Vol 4/4
May
1999

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Parish Profile
St Peter & St Paul, Chaldon

"Often at the end of a service we have a queue of walkers and tourists outside waiting to get in."... the Rev. Gillian Reeves, a member of the Caterham Team Ministry, and Vicar to the folk at St Peter and St Paul, Chaldon.

Chaldon is made up mainly of small to medium sized comfortable homes clustered along leafy Surrey lanes, two (three or four) car families, mostly commuters or retired people.

Life in Chaldon is obviously 'very pleasant'. It's a settled community with little movement and the price of housing ensures that you need a comfortable income to settle there. But it's a village without an obvious centre. There's no shop, no pub, no post office or village green - the usual focuses of village life! So, much of Chaldon life revolves around the Village Hall, the school and the church.

St Peter & St Paul is the only worship centre in the community. Originally Saxon, it was mentioned in the Domesday Book and is a mecca for tourists specially walkers who find it featured in most walking guides to the area.

It's not a large church! There were around 100 people there on the third Sunday in April for the Parade Service and Eucharist and all the box pews were full with the uniformed groups sitting on chairs along the sides. There's usually a good, small choir which provides excellent music throughout the year. But it happened that most of the members - and the organist -were with the BBC Symphony Chorus, in Leeds recording Balchazzar's Feast. So I finished up joining in with those left behind, sitting in the four-person pew alongside the organ at the back.

On the wall above us was Chaldon's 'main tourist attraction' a large and unusual medieval mural (photo below) depicting Judgement and the Ladder of Salvation, uncovered in Victorian times when SS Peter/Paul was being redecorated.

One of the benefits of Team Ministry was illustrated on that Sunday. Gillian Reeves was taking her post-Easter break, so the service was taken by the Team Rector, Fr Michael Hart, who although based at St Mary, Caterham, was obviously `at home' at Chaldon.

Gillian Reeves explained that, "After the Rev.Jolly retired 13 years ago, Chaldon was attached to Caterham, St Mary's. That had two effects, firstly they became used to having a variety of priests week by week and secondly they became very self-reliant, getting everything ready so that the services could start once the priest arrived usually straight from a service elsewhere."

Gillian came to Caterham in Summer 1996 as Senior Curate at St Mary's. When the Caterham Team was established she took responsibility for Chaldon, becoming Team Vicar for St Luke's, Whyteleafe with delegated responsibility for Chaldon in December last year.

She described Chaldon's worship style as 'Liberal Catholic' - Eucharist-based, with both 1662 BCP (mainly at 8am) and usually ASB Rite A at 11am.

"But it has a character of its own. It's a village church which reflects the traditions of the community. A lot of people call it a D-I-Y church because of the lay involvement, mainly stemming from its self-reliance of the recent past. The limitations of space and layout also influence our liturgy" she said.

There is no parsonage in Chaldon - a member of the congregation bought the Rectory when it was sold a few years back, and its Tudor predecessor is now a nursing home. Gillian lives in Whyteleafe in a new Vicarage alongside St Luke's Church.

But although it is a Team Ministry Gillian is increasingly identified by the Chaldon congregation as 'theirs' - "it's just like having our own Vicar again" one (older) member of the congregation told me.

But life in Chaldon Church isn't without its problems. As Gillian commented at the start - there are no toilets. And that is a bone of contention. The PCC would like to build on or alongside the church to provide toilets, a kitchen and even more important a church room where the Sunday School can meet, for example or to enable the Youth work, done on a Team basis, centred on Caterham to meet at Chaldon too.

There are 46 children on the Sunday School roll, 13 adult helpers and a number of teenage volunteers. At present they meet at the village school - a CofE infants school featured last month in The Bridge. But the school is nearly a mile from the church so there is no chance of the children (or the helpers) coming into church for part of the service - with the inherent danger of Sunday School feeling cut off with a separate existence and identity.

Cubs & Brownies ready for the parade service

The PCC has money to put towards the project - the proceeds from the sale of Rectory Cottage, which used to house Sunday School. Unfortunately you can see Chaldon Church from at least two local beauty spots and both English Heritage and District Council planners are adamant that any extension is 'verboten'. The churchyard is also virtually full and there is no spare land - so the PCC are trying to negotiate for land on a neighbouring property where they could build a detached church room, around 30 yards from the church door, for meetings and after-service teas.

There's no lack of support among the congregation for that idea. They already have a rota for keeping the church open every day for visitors and a Stewardship Campaign, last year, has brought many more volunteers to act as church guides.

The Stewardship Campaign was very successful, said Gillian Reeves "and we are very grateful to Wendy Robins for all she did." The campaign 'Pass it On' involved people from the wider village and a number of good things came from it. One was the use of the school for Sunday School. But other initiatives included an 'adopt a grave' scheme where different people - some not regular churchgoers - have taken on the care of graves in the churchyard.

Links to the school are very strong. Gillian or another Team member takes a weekly assembly there, for example. But then the school, which is only single form entry with a total roll of 90 infants, "may have closed if the previous Team Rector (now Canon) Colin Boswell hadn't fought hard to keep it open" said Gillian. Life isn't without it's problems in the village community either.

"We share the problem of many churches locally. Yes, it is a visibly prosperous and desirable area, but many younger families are having to work very hard to pay for living here" said Gillian.

"Practically all the PCC are working full-time as are many in the congregation - men and women. So they are very busy people and availability for the usual village church tasks - flower arranging, making cakes etc. - is very limited." "We have a high proportion of self-employed people and for them Sunday isn't for church - it's book-keeping day!"

Don't let anything I've written so far suggest that Chaldon parish is standing still or resting on its laurels. Far from it.

There are two Emmaus courses currently running, led by SPA Pat Johnson and the parish is currently preparing a for very active role in the Caterham Open Doors Mission taking place in July.

There will be a full programme at Chaldon including Mission Services, social events, renewal of marriage vows, a tea party for the elderly and a children's workshop. There's a quiz night at the school and the Team Evening Youth event will finish at Chaldon for an 11.30pm service.

I came away impressed with the sense of community and the obvious place that SS Peter and Paul has at the heart of that community and with the clear determination that the church will enter its second millennium opening its doors even wider to tourist and local resident alike.

SPA Pat Johnson pulls the cords of the Carilion, given to the church by a former churchwarden whose family owned the Whitechapel Bell Foundrey

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Further copies can be obtained from wendy.s.robins@southwark.anglican.org
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