Dubai sheikh boosts Cornish village's fundraiser

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.

Al Maktoum, currently Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and emir of Dubai, is a famous face in the horseracing world and the founder of the Godolphin stables empire, which breeds and trains prize-winning thoroughbreds.

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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.