THE Choral Evensong Trust (CET) expected a moderate degree of interest when, last November, it announced its inaugural Patronal Festival Grants awards: an initiative intended to foster community engagement and enrich the spiritual and cultural lifetime of churches across the country.
It expected to award about five grants, enabling choral evensong to be celebrated in churches where it was not normally held. The grants were a £500 Patronal Festivals Grant, to enable a visiting choir to return and sing; or — for churches with a choir — a £250 Patronal Festivities Grant, to cover the price of a community reception. There had been two trial runs in 2024, within the dioceses of Chichester and Bath & Wells, and limited publicity was launched in these and thru the Save the Parish newsletter.
“We didn’t know what kind of response we’d get,” Dr Rupert Sheldrake, a trustee, remembers. “It was almost overwhelming — 87 applications — and it was hard to boost the funds to cover [the 85 that were eligible], but we managed to do all that through private donations. People so liked the concept that, in some cases, it was pushing at an open door.
“Most individuals who wrote to me were churchwardens, saying how excited the PCC was about this possibility. About 80 per cent used the word ‘excited’ — and PCCs aren’t normally that excited. It would have been terrible to downplay this” (News, 7 February).
The key feature of a patronal festival, on this scheme, is that it relies on choral evensong. “That has the ability to attract in much more people from the local people who aren’t regular churchgoers,” Dr Sheldrake suggests. “So far, they’ve been enormously successful in bringing in individuals who don’t normally go to church, in addition to those that do occasionally.”
The Trust considered that festivals could apply to each church within the land, even those that didn’t have a choir or didn’t normally do evensong; and a lot of the applications were actually from these. The story of the saints, and the concept of the saint because the protector of the parish, also resonated with people, Dr Sheldrake suggests.
“Honouring and calling upon the protector of the parish is deeply archetypal,” he says. “It strengthens people’s link with their parish, strengthens the communities, and strengthens their relationship with their patron.” He suggests that first approaches for putting on a patronal festival might be made to the patron of the benefice: the thought had appealed to those approached for funding for the 85, and so they had been very willing to contribute.
PARISHES who’ve already placed on a festival this yr have reported positively on the experience. It was the primary choral evensong in 20 years for St George’s, Benenden, where singers got here from across the Weald deanery to form a robed choir of 14 voices. The service, described as “beautiful and moving”, attracted a congregation of 70 from the village; the buffet was “delicious”, and the church had a likelihood to offer an update on its Renew, Restore and Rejoice project.
A daily congregation of 12 grew to 74 at Eglwys Sant Caron, Tregaron, where the festival was deemed “a rousing success . . . a very joyous affair. . . An amazing variety of congregation members suddenly remembered the best way to chant responses.”
“The patronal services present a beautiful opportunity for people to return together to have a good time the life and witness of the church and of the patron saint from which the church bears its name,” the Priest-in-Charge, the Revd Nicholas Bee, said.
The occasion at St Petroc’s, Timberscombe, was reported as “a really successful service, the likes of which was out of any villager’s memory. It can be wonderful to support more choral evensongs on the church, and we are going to do our greatest to search out a sponsor [for 2026].
“Our typical service attracts a median of 20 people; so to have 100 squeeze in our church was a delight. We were in a position to attract people from beyond our parish which have a love for liturgical music, in addition to an enormous amount of local support.” The Prosecco went down well, too; but none of it, the reporter says, would have been possible without the grant — a recognition that is available in every report.
WHEN Richard Craig-Langley took over as director of music at St Mark’s, Newport, there was no choir or organist. “I desired to turn things around and produce much-needed life back into the church,” he said. “Our patronal festival was coming up, and I quickly discovered St Mark’s had not celebrated this in literally a long time. Some didn’t know what a patronal festival was.
“I put together a choir of 18, which consisted of adults from across the diocese and included choristers from our cathedral. We pulled in a congregation of 67 people, and there was much discussion about repeating it again next yr. . . We’re going to be doing a final choral evensong to mark the newly formed resident choir’s last service before we break for the summer.”
THE festival on the Annunciation, Brighton, “woke up a desire to have a good time choral evensong more often”. A newly formed skilled choir was led by the choirmaster, David Price; the service attracted 50 visitors, and “a hearty meal of curry accomplished the celebrations. . . We offer our sincere because of the Trust for getting the ball rolling for our rediscovery of the liturgical jewel of the Church of England.”
They had a lasagne dinner after the “deeply moving” service at St Mary’s, Frome St Quintin, in Herefordshire — “generously made and partially donated by members of the parish”. St John of Beverley, Whatton-in-the-Vale, benefited from having a former Rector Chori of Southwell Minster, Paul Hale, living within the parish. The Cranmer Company of Singers was the guest choir, which welcomed other local singers, “turning it right into a ‘Come and Sing Evensong’”. The Vicar, the Revd Timothy Chambers, is credited with the efforts he made, including creating invitations that were delivered to each home within the vicinity.
ST GEORGE’s, Donnington, in Chichester, needed to make what they might of St George, about whom little is understood, but had “an excellent evening of worship and weather”. The Vicar, the Revd Caroline Brown, reflected: “We attempt to do an evensong once 1 / 4, but where our church is situated doesn’t make it ideal for our winter evening service. We are lucky in in having a choir that also likes to ‘perform’ and get together for events resembling evensong. We are also extremely lucky that we’ve a top class organist/musician who was in a position to lead and direct such services, and ready to offer up time to practise.”
The grant enabled the church to print an expert order of service for evensong, making it easier in future for those attending to follow. Although widely advertised — including on A Church Near You, St George’s Facebook page, the electoral list, and in a publication promoting local events — it didn’t attract anyone latest on this occasion. But, after a specially commissioned cake, and wine, “We left to the sight of the setting sun over fields newly harrowed and awaiting seeding — perhaps a metaphor to challenge us to proceed to be rooted and grounded as a Christian community.”
Grants aren’t recurring, so will only be awarded to latest applicants every year. If your parish church is considering putting on a patronal-festival evensong:
- Invite your patron, in the primary instance, to sponsor it. Nothing ventured . . .
- Confirm your organist and singers on the outset: for some, this has been the catalyst for reviving/forming a daily choir.
- Plan in good time, to collect good material. Michaelmas, for instance, offers excellent hymns and anthems concerning the angels.
- Advertise as widely as you may. The CET website opened up notice of choral evensongs to the various individuals who loved it but weren‘t on church mailing lists and didn’t know where it was happening.
- Invite people within the parish to donate to a festival in memory of a loved one.
- Go as big as you may on the hospitality.
- Collaborate with other churches with a robust choral tradition.
Visit choralevensong.org or contact: hello@choralevensong.org
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