The Salisbury Plain Benefice Villages
We realise we’re not ‘all’ the villages on Salisbury Plain, but it is one of the things that unites us entirely, and that’s partly why we have our Benefice name.
These 4 villages have worked and served together for years, with many village families having branches across the whole parish, and family graves spread amongst our 8 churchyards. As church communities, the 4 villages have been cared for by the same clergy team, based in Shrewton, since 1997. In 2014 we became a single parish. In every day terms that means no huge change for the churches, but in terms of sharing expertise, planning and support, it’s made a huge difference. We can work together on projects which will benefit all 4 communities, while we still honour the unique traditions and history of each village.
If you want to know what is happening in one particular village, you can look on their pages on this site. But what have we got going on ‘in common’? Well at the moment we share a choir, a Lent course, children’s work in the schools, a monthly activity hour, and two annual walks – one during Holy Week and one for Rogation Sunday. We help one another to host our shared events and services- especially at Christmas and Easter- and we work together to support the wider community, for example in collecting equipment and clothing for Alabare, or in participating in recycling projects along with the schools. You might assume that 4 little villages settled in the same beautiful part of the world would be exactly the same. But you’d be wrong! Together as a parish, we celebrate both those things which unite us, and our very unique ‘flavours’. If you want to know more, why not come and visit?