rafters.

The Rev Anne Le Bas said: "It's going to be expensive. These things always take a very long time to investigate and set up the repairs.

"There's always something that needs maintaining in a church that's over 800 years old. The message I'm always trying to get back to people is the church is not state funded. It comes from the congregation.

"We can apply for English Heritage grants. There's no guarantee we'll get it."

She added the church would like to carry out work to upgrade its buildings, but this would require major fundraising.

She said: "We don't have any toilets in the church, the heating isn't up to much, and that's normal with buildings this old. We have very little car parking.

"It's a community building. It was built by the community over 800 years and they still regard it as their building. People do pop in and out, who are not regular churchgoers, who just want to sit and appreciate the history. We want to carry on doing that.

"We want to be as accessible as we can to as many people as we can. We're the single large building in the village where people can gather.

"We don't get grants for that. The amount of capital we need to do anything like that is beyond the scope of an ordinary congregation."

She added that one of the issues also faced by churches that have old buildings is bringing them up to scratch to meet current legislation, such as laws covering disabled access.

As well as raising money internally, much of the work investigating problems, finding grants and organising contractors at St Peter and St Paul Church falls to volunteers such as the churchwardens.

One church that has raised the money to carry out upgrading work is the Vine Baptist Church.

It is currently carrying out a £650,000 refurbishment that will include work to the roof, removing the pews and refitting the main part of the church to create a flexible space and adding new toilets, offices and a Sunday crèche.

The Rev Jim Crockett said the church already provides space for community groups but the upgrade will allow more flexibility.

He said: "We wanted to be more relevant to the community here. It's to do with how we perceive our mission. We want to show we genuinely care for people and see this building as available for their use.

"The drive behind this is to have a church that's relevant to the community and showing God's love through that.

"It's also because we've got a building that was built in the 1870s and to use modern systems like PAs does require modernisation."

Most of the money for the work has been raised by the congregation, through donations, fundraising and a legacy left to the church, with other funds including £50,000 of grants and a loan from the Baptist Union of Great Britain.

Both churches say their congregations are growing, with Mr Crockett putting the increasing numbers down to people coming into the Vine Baptist Church through its work in the community such as toddler groups, youth work and lunches for elderly people.

One of the things the church has planned for its improved building is a children's community choir, which is due to start in September.

Factbox: English Heritage

Funding for work on listed churches is available from the joint Heritage Lottery Fund and English Heritage Repair Grants for Places of Worship scheme

Since 2002 more than £156m in essential repair grants has been awarded to almost 1,700 projects

This year the scheme has given £22.9m of new grants to 206 listed Places of Worship

In December 2008, English Heritage launched its Support Officers scheme to part-fund 30 people to help congregations repair and maintain their historic places of worship.

An English Heritage spokesman said: "This is the largest single funding source for work of this kind. English Heritage and the HLF have jointly supported places of worship for more than 10 years and both organisations recognise the importance of enabling much-needed repairs to take place."

There are 31 listed churches in Sevenoaks district, including a number of Grade I listed buildings:

Church Of Saint Martin, High Street, Eynsford

Church Of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, High Street, Farningham

Church Of Saint Mary, Fawkham Road, Fawkham

Church Of Saint Edmund, Fawkham Road, West Kingsdown

Church Of St Peter and St Paul, Church Street, Seal

Church Of Saint Botolph, Lullingstone Lane, Eynsford

Parish Church Of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Church Lane, Ash Cum Ridley