A small charity, made in October 1963, for a building made in August 1762.

The Trust was registered with the Charity Commission on the thirteenth of October 1963 — a Sunday — by a small group of senior members of the Plymouth Hebrew Congregation. The instrument was simple. An endowment would be held in perpetuity, and the income from that endowment would be used to fund the necessary works at the congregation's buildings for the maintenance of worship and for religious education. That is still, sixty-two years later, the only purpose for which any pound passes through these accounts.

The congregation itself is older — much older. The synagogue at the north end of Catherine Street was consecrated on the twenty-sixth of August 1762, which makes it one of the oldest still-functioning Ashkenazi synagogues anywhere in the English-speaking world. It is Grade II* listed. Its interior has scarcely changed in two and a half centuries. The Trust did not build it. The Trust only keeps the rain out and the lights on.

We are deliberately small. The income reported to the Commission for the year ending 5 April 2025 was £8,422 and our expenditure was nil — a quiet year, in which the endowment grew and the building did not call upon it. Other years are busier. The picture across a decade is one of steady reserves, periodic outlays, and a habit of saying no to anything that drifts beyond the deed.

How we came to be.

The Plymouth Hebrew Congregation has worshipped on Catherine Street since 1762, when a group of Ashkenazi Jewish merchants and naval contractors purchased the freehold of the small plot and built a meeting house above a row of leaning brick warehouses. They built it modestly, as their charter required them to do. Most of the original fittings — the carved bimah, the Aron Kodesh, the polished oak benches — are still in place.

By the early 1960s the building had reached a point at which periodic small works could no longer be met out of the congregation's annual subscription. In October 1963 two senior members made a one-off gift of a sum sufficient to generate an income that, properly held, could meet the building's small but regular needs in perpetuity. That deed of trust, settled at a solicitor's office in central London and registered with the Charity Commission within the month, is the document we still operate under.

Governance.

BASH TRUST is governed by its founding deed and by the general law of charity in England and Wales. It is regulated by the Charity Commission for England and Wales. The Trust does not have employees. It does not commission consultants. Its accounts are independently examined each year by a firm of chartered accountants in London. The trustees neither receive nor claim any remuneration, and the deed expressly prohibits the payment of expenses beyond actual disbursements properly evidenced.

The Trust is not registered for Gift Aid; the cost of administering the scheme is not warranted by the volume of donations we receive. We are, however, fully transparent about every grant we make: each one is listed in the annual report.

Latest accounts in brief.

For the year ending 5 April 2025, the most recent year for which figures are filed with the Charity Commission:

• Total income: £8,422
• Total expenditure: £0
• Reserves at year end: held in line with the trustees' reserves policy
• Independently examined; reporting up to date

A fuller picture, including narrative on the year, is set out in the annual report, which you can read alongside earlier years on our reports page.

Contacting the Trust.

The fastest way to reach the trustees is by writing to [email protected]. We answer ourselves and, as a tiny office, we ask for up to three working days. The Trust's registered office is in central London; the building we work for is in Plymouth. You can find both, with maps, on our contact page.