St Giles Church, Wormshill

The Church

The church in Wormshill is mentioned in Domesday Book (1086AD) and the small window next to the porch (now containing a stained glass image of St Giles, the church’s patron saint) may date from the Anglo-Saxon period.  Other details (arches and windows) date from the twelfth century onwards.  The upper spandrels of the main East window contain some remarkably fine fourteenth-century stained glass depicting the Virgin Mary being crowned by an angel and facing Christ in a matching panel with  angels swinging censers in the outer flanking panels.

Services

The Family Service is an informal service which is designed to involve young children with action hymns and children’s activities.  Families from neighbouring villages often join us and coffee and cake is served at the end of the service so that everyone can meet each other (whilst the children play hide and seek around the church)

The other services all follow the Book of Common Prayer – in a world of change and upheaval it can be both reassuring and moving to follow the same beautiful words and prayers that our predecessors have used in the church for the last 350 years.

Matins is led by a member of the congregation and simply involves reading the service with perhaps one hymn at the end; there is no sermon and the service takes less than half an hour.

Holy Communion offers a chance for quiet prayer; taking communion at the altar rail and looking up at the thirteenth-century stained glass panels of the Coronation of the Virgin Mary, Christ, and two censer-swinging angels – as the early morning sun streams through – can be a moment of epiphany.

Evensong offers a chance for calm at the end of a busy weekend, with traditional hymns accompanied by our eighteenth-century organ.

Come and join us – everyone is welcome!

Bell Ringing

The tower has six bells, the oldest of which was cast in the mid 17th century. The bells are run for the family service and a practice is held month

Support

We rely on volunteers for cleaning the church, mowing and strimming the grass in the graveyard, arranging flowers, ringing the bells, and playing the organ and are always looking for more helpers so please do get in touch if you would like to help.

Keeping the church repaired and maintained depends on financial support (be it one-off donations, monthly or annual standing orders, or legacies in wills) from residents in the village and further afield, many of whom are not regular church-goers but appreciate the fact that the church has been central to the life of the village for at least 900 years and want that to continue in the years ahead.

Donations can be sent to the church’s treasurer, Mr Ian Phillips at Park Farm Farmhouse, Wormshill, near Sittingbourne.