Group being launched to help maintain ancient church
ST WYSTAN’S parish church, Repton, is setting up a Friends group of supporters to provide practical help and fundraising support for this special church building dating from around 675AD, the oldest Christian site in the Midlands.
Friends of Repton Parish Church has been set up as a registered charity to assist the congregation with the maintenance and improvement of its ancient parish church to secure it for future generations.
The church’s importance lies in Repton having been the main centre of the Anglo Saxon kingdom of Mercia. Its crypt, thought to date from the 8th century, was the burial place of the Mercian royal family. Wystan was a royal prince martyred and interred in the crypt in 849.
Archaeologist Professor Mark Horton, president of the friends group, described St Wystan’s as “a unique witness to the Christian conversion of Mercia, and its crypt is one of the most complete and atmospheric spaces to have survived from Anglo-Saxon England.”
The vicar, the Rev Martin Flowerdew, said: “I am really excited that a friends group is being launched. Friends groups give local people who might not otherwise be involved in their local church the chance to share in the care of a building they often greatly love.”
The Friends group is to be launched at an event live streamed from the church on Thursday, November 12 at 7.30pm.
For more details visit the website www.friendsofreptonparishchurch.