Concerts at The Parish Church of St Mary & St Eanswythe

Music on a Saturday Afternoon presented by

Chairman: Ian Gordon

Concert Secretary: Prof. Grenville Hancox

Bayle Music

Our Sunday Eucharist will be broadcast on our Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/sainteanswythe

and on our YouTube page at ‘St Eanswythe’ For links to these sites and further information please see our church website https://stmaryandsteanswythe.org/

St Mary and St Eanswythe Church will be open to visitors and for silent prayer 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!

Sounds Folkestone Website
Bayle Music Kindly Sponsored by
   
Chistina and Norman Brisk

A Certificate from Out of the Blue!

As many of you will know by now, Grenville Hancox and Ian Gordon were nominated for the 2024 Folkestone Town Mayor's Community Award in acknowledgement of their ongoing contribution in bringing international musicians to Folkestone through the Bayle Music series of concerts. The awards were presented by the Town Mayor, Belinda Walker, on 14 March. Notification came out of the blue as a great surprise. That the concerts have been such a success and so much part of Folkestone's musical life is gratifying BUT they would not have succeeded without the support of our church offering to house them when the use of the Metropole ended; the loyal team of helpers from the church currently Marilyn Edey, Jenny Coleman, Carol McBeath, Dorothy Douse and Angela Conyers who has also taken responsibility for the finances AND the audience, without whom there would be no concerts at all! So, many thanks to all our performers and supporters and to Grenville, whose sterling efforts in engaging a series of wonderful performers, really makes Bayle Music the force it is in presenting live music month by month here in Folkestone.

 

Bayle Music 2024

Holy Trinity Church

Saturday 9th November 7.30

Folkestone Symphony

Programme

Liszt              Les Préludes

Bax                Phantasy for Viola & Orchestra    Soloist: Robin Ashwell

·Berlioz         Symphonie Fantastique

BAYLE MUSIC
AT THE GRAND
SEPTEMBER 2024 – APRIL 2025

Saturdays at 3 pm unless otherwise noted

Please note admission rises to £15 per concert with effect from September 2024.  Admission remains FREE  for children and students.

16 November

Sacconi Quartet

Folkestone New Music

Tippett Festival Weekend

St Eanswythe's Church

Saturday 23 November 7.30pm

Folkestone New Music

New London Chamber Choir

Carols commissioned by Kings College Cambridge.
Admission £15 at the door

21 December

Part 1 - Alex Rider (harp) solos
Part 2 - Britten Ceremony of Carols with Grand Mansions Chorale

18 January 2025
Please note later starting time of 5 pm

London Bridge Trio
Ben Hancox,
violin, Cara Berridge, cello, Daniel Tong, piano

 

 

22 February
William Walton ‘Façade’
Matthew Rose (bass) Linda Hirst (mezzo soprano)
Grand Mansions Collective


15 March

Kyan Quartet
Naomi Warburton and Sydney Grace violins

Wanshu Qiu viola and

Simon Guémy cello

26 April

James Gilchrist (tenor) Anna Tilbrook (piano)

 

All enquiries for Bayle Music

07723 767 624

Tickets for Bayle Music Concerts are £15 unless otherwise stated.

Advance online bookings for all Bayle Music events can be made here:

https://www.soundsfolkestone.co.uk/initiatives/bayle-music/

To be included in our email information list, please contact bayleman@gmail.com

 

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.

St Eanswythe

The Parish Church of St Mary & 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.

St Eanswythe

Crowthers of Canterbury (Wind Instruments)
 

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