A HISTORIC chapel at Whiston Hospital has been saved from the bulldozers and will instead be dismantled brick by brick in the hope it could be rebuilt somewhere else.

Health chiefs announced that they have agreed with developers working on the multi-million pound rebuilding of Whiston Hospital that the chapel be dismantled and put into storage in July. It had been due to be demolished along with other dated hospital buildings.

Heritage campaigners, who have fought to save the chapel, have submitted an application for a lottery grant to fund a project plan for rebuilding it on another site, possibly at Knowsley Cemetery.

They are desperate to save the building, claiming it was the first shared Christian church in the country.

Michael Lane, secretary of WHICH (Whiston Hospital Initiative for Cultural Heritage) said they would rename the building the Thomas Chambers Memorial Chapel after a Halewood vicar of the 1880s who decided the be chapel should be used as a shared Christian church.

Campaigners hope the rebuilt chapel will become a multi-faith centre. Mr Lane said: "The critical part is that the chapel should be dismantled as carefully as possible. We need around £30,000 for the project plan and then a further grant of around £200,000."