We are very proud of our Church School status and our links with St Eustachius Church in Tavistock and were pleased to welcome in our new Vicar in the spring of 2015. We hold six of our services in the church each year as well as have members of the church come in to school regularly to deliver worship including family worship and, from September 2015, Open the Book.
The Federation of St Peter’s and St Rumon’s Church of England Schools is connected to St Eustachius’ church, which is the Parish Church of Tavistock. The church was dedicated in 1318, and for many years worked alongside the Abbey of Our Lady and St Rumon, until the Abbey was dissolved in 1539.
Today, St Eustachius’ is a lively church with a friendly congregation. Lying at the heart of the town, it serves not only as a place of worship, but also as a venue for many concerts throughout the year, including the Tavistock Music Festival. There is also an annual Christmas Tree Festival, where the spectacle of 70 Christmas trees in the church draws a very large number of visitors every year. Sadly, the concerts are not possible at the moment, due to the Coronavirus restrictions, but we hope to hold a scaled down version of the Christmas Tree Festival. We also host regular special services for all of the local schools.
There is usually a thriving Messy Church held during term time, usually on the first Wednesday of the month, where children and parents are very welcome to come and take part in various fun activities. We end with a small worship gathering, and a meal. Again this has not been possible recently, but we are working on ways of bringing this back to the church, in some way, as soon as we can. We also usually host a ‘Vestry Group’ for children during the main 0945 service on a Sunday, which we hope to revive soon as well. In the mean time, we have been putting our Vestry Group and Messy Church activities on line, and you will see a link below to each of these.
Although the church had to be closed during lockdown, we are now open every Wednesday between 10am and 2pm for private prayer, and every Sunday for a 0945 service of Holy Communion.
We are delighted that Fiona Lang will be taking up an appointment as Children and Family Worker for St Eustachius’, as of 1st September, so you can expect to be seeing her visit the schools in due course. In addition to Fiona, you will see our Vicar Chris Hardwick and our new trainee Assistant Curate, Rosie Illingworth as frequent visitors to the schools, as well as other members of the Ministry Team – see the People link below.