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 life 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 come and sing; or — for churches with a choir — a £250 Patronal Festivities Grant, to cover the cost of a community reception. There had been two trial runs in 2024, in the dioceses of Chichester and Bath & Wells, and limited publicity was launched in these and through the Save the Parish newsletter.
“We didn’t know what sort of response we’d get,” Dr Rupert Sheldrake, a trustee, remembers. “It was almost overwhelming — 87 applications — and it was hard to raise the funds to cover [the 85 that were eligible], but we managed to do all that through private donations. People so liked the idea that, in some cases, it was pushing at an open door.
“Most people 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 are not normally that excited. It would have been terrible to downplay this” (News, 7 February).
The key feature of a patronal festival, in this scheme, is that it is based on choral evensong. “That has the power to draw in far more people from the local community who are not regular churchgoers,” Dr Sheldrake suggests. “So far, they’ve been enormously successful in bringing in people who don’t normally go to church, as well as those who do occasionally.”
The Trust considered that festivals could apply to every church in the land, even those who didn’t have a choir or didn’t normally do evensong; and most of the applications were in fact from these. The story of the saints, and the concept of the saint as 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 could be made to the patron of the benefice: the idea had appealed to those approached for funding for the 85, and they had been very willing to contribute.
PARISHES who have already put on a festival this year have reported positively on the experience. It was the first choral evensong in 20 years for St George’s, Benenden, where singers came 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 chance to give an update on its Renew, Restore and Rejoice project.
A regular congregation of 12 grew to 74 at Eglwys Sant Caron, Tregaron, where the festival was deemed “a rousing success . . . a really joyous affair. . . An amazing number of congregation members suddenly remembered how to chant responses.”
“The patronal services present a wonderful opportunity for people to come together to celebrate 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 very successful service, the likes of which was out of any villager’s memory. It would be wonderful to support more choral evensongs at the church, and we will do our best to find a sponsor [for 2026].
“Our typical service attracts an average of 20 people; so to have 100 squeeze in our church was a delight. We were able to attract people from beyond our parish that have a love for liturgical music, as well as a huge 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 comes 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 wanted to turn things around and bring 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 decades. Some didn’t know what a patronal festival was.
“I put together a choir of 18, which consisted of adults from around 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 year. . . 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 at the Annunciation, Brighton, “awakened a desire to celebrate choral evensong more often”. A newly formed professional choir was led by the choirmaster, David Price; the service attracted 50 visitors, and “a hearty meal of curry completed the celebrations. . . We offer our sincere thanks to 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 in part 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 in the parish. The Cranmer Company of Singers was the guest choir, which welcomed other local singers, “turning it 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 every home in the vicinity.
ST GEORGE’s, Donnington, in Chichester, had to make what they could of St George, about whom little is known, but had “a glorious evening of worship and weather”. The Vicar, the Revd Caroline Brown, reflected: “We try to do an evensong once a quarter, but where our church is located does not make it ideal for our winter evening service. We are lucky in in having a choir that still likes to ‘perform’ and get together for events such as evensong. We are also extremely lucky that we have a top class organist/musician who was able to lead and direct such services, and prepared to give up time to practise.”
The grant enabled the church to print a professional 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 advertising local events — it did not attract anyone new 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 continue to be rooted and grounded as a Christian community.”
Grants are not recurring, so will only be awarded to new applicants each year. If your parish church is considering putting on a patronal-festival evensong:
- Invite your patron, in the first instance, to sponsor it. Nothing ventured . . .
- Confirm your organist and singers at the outset: for some, this has been the catalyst for reviving/forming a regular choir.
- Plan in good time, to gather good material. Michaelmas, for example, offers excellent hymns and anthems about the angels.
- Advertise as widely as you can. The CET website opened up notice of choral evensongs to the many people who loved it but weren‘t on church mailing lists and didn’t know where it was happening.
- Invite people in the parish to donate to a festival in memory of a loved one.
- Go as big as you can on the hospitality.
- Collaborate with other churches with a strong choral tradition.
Visit choralevensong.org or contact: hello@choralevensong.org
