Members of the Present Committee

John Foulsham (Chairman) jcfoulsham@gmail.com 01483 202 594

Daphne Foulsham (Hon. Sec.) daphnefoulsham@gmail.com 01483 202 594

Monica Cassels (Hon.Treasurer) monicacassels@yahoo.co.uk 01483 202 962

Jackie Squance (Flowers) j.squance@sky.com 01483 561 597

Stephanie Harley (Flowers) stephanie.harley@btinternet.com 01483 229 045

Michael Baxter (Albury Estate) mbaxter@alburyestate.co.uk 01483 202 323

Rev. Andrew Pearson (Minister) rev.a.m.pearson@btinternet.com 07887 360061

Roy Hogben (Publications) royhogben@alburypark.com 01483 202 636

Theodora Viney timdoke.viney@gmail.com 01483 203 602

Friday 29 March: Good Friday ‘Quiet Reflection’ 2.00 p.m.

Sunday 31 March: The Albury ‘Bunny Run’, A Free Event from the Albury Get Together Girls. Easter Egg Hunt 12.00 Albury Park.

Wednesday 15 May: Friends A.G.M. 7.00pm. Enjoy a glass of wine and discuss the future of the church with our special guest Brian Clark of the CCT.

Saturday 18 May: ‘One Enchanted Evening’ Enjoy a free glass of wine, sit back, relax and listen to some beautiful music!

Sunday 23 June: Midsummer Service at 11.00 a.m. followed by wine and light refreshments.

Sunday 22 December: Candle-Lit Carol Service at 5.00 p.m. followed by

mulled wine and mince pies........Wrap up warm for a memorable evening!

Services and Events for 2013

A collection of famous arias, romantic and contemporary chamber music for singers, piano, harp and other instru-ments is being staged at the Saxon Church on Saturday 18 May. This spectacular event is being organised under the direction of Kim Collins who is drawing together some very talented local artistes who are all giving their services completely free of charge!

100% of the proceeds will be for the Friends of the Saxon Church to help towards funding specific maintenance projects.

‘One Enchanted Evening’ will feature Kim Collins and Emily Wenman, sopranos, with Nick Winford, tenor. They will sing their way through a varied programme from Puccini to Ivor Novello and Andrew Lloyd-Webber.

For further information phone: Stephanie Harley 01483 229 045 or

Kim Collins 07598 005155

Local Talent .... Alive and Well

Newsletter

The Friends of Albury Old Saxon

Church

Third Edition, Spring 2013

The Secretary’s Roundup!

Spring is just around the corner and, as I write, the snowdrops are putting on a beautiful show in the churchyard. They are spreading well and as the flowers fade we will divide some of the clumps and replant them elsewhere ensuring an even better show next year.

Last December, with the church already beautifully decorated for Christmas, people from far and wide attended the Memorial Service for Elizabeth, Duchess of Northumber-land. The Duchess loved The Old Church and regularly attended the mid-summer service so it was a fitting place for us to remember her. To the amazement of us all, the Independent newspaper voted our Candle-lit Carol Service to be the best in the country so we braced ourselves for a crowd and yes, you and many others filled the church. For many people this family Service is the beginning of their Christmas and the congregation gave a wonderfully generous collection of £729 which we passed to the CCT for the upkeep of all of their churches. Afterwards people gathered round the brazier in the churchyard for mulled wine and mince pies. We shall be holding our first Friends AGM in the church on Wednesday 15

th

May at 7.00pm and we do hope you will be able to join us. The church will have warmed up a bit by then! We have organised Brian Clark (Conservation Manager for the CCT), to tell us of the future work they have in mind for our church. Wine and light refreshments will be served.

Last autumn we received a very handsome donation of £450 from The Albury Produce Association that will purchase a bench seat for the church-yard. We thank them for their gift and we are already researching a suitable seat. The Albury ‘Get Together Girls’ of the Parish are organising a “Bunny Run” in Albury Park by kind permission of The Duke of Northumberland. This will take place at 12 noon on Easter Sunday with children finding tokens hidden in the park and then they will come to the church to receive their chocolate Easter Bunny.

Besides the Services there is always a welcome for all at the church and from Easter the church will be decorated with flowers and cleaned each week by our kind volunteers.

Daphne Foulsham (Hon. Secretary)

Have fun in the Park

and join in the

Easter ‘Bunny Run’Easter ‘Bunny Run’Easter ‘Bunny Run’Easter ‘Bunny Run’

Calling all children.....

ALBURY PARK

EASTER SUNDAY,

12 NOON

A Free Event from the ‘Albury Get Together Girls’

Tickets from Harry at the Post Office

Last autumn we received a very

Besides the Services there is always a

Potted History Home Grown Talent Albury’s Flower Arrangers

Why has Albury and its surrounds

always been renowned for its prolifera-tion of talented flower arrangers? This phenomenon started with the wonderful work displayed by Mavis Savage, Joy Richardson and three or four others sometime around the Seventies. They then passed on their knowledge and huge talents to their families and friends. Shirley Farrar (Mavis’s daughter) and Katia Demetriadi continued the legacy by holding workshops for novices in the nineties which paid dividends in spreading their ‘know how’.

Perhaps the main beneficiary of this amalgamated artistry is the Old Saxon Church. Each week from April to October one, of approximately twenty three village ladies, go to the Old Church to decorate the Altar and Chest with fresh flowers. They give of their time and flowers for free. Their enormous input is vital in keeping our beloved Church in the much loved condition that we so want our visitors to see. Huge thanks go to them.... and to Mavis, Joy and the others for starting the ball rolling all those years ago.

Jackie Squance

In the chancel of the Old Church, half hidden under the altar, lies the grave of Henry Wicks Esq.1580-1657. His finely carved tombstone describes him as “pius, just and very charitable, a true and real Christian”.

It seems that as a young man he joined the ‘Office of Works’ as a junior clerk during the reign of Elizabeth I and quickly rose through the ranks to become the Paymaster, under Indigo Jones during the reign of James I and would have been involved in the construction of many of London’s famous buildings like the Banqueting Hall, Whitehall and the Queens House, Greenwich. Apparently, when King Charles I was executed in 1649 at the end of the Civil War he owed “a great deal of money” to Henry Wicks who, by this time, was wealthy with properties in Chobham, Stanwell, St. Martins-in-the-Field and in Covent Garden where he probably lived. He retired to Shere and became a friend of the Rector of Albury, the mathematician, William Oughtred.

Researched by Miss Caroline Martin

Coat of Arms for Henry Wicks Esq. (Azure, a fess wavey between 3 towers, 2 and 1)