Church

Westleton Parish Church of St. PeterSt Peter's Church, Westleton from the south-east.

St Peters Church in early spring
(Photo: Hillas Smith)

 

Our present church dates from 1340 when the original Anglo-Saxon building was completely rebuilt. When complete the church had a tower but this collapsed in the 1770's. The tower was reduced to a stump which survived until the Second World War when a landmine that fell close by made it unsafe and the remains had to be dismantled.

The exterior of the parish church is unusual in that it has no tower or spire and also has a thatched roof.

Westleton is one of the eight parishes within the Yoxmere Confederation. Please initially contact Church Warden J. Branch 01728 648140 jbranch563@gmail.com 

The church has a wide variety of services at which both traditional and modern liturgies are used.

The church has fine acoustic qualities, which, combined with its light airy appearance, makes it a superb venue for concerts and recitals. These are held on a regular basis and details may be found in the Parish Magazine “The Yoxmere Fisherman”.

More information is available at the website:
www.achurchnearyou.com//westleton-st-peter/

Westleton is one of 8 parishes in the Yoxmere Benefice of the Church of England Diocese of St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich.

Visit the website of the Church of England Diocese of St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich for more information about the work of the diocese.

St Peter’s Church Westleton Services in January Sunday 1st 10.00am Benefice Holy Communion at Holy Trinity Middleton Sunday 8th 9.30am croissants@church 10am Informal Worship Sunday 15th 9.30am Holy Communion Sunday 22nd 9.30am Informal Worship Sunday 29th 6.30pm Prayer and Praise Wednesdays 10am Midweek Holy Communion February 5th 10am we join together at St Michaels Peasenhall for our Benefice Communion Service Everyone is always Welcome

Revd Tim's Reflections for Sunday 29 January 2023 

 Read the reflections from Revd Tim

For your diary Yoxmere Benefice Lent Course Prayer at Darsham Village Hall Monday 27th February, 2pm — and for the next five weeks We will be discussing Christian Prayer, basing discussion on the book ‘Prayer’ by Richard Foster (but you’ll still get a lot out of this if you don’t have the book!) Refreshments will be provided All welcome to any meeting This will be repeated as a zoom meeting on Monday evenings at 7.45 for those unable to attend in person - contact Revd Tim for the zoom link

St Peter’s PCC Update The role of your PCC is to facilitate the worship of our God through the many Sunday services, our mid-week communion services and additional opportunities to praise God at Christmas, the Good Friday Concert, and our new evening Prayer n Praise. Alongside our traditional services we now have less formal services led by ourselves and accompanied by our music group, these are proving more and more popular encouraging new folk from the village and beyond. But what else has your PCC been doing all year? Back in December we installed our posh new pew cushions giving us all a little more comfort. We hosted ‘Tea n Pancakes’ that many enjoyed, arranged concerts with the Tallis Chamber Orchestra, the Samphire Voice Ensemble and an evening with Hexachordia. We took part in the Jubilee Celebrations with ‘Worship on the Green’, Westleton Open Gardens and organised the Wildflower Festival providing refreshments in the Village Hall for both events. We even featured in ‘Let’s Talk Magazine’. As always there is much to do to maintain this wonderful church, it is almost 700 years old and always demands some attention. In June with our architect, we carried out the five yearly, Quinquennial survey seeking to identify any problems; we are employing a drone to check some of the high up areas but otherwise there was nothing that we didn’t already know about, more about that later! The Loop Amplifier died of old age and was replaced, we installed Wifi and replaced the porch light. Chris Freeman encased the bell pull rope in a pipe to stop rain coming in over the organ, but an old pulley worked loose whilst we rang the bell for a whole hour prior to the late Queens funeral; it has been repositioned by Peter Bumpstead whilst he completes the refurbishment of our organ. A Lime Tree by the entrance fell down and two more need pollarding before they fall on our neighbours. Hopefully Nick Shearme has given the grass its final cut of the year and the Wildflower area has also been cut and raked by volunteers. There is now a plan and an index available in the church of burials in the graveyard and cremation memorials, following a survey that has been completed with the help of Trevor Davies. We are always grateful to all who arrange the flowers that brighten our church and who provide refreshments after our services and especially breakfast at croissants@church, we would welcome any new volunteers. Please continue to support your church, clergy and PCC in prayer. So what of the future? Tim our rector invited us all to meet and discuss future opportunities for the Benefice, we all had a chance to make our suggestions for the way forward. We too are always keen to hear of your ideas of how we can enhance our worship. As we said, there is much to do to maintain this wonderful church For over 18 months we have been concerned about the rot under the floor near the pulpit, there are other areas that need our attention to conform to the Disability Access Survey of 2017. With Tim Buxbaum our architect we put a plan together and invited the Diocese Advisory Committee, (DAC) to visit. They recommended that we request a Faculty giving us the Diocese’s Permission to undertake all of the work we might require so that the PCC could proceed if and when it was able and funds become available, one repair or project at a time. The application is for: Repair to floor near pulpit Cover north nave gutter to deflect rainwater from thatch Fit permanently the central platform with gradual ramps either end and recarpet the entire platform To remove/reduce the stone step at the main door and graduate the porch floor to suit To establish, and resurface the disabled parking area To provide additional parking bays To re-graduate and resurface the main access drive installing low post lights, cor-ten edging where necessary. Additional items, Installation of a drop-down screen and an overhead projector. It has taken over 9 months to finally get this permission. We now need to consider priorities such as repairing the floor near the pulpit, permanently fitting the central platform and covering the north nave gutter. We need to prayerfully discuss what other work we might commence, get costing and secure funding. We will advise everyone as we progress and ask that you pray for your PCC that we may have wisdom and God’s guidance in all we seek to do here in our church. Thank you For the alternative text see the first page of this update. For the alternative text see the first page of this update. For the alternative text see the first page of this update.

                    

 Westleton 100 Club

 

The 100 club is a joint venture between the Church and Village Hall. The proceeds are shared equally between them. To see the winners click on the link in the box at the top left of this page.