Patronal Festival Report - St Bartholomew's, Maresfield

St Bartholomew's Church, Maresfield
Patron Saint: St Bartholomew
Festival Date: 12 July 2026

St.Bartholomew’s Church and all who attended the Evensong basked in truly wonderful music – our poor old organ was brought back to life, care of Fr.Michael Maine’s skilful fingers.   The service was led by Revd.Julie Sear.
 
The whole community got involved and supported this special service.   

• The Conservation Group planted up the churchyard (my photos just don’t do it justice) the flower beds and pots are so colourful and being enjoyed by villagers and visitors.  
• The children at Bonners primary school in the village all made flowers for the event, which are wonderful and have been much admired, accompanied by white flowers arranged by the church flower team.  
• The History Society put together an interesting account of Maresfield, displayed by the WW1 morse code machine presented to the village by the Royal Signals who had a training camp in the village at the turn of the 20th century and returned later in the century.   

 
The final hymn in the Evensong, “For all the saints”, written by Ralph Vaughan Williams was a poignant reminder that he attended Maresfield camp in 1917.    We have a strong association with the Royal Signals – they send a Squadron to Maresfield every year for Remembrance weekend.    The church organises the entire weekend with a quiz on Saturday and then the serious march from the village Manor House (officers mess in WW1) to the church, about half a mile for the moving service.  The whole village comes out to welcome the Squadron.     This is a very important weekend in both the church and village calendar every year – I am already organising!
 
After the Evensong the village lunch group, church volunteers and myself served refreshments to all in the pretty churchyard in  beautiful sunshine, cooled slightly with a welcome breeze.

Finally, I am attaching the service sheet for the evening.     

I also hope we can repeat the event again next year – not on mens’ final day at Wimbledon next time!    We had 64 people and almost everyone stayed on for the refreshments (pimms and prosecco + nibbles).  

The Evensong was so well received by all who attended and I think word is spreading so I am hopeful that more will attend next time.

We are very grateful to the Patronal Trust for awarding us the grant which enabled this special service to go ahead and for us to invite Coro Nuovo to sing.