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Welcome to

St Edward the Confessor Brotherton & Byram

Parish Brochure

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The Parish of St Edward the Confessor Brotherton & Byram

Parish Brochure Section 1; Summary

The people of Brotherton and Byram are keen to welcome a new Priest in Charge to join us

in worship and mission in our two villages.

We are known for our friendly welcome, our hospitality and our involvement in the local

community.

Are you being called to join us?

We hope this Brochure will help to show you something of our church life;

Section 2; The priest we want

Section 3; About the Parish

Section 4; About the Church

The Church and its people

The Church and the Community

The Church and its buildings

The Church and its finances

Section 5; About the wider context

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The Parish of St Edward the Confessor Brotherton & Byram

Parish Brochure Section 2; The Priest we want We at St Edward’s have been praying for a Priest after God’s own heart and we are looking forward to welcoming you! You can be a woman or a man, just ordained priest or having had experience of leading a Parish. We are open to a family, married couple or a single person and we have a lovely modern vicarage in Ferrybridge. We look forward to you leading our worship. We like to listen to interesting sermons and hope that you will be happy to continue our tradition of middle of the road to highish. The Eucharist is our main service with vestments. We hope that you will encourage our church to grow in faith and in numbers and of course we would love to see more young people at our services. We hope that you will want to work in collaboration with the PCC and not be authoritarian; we would like a person who can be a friend to all while gently leading us in love to God. The village community is very important to us and we ask that bearing in mind you will be living in Ferrybridge that you try to be equally available to the folk in Brotherton and Byram and be seen in the community. Visiting the sick at home or in hospital and bringing sick communion is important to us and much appreciated. St Edward’s church is a keen member of Churches Together in Knottingley. We hope you will want to continue and encourage our strong ecumenical links. We appreciate that you will need our support too. We share the payment of your expenses with Ferrybridge and always meet our portion in full. We expect that you will take proper holidays, retreats and days off and we will respect these.

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The Parish of St Edward the Confessor Brotherton & Byram

Parish Brochure Section 3; About the Parish St Edward’s church serves the villages of Brotherton & Byram. Brotherton and Byram are in the Selby District of North Yorkshire and have a population of about two thousand.

The villages are separated by the old Great North Road. Byram largely is made up of a large council estate (many houses now privately owned) which was built on the land of the Byram Park just after the war. Byram Park was owned by the Ramsden Family from 1628 to 1922. St Edward’s Church is situated on Church Street Brotherton, which has a mixture of old and new houses. The parish is classed as deprived for purposes of the calculation of the Parish Share and has a mixed population of retired, employed and unemployed people and children. The overwhelming majority of the population are white British. There are various businesses in the villages including a Post Office with store, another general store, an Indian Restaurant in what was previously the Brotherton Fox public house and a fish and chip shop. There is also Manheim Car Auctions, caravan storage, a car repair & MOT garage, an Outlet shop, boarding kennels, a beautician, hair dresser, farms and a branch surgery of Ferrybridge Medical Centre. There is a social club and the Parish Hall situated in the centre of the two villages is well used by various groups. Our village primary school is Brotherton and Byram Community Primary Academy which has recently been placed at the top of the league table for best performing primary schools in the Selby District. Although it is not a church school, there are good links with St Edward’s church. The children mostly go on to Sherburn High School or to schools in nearby Pontefract.

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The Parish of St Edward the Confessor Brotherton & Byram

Parish Brochure Section 4; About the Church The Church and its people We are known as a very friendly and welcoming church with excellent bakers! We care for each other and celebrate the mile stones of life including birthdays often with cake after the Sunday service.

Our Church Wardens are Colin Dean and Maud Sheard and we are grateful for their conscientious care for the church and its people. We are thankful for the two clergy assisting us during the vacancy.

We have a PCC of 17 and in 2017 we met 7 times on a weekday evening and held 3 additional meetings after Sunday services.

We have 37 people on the electoral roll and our average Sunday attendance measured in October was also 37. The majority of the congregation is over 60 years of age and 20% live outside the parish. Our main act of worship is the Parish Eucharist at 9.15am on a Sunday – this allows the priest to go to take the Service at Ferrybridge at 10.45am. We have a said Eucharist on a Wednesday morning at 9.15am held in the Lady Chapel. Until mid-2017 we held a Family service on the second Sunday of the month at 10.45am and Ferrybridge moved their main service to 9.15am for that week, the PCC would be happy for the new Priest to reinstate this service once in post. We have various additional services in due season including Eucharist and ashing on Ash Wednesday, Stations of the Cross during Holy Week and Maundy Thursday Eucharist with washing of feet. In Advent we have a Crib service, Carol service and Christingle.

We observe the changing seasons of the Church’s year with our beautiful altar frontals and pulpit drops and we have a full set of vestments.

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We have a robed choir and a lovely, well maintained organ. We share our organist Claire with St Andrew’s Ferrybridge. There are three lay people licensed to assist with the chalice and we have the reserved sacrament. We do not use incense. We have a monthly Bible study group which meets weekly during Lent; lay led during the vacancy. We have some keen flower arrangers in the church family and have held flowers festivals in the recent past. The church is always beautifully decorated for Sundays, festivals, weddings and funerals.

On Mothering Sunday posies of daffodils are distributed to everyone in church This picture shows us in 2017 in the churchyard making up the bunches in the sunshine

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The Parish of St Edward the Confessor Brotherton & Byram

Parish Brochure Section 4; About the Church The Church and the community All our services are open to the whole community and St Edward’s is the only Church building in the village with the recent closure and sale of the URC chapel. An important community link is our Parish magazine edited by Graham Hames. It contains a Vicar’s letter and information about our Church Services and other Church events so promotes our faith in the villages. We are able to fund the magazine through advertising and give away 600 free copies a month and it is very widely read. Our Christmas services are well attended, especially the Christingle which is one where the church is full of children. We bring the church into the street by singing carols outside the Best One shop in Byram on a Saturday in December. We would love to have more baptisms and weddings in church; during 2017 we held 12 baptisms, 1 wedding and 12 funerals in St Edward’s Church and we visit and welcome the families when asked. Funerals often followed by burial in our much visited grave yard. On Remembrance Sunday the 9.15am Eucharist is followed by a service of Remembrance when many folk including the uniformed organizations join us in church at 10.45am and we process out to the war memorial where many more wait to hear the names on the cenotaph read out and join in the two minutes silence.

Our village primary school is Brotherton and Byram Community Primary Academy which has recently been placed at the top of the league table for best performing primary schools in the Selby District which although not a church school, has good links with St Edward’s church. Our previous Priest visited it once a term and the pupils use the Church building for educational visits and their Easter, Harvest festival and carol services.

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The school recently nominated the Church as its designated place of safety in case of evacuation of the school building and have a set of Church keys in case of emergency. Church members volunteer to hear reading in the classroom and each class decorates a Christmas tree for the Christmas tree festival in the second week of December.

We invite local business, our two parish councils of Brotherton and Byram and St Andrew’s church, the uniformed organizations and individuals to decorate trees of all shapes, sizes and materials which fill the side aisles of the church. We enjoy a festival concert and buffet supper on the Saturday evening and it is a real community affair.

The Parish hall situated in the middle of the two villages is a hub for the community and is much used. The Hall was built on Church land and the committee has many church members on it who report to the PCC. Many church events are held there including our Plant Sale and Big breakfast in May and our Summer Fete and Christmas Fair. The luncheon Club held on Tuesdays takes place in the hall and is organized by church members and attended by members and other villagers alike. It is a great

opportunity for the Parish Priest to be seen in the villages and get to know the villagers.

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The Pantomime by the Brotherton and Byram Entertainers and which runs for six nights during February half term in the Parish Hall is full of church people on stage, in the audience and running the front of house and is a must! The Beavers, Rainbows, Cubs, Scouts and Guides meet in the Hall. They have a stall at our fund raising events, contribute trees to the Christmas tree festival and always attend the Remembrance service.

Brotherton & Byram in bloom who work hard to beautiful our villages with floral displays and our parish councils include members of the Church supporting the local community. Charitable Giving Helping those in need is a demonstration of our Faith and we support home and overseas missions and charities. The popular Christingle service supports the Children’s Society in 2017 we sent £143.00. Under the inspiring encouragement of Mrs Edna Box we support the Leprosy Mission with a cake stall on World Leprosy Day in January and by donations and in 2017 we sent £420.00 to support Purulia Hospital in India. Our purchase from TLM Christmas catalogue in 2017 provided a goat. We support our local food bank at Knottingley by collecting food at the back of church throughout the year and especially by sending our Harvest gifts. We collect warm clothes for St George’s Crypt in Leeds who support homeless people and we have collections for the Disasters Emergency Committee as and when natural disasters strike. Pauline and John Bradley organize the collection of shoe boxes of Christmas gifts which they send via Samaritan’s Purse, Operation Christmas Child. Ecumenical links St Edward’s Church is a keen member of Churches Together in Knottingley. We have services in each other’s Churches on the Sunday afternoons of Lent and hold joint services in the various Churches on each day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity; these events are well supported by St Edward’s congregation and we are happy to provide refreshments when the services are held at St Edward’s. We support the Women’s World Day of Prayer and in December we join with members of other churches singing carols at Morrison’s supermarket in Knottingley which raises money for the Prince of Wales Hospice Pontefract and Knottingley Food Bank.

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The Parish of St Edward the Confessor Brotherton & Byram

Parish Brochure Section 4; About the Church The Church and its building We love our church building and it is well cared for. It has a long history as there is some evidence of an early Saxon church, some parts of the tower are of Norman design and certainly there was a church and priest here in the 12th century. Thomas de Brotherton is our most famous son. He became the first Earl of Norfolk and is recorded as being born in the Manor House here and his father Edward 1st came from fighting the Scots to take part in his baptism in the church in 1300.

Brotherton must have been involved in at least one crusade as we have the lid of a crusaders stone coffin in the North Porch. Cardinal Wolsey is reputed to have baptised and confirmed 500 souls on the Ferrybridge marshes as he journeyed to his castle at Cawood. During the Civil War Commonwealth forces camped in this area during the sieges of Pontefract Castle. The local aristocratic family the Ramsdens were involved in the sieges too and in the church the Ramsden Chapel with its many memorial plaques bears witness to the influence and

patronage of the church by the Ramsden family. Of historical significance was the arrival of a French Huguenot Charles Daubuz to be vicar of the parish in 1699. He had left France when the Protestants there were in grave danger following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He was a noted scholar writing theological commentaries and of late he has attracted the interest an

attention of the Huguenot Society. When he died three gold coins from Louis XIV were found in the wall of the vicarage. The church building was rebuilt and enlarged during the incumbency of the Revd John Dixon and a plaque in the sanctuary records that his funeral was the first service to take place in reopened building in 1813. Since then we have had a succession of clergy who have all brought their passions and prejudices their plans and hopes and mostly their love for God and us His people.

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Following our quinquennial survey in 2016 St Edward’s Church was put on English Heritages at risk register. After a successful application to the Heritage Lottery Fund we embarked in 2017 on the first phase of restoration of the church building; the church tower. Our last priest took the lead in the application process and this role has now been taken on by Frank Parkinson who keeps the treasurer and PCC up to date with the process. The tower has now been repaired and restored and the final tranche of the HLF money is on its way to us. Much to our delight the clock with its two black and gilded faces is now telling the correct time again. We have three volunteers who will keep it wound and working.

The second phase of the restoration project will be the repair of some stonework, gutters and part of the roof of the main body of the church. We hope to make progress with this in the next few months. So far the congregation together with the wider village community have been able to raise the required 10% of the project.

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The Parish of St Edward the Confessor Brotherton & Byram

Parish Brochure Section 4; About the Church The Church and its finances We are committed to paying our Parish Share. In 2016 we paid the request of £20,860.00 in full but were pleased when the Share for 2017 was the lower figure of £13,281.00. In 2018 we have been asked for £14,609.0 which we intend to pay in full. We do not have large reserves and have had to move money from our current account to our restoration account to support our restoration project while we wait for the HLF monies and the grant money in lieu of VAT to arrive. The fund raising for our contribution to the first phase of the church restoration has been successful with the hard work of the congregation and support of the village communities. We are hopeful that we can complete the second stage of the project given the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund. 70% of our regular giving to the church is gift aided and we also make use if the GASDS scheme to claim as much tax back as possible.

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The Parish of St Edward the Confessor Brotherton & Byram

Parish Brochure Section 5; The wider context

The benefices of St Edward’s Brotherton and Byram and St Andrew’s Ferrybridge are held in plurality. The presentation of the living is suspended for up to five years to allow for pastoral reorganization within the Pontefract deanery.

We already work closely with St Andrew’s Church Ferrybridge. As well as our Priest and our organist Claire we also share our weekly pew sheet which gives notices for the two churches as well as the collects and readings for the day. We join together for various services including the Maundy Thursday service and vigil, the Good Friday evening service and All Souls Day memorial service and these take place at the two churches alternating year by year. This year we held a joint nine lessons and carols service at St Edwards followed by refreshments. We also take it in turns to have the 11.30pm midnight

mass or one held at 9.30pm. We support the various social and fund raising activities of both churches and hold a joint BBQ in the vicarage garden in aid of the two churches. The Pontefract Deanery is in the Archdeaconry of Pontefract and Episcopal Area of Wakefield; one of five Episcopal Areas in the Diocese of Leeds. The Diocese of Leeds was formed in 2014 with the joining together of the former Dioceses of Wakefield, Bradford and Ripon and Leeds. The Diocese is committed to three core objectives of encouraging Confident Christians, Growing Churches and Changing Communities. We keep in touch with the wider Diocese by having two PCC members attend the Pontefract Deanery Synod and by receiving paper copies of the monthly Diocesan Newsletter. We are hoping to send parish representatives to the Diocesan Lay Conference in Harrogate in June 2018.