Church News & Events
SERVICES AT ST MARY'S CHURCH, CUSOP
Please do join us at one of our services which are always welcoming and friendly.
Sunday 17th September – Holy Communion at 11am
Sunday 24th September – Morning Worship at 11am
Sunday 1st October – Harvest and Thanksgiving Service at 2.30pm
For details of all church services please look under the "Services" tab on this website. Dates and times of services are also displayed on church notice boards and in "The Link" magazine.
Cusop Church is open all day, every day!
Do pop in and make a cup of tea or coffee and munch on a biscuit. Browse our Book Stall and wander around our beautiful church which has many fabulous historic features.
Launch Party!
Please do join us for the Launch Party of our new Information Boards on Monday 25th September at 4pm in Cusop Churchyard. There will be three boards – Fauna, Flora and History and all are especially designed for children as well as adults. This is a project that has been developing over several years and was unfortunately delayed by the pandemic. We have received some heritage lottery funding, donations from individuals, and from the “Friends of St Mary’s” towards the cost – our heartfelt thanks to them. Also a very big thank you to Keith Hodgetts and Caroline Hafner who were part of our small planning team. We travelled up to Shrewsbury to Shelley Signs who have produced the boards and we hope you like them!
We were so blessed to have Lizzie Harper on our doorstep! Lizzie is a highly talented botanical and wildlife artist and has produced the drawings for the Fauna and Flora Boards. Alison Alcock, whose artwork adorned “The Link” covers many years ago, has also very kindly offered her wonderful drawings for the History Board. We very much hope they will be joining us at the party.
Members of Hay Theatre Group will be presenting some poems and music and there will be refreshments afterwards. It promises to be a very special celebration and it’s free! Please come along and be part of this memorable event!
Harvest Festival and Thanksgiving Service – save the date!
This special service takes place on Sunday 1st October at 2.30pm in the churchyard if it’s fine or otherwise in church. We especially hope that all our volunteers will join us so we can thank them. Revd Sarah Brown, Dean of Hereford, will be our guest preacher and refreshments will be served after the service.
For queries about Cusop Church please contact : John Winter (01497-821039) or Cherry Keylock (01497-820394)
For queries about Cusop Churchyard please contact: Celia Cundale (01497-820396) or (07790-925616)
Caring for God’s Acre
We had an incredible day on 9th August when the sun shone after it had poured incessantly the previous day. Yet again, we had new volunteers! The turnout was fantastic with eleven adults and four youngsters – Seren, Gwen, Thomas and Jessie who reinstated the footpath from the vestry to the loo which now looks fabulous and they also tidied up graves. The long grass next to the vestry and the meadow areas at the back were cut with scythes Poldark style! Unwanted brambles and saplings were removed, the Bee and Butterfly Garden was given masses of TLC, and we gently dismantled the large wood pile ensuring that any wildlife was not rudely disturbed. So far this year, the stoats have not been spotted. A HUGE thank you to everyone who came and worked so hard!
We love new volunteers so if you would like to join our friendly group please contact Celia (celiacundale@aol.com : 07790- 925616) or just turn up at our next Taskforce Day!
Hereford Food Bank
Returning to school in September is always a challenging time with the cost of new shoes and school uniform. We know that finances are stretched in so many families in Hereford and villages in the surrounding areas. Please donate if you can.
Our collection points are Cusop Church and Cusop Village Hall by 11.30am on Wednesdays. Would you like to join our team of volunteers who collect items at various locations nearby and deliver them to Dorstone? Volunteers do this a maximum of once of a month so it’s not a huge commitment. If you would like to help, please contact Cathy: cathy@cathynelson.co.uk. Thank you for supporting Hereford Food Bank..
Please do visit our lovely church. It’s so uplifting to have a clean church with beautifully arranged flowers. A huge thank you to our wonderful cleaners and all who continue to provide and arrange flowers.
The bookstall is very popular and it's evident from the books disappearing and donations in the box that there’s now a steady flow of visitors. A big thank you to everyone who has donated books.
Bats in Churches Update
I have received a letter of thanks from “Bats in Churches” for taking part in their national survey. I have forwarded this to John Hanson and Paul and Jane Smith who greatly helped with this project.
Thank you, Francoise!
Francoise Verger, local artist, has completed a new wonderful arrangement about “Wasps, Bees, and Paper-Making" in the display cabinet at church. This has been greatly appreciated by visitors and our regular congregation.
Flower and Cleaning Rota
A rota has been sent out for 2023. A HUGE thank you to all our wonderful helpers who do such an amazing job! Our beautiful church always looks clean and welcoming and that’s all because of their hard work and commitment. We are truly grateful.
Plan of Graves in Churchyard
A new and updated plan of all the graves in the churchyard is now in the church for visitors who are searching for their relatives’ memorials. There is also an alphabetical list of all memorials for quick reference. Our thanks to John Wilks who produced the original version of this as previously, there was no accurate record. We’re also very grateful to Jane Weaver who has photographed every memorial individually.
All donations for churchyard maintenance gratefully received!
It costs Cusop PCC over £1000 a year to have the grass mowed in our churchyard. We don’t receive any grants towards this even though the whole community benefits from the wide open space in our beautiful churchyard which is incredibly popular with dog walkers, young families and people of all ages.
One sunny day, I met two ladies laying a tablecloth and sharing coffee and cake together in the open air. It’s thanks to our wonderful God’s Acre volunteers and the grass cutting regime that we can keep our costs down to £1,000 but it is still a lot of money. If you would like to make a donation towards the costs of maintaining our churchyard, please place it in the Donation Box inside the church by the main door or contact Celia Cundale, Churchwarden, or our Treasurer, Malcolm Darbyshire.
Any donation large or small will make a difference. Thank You!
Churchyard Flowers
As part of our Eco Church programme, we do not allow artificial flowers or oasis in the churchyard, “Fresh flowers are encouraged as the symbol of the gift of creation and the brevity of life. Artificial flowers, e.g. silk or plastic flowers, are inappropriate”. (Diocesan churchyard regulations) It’s wonderful how everyone has taken this on board and the PCC would like to sincerely thank you for this. Thank you for helping to keep our churchyard beautiful and for being kind to nature.
Apple Tree Project
The project has been admired by all who visit our churchyard. It’s wonderful that it’s become a real community effort and there are so many people to thank for giving up their time and offering their skills.
Thank you to all those who took wood chippings and made generous donations to the church. A special thank you to Julian Smith for removing a large, ivy- infested trunk and Andy Fryers and John Hanson for helping to transform the area into an attractive and comfortable home for the apple trees. The trees were carefully planted by ten masked volunteers supervised by Ainsleigh. A huge thank you to Ainsleigh and the Marches Apple Network for all their expertise and help with this fabulous project.
As always, our very grateful thanks to our loyal volunteers who excelled themselves with the planting and then continued working in the churchyard weeding and clearing unwanted brambles.
It has been a joy to see children hugging their trees and faces lit up with smiles on seeing the trees planted which have become beacons of hope for the future. Thank you again to all who have helped with this inspirational project.
Support and Care
If you would like to talk to someone, there are people who are there to listen. Life doesn’t always go to plan, for all kinds of reasons, such as illness, grief, change of circumstances, relational issues or loneliness. As a church community we are here to offer you support, a listening ear and prayer, whatever it is you’re going through. Our pastoral visiting team are good listeners and have all undergone safeguarding checks and training. If you would like to speak to one of our pastoral visiting team in confidence, please contact Revd Angie:
E mail: pastoralvisitors@gmail.com
Telephone: 01981 501032
Cusop Church is an Eco Church
“He saw all that he made and it was good”. God loved his creation and it’s our responsibility to care for it.
God loved his creation and it’s our responsibility to care for it. At Cusop Church, we’ve been guided by the wonderful charity , Caring for God’s Acre, and thanks to the hard work of local volunteers, we’ve been able to follow a conservation programme for over 15 years. This includes a grass cutting regime so we have meadow areas where wild flowers and grasses can flourish. The increasing diversity of plants that now grow encourages not just pollinators like bees but a whole range of species of insects and minibeasts.
We have bird and hedgehog boxes, a fabulous Bug Hotel and four enormous compost heaps! We know our churchyard is a haven for wildlife as we’ve found toads, slow worms and fascinating beetles on our taskforce days and we must protect these animals.
One autumnal morning, we went “hunting” in the churchyard and found thirty-five species of fungi. We love memorials made from natural local stone as it encourages different kinds of lichen that are so important for our ecosystem. A lichen survey revealed an incredible seventy-nine species of lichen in our churchyard with the oldest natural stone memorials “being home” to the rarest lichen. We’ve now signed up to Eco Church and that’s inspired us with new projects including planting eight apple trees which are all Herefordshire varieties.
If we added up the acreage of all churchyards it’s a massive amount of land. If at least some of this land is carefully managed to encourage wild native plants and animals that would increase biodiversity and make a significant difference to our environment.
Every single organism plays a role in our ecosystem from the tiny bee that pollinates the wild flowers to the huge ancient yew which provides a home and food for wildlife.
God wants us to protect the glory, beauty and diversity of his creation so please let’s do it!
Welcome Booklet
In conjunction with Cusop Village Hall and the Parish Council, Cusop Church has produced a Welcome Booklet and we have already started delivering this to new residents living at Bookers Edge. The booklet contains a wealth of useful information about amenities and activities in and around Cusop. If you want to view it, log onto www.cusop.net and you’ll find it on the Useful Links page under Home. Our thanks to Alison Matthews for setting up this link on the village website. If you know anyone who would like to have a printed copy of "The Welcome Booklet", please contact Celia Cundale (01497-820396).
