About us

A bunch of sinners who love the Lord Jesus

For pastoral enquiries please use [email protected] or [email protected]

For the wardens please use [email protected]

We have two churchwardens, Peter Sutton and Richard Heathcote.

From 1220 until 1960 we had our own vicar, then we shared a vicar, but the share was so small by 2015 that the whole system collapsed. You can see a list of them here. So all the ministry is now voluntary.

Simon Shouler is our resident priest or chaplain, holding the Bishop's general licence.

Mel Oldershaw is our licensed associate minister, also chaplain at Dove Cottage, Stathern, a branch of LOROS hospice. She is also our safeguarding person. We won't bore you with all the virtue-signalling verbiage about safeguarding here, but if you have any concerns do get in touch with her, as all should be and feel safe. 

Kate Kingston conducts all-age or family worship along with Peter.

All of us are involved in some kind of service. "I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord than dwell in the tents of ungodliness" - Ps 84:10. We have lots of doorkeepers, actual and metaphorical, who look out for their neighbours and keep the church serving the village.

St Remy or Remigius was born c.437. He so impressed the people of Rheims that they elected him bishop at the age of 21, though he was still a layman. He befriended, and on Christmas Eve 496 baptised, Clovis King of the Franks, as depicted in our church's west, along with 3,000 of the king’s host (not shown, the window's big but not that big), assisted by St Vedast and St Clotilda, Clovis's wife. Remigius died in 533 on January 13th, his proper feast day. 

When Rheims was invaded by Vikings in 882, Bishop Hincmar, his hagiographer, removed his remains to Epernay. On opening the coffin he found two small vials, the contents of which gave off an aromatic scent the likes of which nothing was known to those present, but were immediately connected with the Legend of the Moribund Pagan, in which Remigius, lacking the Oil of Catechumens to baptise a dying man, had prayed at an altar whither a dove from heaven (illustrated in his badge) promptly delivered an ampoule of oil.  Hincmar used his discovery to ensure that Rheims would be the place where all future French Kings were crowned, using one of the ampoules which he also supposed was used at the baptism of Clovis.  In 1049 the Pope had Remy's remains moved back again on October 1st, thus instituting the Feast of the Translation of St Remigius.

When Ivo built the first bit of our church in 1088, Remigius de Fecamp, who was the first Bishop of Lincoln and overlord of manors adjoining those of Ivo, had nearly completed his 20-year project of building a brand-new Norman cathedral, so Ivo chose to dedicate his church to St Remigius in his honour. 

The nearest other church dedicated to St Remigius is at Water Newton, on the Great North Road south of Peterborough. The others are in Norfolk: Hethersett, Dunston, Roydon and Testerton.