At 1.00pm on Wednesday 21st May we have the second of St Mary’s FREE Conversations Over Lunch. This month we welcome Ralph Barber, Chair of the Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal Trust. His subject will be the fascinating past, present and future of the canal that used to run between Gloucester and Hereford, many stretches of which still exist and are being restored.
Then at 7.30pm, you are invited to Gardeners’ Question Time, the first big event in our Open Gardens season. Bring your gardening questions to put to our local panel of experts, chaired by Tim Shelley.
Did you know that there used to be a canal linking Hereford and Gloucester. Many stretches of it still exist, if you know where to look, and even where no canal is to be found there are many fetures (buildings, locks, bridges) that make it possible to see that it existed. All of this is looked after by the Herefordshire and Gloucestershire Canal Trust who are enthusiastically restoring many sections on the route and have exciting plans.
Come and find out about the past, present and future of the canal in a FREE talk by Ralph Barber (Chairman of the Trust) on Wednesday 21st May, in St Mary’s Church. This is the second of our FREE summer series of talks – “Conversations over Lunch”. Feel free to bring your lunch, perhaps grab it from one of the many High Street outlets closeby. These events are generously supported by The Cambridge Journal of Law, Politics and Art – More at https://rossparishes.uk/conversations
It’s the first Saturday of the month so if you fancy a bit of a workout you could do worse than join the merry band of churchyard mowers, strimmers, tidiers … that will be in St Mary’s Churchyard from 9.30am. There’s coffee and delicious homemade cakes for grabs in the church too.
Come and meet TV antiques celebrity, Kate Bliss, on Wednesday 18th June in St Mary’s Church, 7.00pm. She will be talking about her experiences in the antiques and TV world and then giving some valuations of the things brought along by members of the audience – choose carefully!.
Tickets are available online (there is no booking fee) for £16 (to include a glass of wine or soft drink) – £20 if you buy them on the day.
Join us in St Mary’s on Wednesday 30th April as we begin a new chapter in the life of The Ross Parishes with the installation service for our new Rector, The Revd. Prebendary Kelvin Price.
The service begins at 7pm. We’re expecting a full church, so come early. Please stay for refreshments after the service.
Join us at 7pm in St Mary’s for Thursday’s (24th April) Book Talk – Nunc! by Quentin Letts.
Quentin is political sketch writer for the Daily Mail. A regular broadcaster on radio and television, he was formerly New York correspondent for The Times, gossip columnist for the Daily Telegraph, theatre critic for the Sunday Times and parliamentary sketch writer for The Times. He is the author of the Sunday Times bestseller 50 People Who Buggered Up Britain. His hobbies are gossip, hymn-singing and cricket. He lives in rural Herefordshire.
Quentin will talk about his novel, Nunc! – a modern twist on one of the greatest (yet underlooked) narratives in Christianity…
The ‘Nunc Dimittis’, set to music by composers from Tallis to Rachmaninov, is one of the great canticles of Christianity and is heard daily in Britain’s cathedrals. It is based on ten verses in St Luke’s Gospel. They relate the tale of Simeon, an old man who was told he would not die before he saw the Messiah. He waited and waited at the Temple in Jerusalem. At last he saw the infant Jesus. At that moment he cried, ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word for mine eyes have seen thy salvation’. Simeon was at last able to surrender his life.
Who was Simeon? Why did he wait? And how did the month-old Jesus escape King Herod’s infamous massacre of the infants? The Bible does not say.
Quentin Letts’s quirky, affectionate Nunc! tries to put that right. It takes the reader to the occupied Jerusalem of Herod the Great, the puppet ruler whose Temple was a wonder of the ancient world. The action centres on Jerusalem’s Deuteronomy Square where Simeon’s old army friend Reuben runs a tea stall selling heavenly honey cakes and fig bread. We meet Bildad the beekeeper whose hive goes missing; grocer’s boy Benjamin, owner of a mule and cart that might act as a getaway vehicle; the drawlingly subversive Zillah, whose political salon lends her influence; and Simeon’s long-suffering landlady Noor. Deuteronomy Square’s plucky regulars must endure not only the bawling of a power-mad Roman centurion, Lucilius, but also the more snivelly authoritarianism of Kedar, the city’s clerk of works.
With Christians around the world we mourn the death of His Holiness Pope Francis. We extend our sympathies to all in the Roman Catholic Church and especially to our friends at St Frances of Rome and St Joseph’s RC Primary School, here in Ross.
Catch some great music at St Mary’s this afternoon (Saturday 12th April) at 5pm as our occasional choir, Round Byrd, sings evensong and we begin Holy Week. It will take just 45 minutes of your day and will be a perfect way to bridge your afternoon and evening.
The choir will be rehearsing from 2.15pm. If you can’t make the service you are most welcome to drop in for some of the rehearsal.
Another great service of Choral Evensong this evening at 6pm (Sunday 6th April) at St Mary’s.
As Lent begins to reach its climax in Passiontide, on “Passion Sunday” the music become more meditative using more ancient plainsong and music by two Tudor composers, Morley and Gibbons. Possibly a bit of 21st Century, James MacMillan (especially for today) too as an added bonus.
St Mary’s offering of FREE lunchtime concerts is back and starts tomorrow (Wednesday 2nd April) with a performance by Forest Baroque.
Join us, perhaps with your lunch, whenever you like, the concert begins at 1. For this month only homemade soup and a bread roll will be up for grabs in church from 12. It’s all very informal.
The next in our Lenten series of events focussing on our custody of the environment is a special service which will be sung by our Come & Sing choir on Sunday 16th March at 6.00pm.
Join us in St Mary’s for a special service with music by Rutter, Karl Jenkins and Haydn as we pray for peace and for our world.
There’s another splendid service of CHORAL EVENSONG at St Mary’s at 6. This time all the music is by Welsh composers and some of the service will be in Welsh too.
We come before you today, humbled and heavy-hearted after three years of war, to pray for peace in Ukraine. We pray for the people caught in this terrible war, for those who have lost their homes, their loved ones, and their sense of safety. We pray for the courage of those fighting for their country, and for the wisdom of world leaders to find a path to peace.
We pray for peace, not just in Ukraine, but in the whole world. May conflict and hatred be replaced by understanding and love.
We are delighted to welcome the author Tom Bullough to St Mary’s on Saturday 3rd May.
Tom is going to discuss his book Sarn Helen, which won the best book of the year in Wales 2024, and show us some excerpts from his film Tarddle / Source about the River Wye. This film follows the River Wye from the Wales / England border to its source in the Cambrian Mountains recording the stories, hopes and concerns of the people living in the Wye Valley affected by the impact of climate change.
Tom’s writing focusses on Wales, churches, climate emergency and the relationship between people and the natural world shifting over time.
This is part of a series of events linked to our commitment to St Mary’s as an Eco Church.
It’s the third Sunday of the month, which means there’s another wonderful service of Choral Evensong at 6pm in St Mary’s – the service that reaches the parts other services can’t!
This time the choir is singing a modern setting of the Magnificat 7 Nunc Dimittis (written for King’s College Cambridge) by Joanna Forbes L’Estrange and a wonderful big Edwardian anthem, Evening Hymn by Henry Balfour Gardiner.
Join us for a glass of sherry after the service. A perfect way to end your week and home in time for “Call the Midwife!”
Join us in St Mary’s for this concert by folk duo “Hedgehog” in St Mary’s Church on Saturday 22nd February at 7.00pm. Please book tickets at: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/fosmross/t-kragvyr where you will also find full details.
The gable cross, behind this scaffolding has become somewhat wobbly, so Alec Curtis, one of the team of stonemasons at the Cathedral, is taking it down, creating a new base stone (which has cracked) and then putting it back up with some stainless steel pins to make it more secure.
When he’s done that, he’ll be moving into the church to begin work on stabilising the 1895 marble floor in the sanctuary, around the high altar.
The Ross Parishes: Ross-on-Wye, Walford & Brampton Abbotts 