Dubai sheikh boosts Cornish village's fundraiser

Community association thanks UAE ruler, saying: 'It's not often a sheikh steps in to help a Cornish village'

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum attends Royal Ascot in 2014, accompanied by Princess Haya bint Al Hussein, one of his four wives
(Image credit: Chris Jackson/Getty Images for Ascot Racecourse)

A Cornish village raising money to turn a chapel into a community centre have had a helping hand from an unusual benefactor - the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

A committee of locals in Godolphin Cross, in south-west Cornwall, had taken on the job of raising the £90,000 needed to purchase the old Methodist chapel. After donations started petering out at around £25,000 and the committee began to look beyond Cornwall for a jump-start, villager Valerie Wallace hit on a historical connection that took them all the way to the Arabian Gulf.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The stable takes its name from the Godolphin Arabian, one of the three original stallions to make up the modern thoroughbred bloodline.

That horse was named after its owner, the second Earl of Godolphin, whose family seat is situated in Godolphin Cross. The Godolphins have been landowners and MPs in the area dating back to the 1500s.

The link seems to have touched the emir, whose representatives contacted the committee to let them know that Sheikh Mohammed had been informed of their email and would be contributing to the fundraising drive.

"We thought nothing of it and then we began to get phone calls from Abu Dhabi," committee chairman Richard Mckie told Cornwall Live. "We thought we were being hoaxed but it was no hoax."

Mckie did not disclose the exact amount of the sheikh's contribution, but said that "it has pushed us across the line".

"These kinds of things don't normally happen," Mckie said. "It's a fairytale really - it's not often a sheikh steps in to help a Cornish village."

The group will now continue fundraising towards refurbishing the chapel.

The emir certainly has a bob or two to spare. As of 2011, the emir was getting by on a net worth of £3 billion Time reports.

Forbes attributes the decline to Sheikh Mohammed's investments in Dubai's ambitious building projects, as well as reversals in the stock market that have hit many of the world's uber-rich royals.