Our campaign is now complete. 55 supporters helped us raise £9,780.00
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Wow!! What an extraordinary and generous response there has been!
Amazingly, our £9,000 target has already been reached, and we are only halfway through our fundraising campaign. THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone who has contributed, whether large amounts or small.
So what will we do with anything donated over our target?
The new Reliquary is just one part of our goal to develop St Mary & St Eanswythe Church Folkestone as a pilgrimage centre dedicated to Blessed Eanswythe. We plan to
- ensure our new heating system is completed to ensure pilgrims are warm
- install disabled toilets, a kitchen and an eating area to welcome pilgrims well
- create a heritage area telling the story of the church St Eanswythe founded
- install out-of-sight audio-visual equipment and comfortable cushions for events
The total cost of this is likely to be around £150,000, so we're delighted with such a wonderful start to our desire to honour our unique anglo-saxon saint, and her own dedication to God.
What happens now with the Reliquary?
Now we have to gain the legal permissions we need from our church authorities to install the new Reliquary. We have worked with them to get this far, so we're confident of their approval, but the legalities must be observed and that takes time. Once that's done the Reliquary will be built, and we will set a date for the translation of St Eanswythe's relics to their new home. My guess is that all will be ready by around Easter next year.
We will keep you informed as we go.
Once again, thank you all SO MUCH for your amazing support.
If you'd like to contribute to our Pilgrimage Centre, our Just Giving page will stay open until 12 October, and the daily posts will continue until then.
Best wishes,
Fr John
Revd Dr John Walker, St Mary & St Eanswythe, Folkestone
We're raising £9,000 to build a Reliquary fit for a Kentish Royal Saint.
The Reliquary, designed by artist Sophie Hacker, will house the remains of our Patron Saint and England's earliest verified saint in our beautiful, mediaeval church.
Please help us to give her the resting place she deserves!
“The whole story of Kentish Christianity, which is so important a part of the history of Anglo-Saxon England, is embodied in this young woman’s bones.” Eleanor Parker, ‘A Clerk of Oxford’
St Eanswythe is England's earliest saint. She was an Anglo-Saxon, Kentish Royal Saint and granddaughter of Ethelbert, the first English king to convert to Christianity under Augustine. She is believed to have founded one of the earliest monastic communities in England in AD 660 on the Bayle – the historic centre of Folkestone.
St Eanswythe's remains were first discovered by workmen in 1885 who were making improvements to the church. The bones were found in a badly damaged lead casket hidden inside a secret alcove. These were presumed to be the relics of Eanswythe, hidden by a brave gang of church wardens to avoid their destruction during the Reformation in the time of Henry VIII.
In 2020, a scientific investigation of the bones by a team of experts verified the remains as those of Eanswythe.
This means that the mediaeval church of St Mary and St Eanswythe in Folkestone is one of the few churches in England to hold the remains of their Patron Saint.
We held a competition to design her reliquary with the support of the Diocese of Canterbury.
The chosen design is by Sophie Hacker, a contemporary artist specialising in ecclesiastical commissions, and an advisor for A+C, the UK’s leading organisation in the field of visual art and religion.
Her design for St Eanswythe’s Reliquary took inspiration from an early Anglo-Saxon casket in the British Museum and draws upon the artistic traditions of 7th Century Kent.
“It has been a privilege to design St Eanswythe’s reliquary, to depict her miracles in a style drawing on Anglo-Saxon culture, and to aim for simplicity to express the beauty of her holiness.” Sophie Hacker
With the kind support of our congregation and our existing church funds, we have already managed to raise over £1,000 for this project.
£9,000 is the remainder of what we need to fund the full cost of building St Eanswythe's Reliquary.
If we reach our target, additional funds will go towards the wider Eanswythe Found project.
We are planning to raise £120,000 in total over the next 12 months so that we can create a new pilgrimage centre to tell the story of Eanswythe and welcome visitors from all over the world, utilising existing spaces within the church.
Email: sainteanswythe@gmail.com
Website: https://stmaryandsteanswythe.org/
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