BY unanimous decision, St Nicholas Church in Kittisford has been awarded the Patronal Festival of the Year Award by the trustees of the Choral Evensong Trust.

St Nicholas Church welcomed more than 150 people to their “wonderful” and “memorable” Patronal Festival on December 6 and 7, which saw bellringing, singing and more.

Dr Rupert Sheldrake, trustee of the Choral Evensong Trust, said: “St Nicholas Church Patronal Festival will be an inspiration to many other parishes in the coming year, particularly because of the high degree of community involvement".

Dr Sheldrake noted the church's inclusion of bell-ringing, a community choir, the integration of young people, a visiting music student choir and school choir, and the church festival featuring on local radio.

The weekend kicked off with a performance from the recently formed octet Bute Voices who performed a cappella to a full audience.

Bute Voices’ performance was recorded and streamed online by a local radio station.

On Sunday, the music director, Alexander Douglas, gave a two-hour workshop to 25 members of the community who came to learn the music which had been specially written for the choral evensong.

An additional grant had been made by the Diocese of Bath and Wells to create music for Psalm 68, Magnificat, Nunc Dimittis, the Lord’s Prayer and the responses.

A team of local bell ringers climbed the tower to ring the bells and herald the start of the choral evensong.

St Nicholas usually sees a congregation of about ten people on a good day, but on Sunday, December 7, there were 95 people in the church.

Annie Musgrove, churchwarden, said: “We were delighted to welcome lots of parents of the children in the choir, people from other churches in the Benefice, the Archdeacon of Taunton and people from the wider community who had never been to St Nicholas before.

“Over the weekend, we welcomed over 150 people to our little rural church and put Choral Evensong on the map. We don’t know all that will come out of this weekend but what we do know is that in 2026 Kittisford will be hosting choral evensong each month for the Benefice and above all that the community enjoyed coming together and we have made connections with people of all ages from 4 to 97 in our local area and beyond.”

The church was decorated for Christmas by the local community and the priest for St Nicholas Church Rev Andy Barton gave a warm welcome to all in attendance.

During the service, attendees were treated to ‘Psalm 68’ sung by the choir of Rockwell Green Primary School and the anthem, ‘Ubi Caritas’, sung by Bute Voices.

The music learnt during the workshop by Bute Voices and the community meant that the sounds of the evensong liturgy were sung with confidence as well as meaning.

During the address, children from the congregation went out to the church porch to see if St Nicholas had indeed left a treat in the shoes they had left there.

They were not disappointed, as St Nicholas had made a visit.