Concerts at The Parish Church of St Mary & St Eanswythe

Hon. President: Rev. Christopher Johnson

Hon. Patron: Mark Simpson

Chairman: Ian Gordon

Concert Secretary: Prof. Grenville Hancox

Bayle Music

St Mary and St Eanswythe Church will be open 11.00am to 1.00pm, Wednesday to Saturday.

Everyone is welcome to visit this significant historic church.

Finding Eanswythe: The life and afterlife of an Anglo-Saxon saint https://findingeanswythe.uk/

The Bayle, Folkestone, Kent CT20 1SW United Kingdom

A warm welcome awaits you in the beautiful space that is St Eanswythe’s Church, The Bayle, Folkestone CT201SW (consecrated 1138) Its magnificent acoustic together with the tranquil surrounds of the church, is very special, as so too are the artists appearing in this series. An exciting partnership is launched in this series between Bayle Music with Folkestone Early Music and Folkestone New Music offering performance of compositions from the seventeenth to twenty first centuries.

Welcome to Bayle Music!

Links to Friends of St Eanswythe webpages

https://friendsofstmaryandsteanswythe.org.uk

https://www.thefriendsworkshop.org.uk

https://www.facebook.com/sainteanswythe

 

Concerts in St Leonard's Church, Hythe Concerts in Holy Trinity Church, Sandgate Road, Folkestone

How to find St Mary and St Eanswythe's Church

St Mary and St Eanswythe's Church, Folkestone

Christian worship has been offered on or near this site since 630 AD when Eadbald, King of Kent, built a convent and church for his daughter Eanswythe - believed to be the first religious house with an abbess in the country. His father, King Ethelbert, had welcomed St Augustine and his monks in 597.  Eanswythe died in about 640 AD and was made a saint soon after. Her relics became a focus of pilgrimage and in 1138 were brought into the present church (the fourth to occupy this site) on 12 September - the date we still keep as our Patronal Festival.
 
In the 11th century the Priory was established but was suppressed like almost all the others, by Henry VIII in 1534 and the church entered a long period of neglect and decline.
 
Canon Matthew Woodward, vicar from 1851 to 1898, transformed it into the beautiful church you see today, with stained glass, murals and mosaics of the highest quality.

The Parish Church of St Mary & St Eanswythe

Friends of St. Mary and St. Eanswythe

  St Eanswythe's relics were re-discovered in 1885 during work in the Chancel and are now preserved in a niche behind a brass grill in the north wall of Sanctuary of the High Altar, close by Woodward's memorial brass plate. They provide an inspiring link with the far-off days of Pope Gregory and St Augustine and the return of Christianity to Britain 150 years after the Roman occupation ended.

On 6 March in the presence of the Rt Rev Rose Hudson-Wilkin, Bishop of Dover, Rev. Darren Miller Archdeacon of Ashford, Rev Dr John Walker, parish priest, the Mayor of Folkestone and a packed church Dr Andrew Richardson of the Canterbury Archaeological Trust announced that the detailed investigation of the relics carried out in January 2020 proved conclusively that they were the relics of St Eanswythe herself.

More Photographs of St Mary and St Eanswythe

Rachel Podger

Salome Quartet

Caritas Chamber Choir

Sacconi Quartet

Antara

Canterbury Music Club

Halstead Music