purity iii page load speed

Hi there, I wonder can anybody help me?

I am developing a website for a charity I do some work with. The template Purity III by joomlart, running T3 framework. I have K2 installed that I want to add items to different pages etc. I want to extend it even further with a forum and other items. But this is for the future and only if the site loads up quicker than it currently does.

The loading performance has fallen off a cliff, it takes 70 seconds plus to load up.

Once loaded up, the site runs very well, and pages load very quickly, it's just that initial load up. There is very little on the main page.

I have tried lots of things to improve, cache, gzip, conservative cache, the system chache plugin, plus JCH Optimize. Nothing is doing the job. I just don't know what to do to improve this situation.

Can someone help me out please to point me in the right direction for getting a decent loading time.

If I can't get this sorted, then I will have to ditch this template and go to something that is quicker.

Here is the website if anyone wants to take on this problem.

http://www.temp2.stchadssanctuary.com


Can anyone recommend a cheap (if not free) responsive template where I can achieve the things I want to do with the one listed above.

Thanks