St. Mary’s is a thriving church community, building new congregations, engaging with the wider world, and making a difference in our local community.  We now seek to build upon this growth, developing into our expanded parish boundaries, consolidating our new congregations, deepening emerging faith, and discerning the next stage in our journey.

The Church was built in 1938. The Church Hall is attached and was built in 1972. This has full kitchen facilities, a storeroom and youth room/Sunday school space.  The main hall can seat 120 people and there is a stage. We have several weeknight bookings and occasional private bookings. To enquire about booking the hall please visit the ‘Hall Bookings’ section on this website.

We have a said Holy Communion at 8.30am on Sundays, using Common Worship Order 1 in traditional language and Holy Communion at 10.00am on the 2nd and 4th Sundays, using Common Worship Order 1 – each with Sunday School. The 1st Sunday at 10.00am is Café Worship, and the 3rd Sunday at 10.00am is Morning Worship. Where there is a 5th Sunday, worship style may differ. Once a month we have a thriving Saturday Messy Church congregation.

In addition to an organ, we have a music group with piano, violin, bass guitar, and singers, which allows predominantly modern worship with occasional traditional hymns.

We have a thriving Toddler group which meets each Wednesday during school term time. It regularly has 70+ attendees (toddlers and minders) each week.

Messy Church has opened the doors to a new group of families and created an additional congregation.  Members of the existing church community run activities and support the emerging faith of those who come along. Recently we have seen cross over to café or other worship.

We hold a summer Holiday Club which attracts about 25 school age children and runs for 4 days during the main school summer break. This event closes on the Sunday with the children (and parents) coming to church, followed by a barbecue.  In addition, we have year 6 from our local school in church for ‘Why Easter?’ and ‘Why Christmas?’ events each year.

We recently restarted Beavers, Cubs and Scouts, who attend Remembrance services and take part in socials such as church fairs.

Since 2019 we have held summer and Christmas fairs.  These are great outreach and well attended by the local community.

Two quiz evenings are arranged each year to which other churches in the Deanery are invited.

There is a “Curry Club” who meet every other month at one or other of the local curry houses, or for Chinese.

In addition, we have recently started a Thursday drop-in and fellowship in church, and a monthly group that meets in the pub by the town pier.