SIX historic churches in North Yorkshire are to share more than £500,000 to carry out urgent repairs.

The cash from English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund is part of a national £16m package of assistance made under a repair grant scheme for places of worship.

The largest single grant in Yorkshire - worth £300,000 - goes to Selby Abbey.

It will help fund the third phase of repair work to the building, founded in 1069. The work will concentrate on badly eroded high masonry in the north choir aisle and the total cost is £500,000.

The abbey is one of the few great monastic churches to have survived Henry VIII's ruthless suppression of the monasteries.

But the ravages of time have proved an even more formidable foe and three years ago an ambitious ten-phase restoration scheme began, likely to cost £5m.

Other churches to benefit from yesterday's announcement include

* St Olave's, York, which receives £70,000;

* St Nicholas, at Dunnington, York, which gets £147,000;

* All Saints', at Terrington, Malton, which receives £127,000;

* All Saints' and St Helen's, at Wykeham, near Scarborough, which gets £111,000;

* St Giles, at Skelton, York, which receives £79,000.