Our Parish now Supports Azalea

Azalea means beautiful and dignified in ancient Greek and its mission is to empower and facilitate sustainable transformation in the lives of the men, women and neighbourhoods impacted by sex trafficking through several different projects. Sex trafficking is when an individual is coerced, forced, or manipulated into providing sexual access or services to a ‘punter’ often through threats of, or acts of, violence from a perpetrator.  So what work does Azalea do?

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St. George’s Clergy Reference

CLERGY REFERENCES (CHURCH FORMS) FOR APPLICATIONS TO ST GEORGE’S SCHOOL FOR ENTRY SEPTEMBER 2024.

In order that the parish may deal with requests for clergy references in an efficient manner, we ask that parents / guardians send the following documents by email to the parish office (office@parishofharpenden.org) by Monday 2 October 2023:


1. completed ‘Request for Clergy Reference Form’ (available at the back of church OR for download using the link below, OR from the parish office by email)
2. scanned colour copy of your child’s completed record of church attendance (‘passport’).

Read more: St. George’s Clergy Reference

Clergy reference requests will be processed by the parish office during weeks commencing 2 October and 9 October 2023 and may be collected from the parish office by parents/ guardians on Saturday 14 October 2023 between 10.00am and 12 noon.
Please contact the parish office by email at office@parishofharpenden.org or on telephone number 01582 765524 if you have any queries or any difficulties in sending documents by email.

Thanks from Arrata

Dear friends, the team at Aratta, and all those they support, in Chernihiv and Chernihiv Oblast in the North of Ukraine, would like to send you their most grateful and sincere thanks for your donations. We are currently distributing the aid, sent via Tony and Philip at British Humanitarian Aid, to those with the greatest needs; over 80 yrs, severely handicapped, displaced persons and those with damaged homes are all included. The queues are starting to form at 8am, though we only open at 10am. Many are desperate for help as there is little or no state support available.

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St. Mary’s History

A History of The Church of St Mary the Virgin
Kinsbourne Green, Harpenden, Hertfordshire

The story of St Mary’s is the story of a small country church and the way in which it has continued for the greater part of a century and a half to meet the needs of the community it serves.

The original early Victorian building, as the architectural style bears witness, still forms a large part of the present day Church. It was purpose built in 1869 as a combined church and school on a site given by the then Lord of the Manor of Annables, the Reverend William Smyth. A few years earlier in 1865, Canon Vaughan, the first Rector of Harpenden, had arranged for meetings and children’s classes to be held in the kitchen of Mrs Grips who lived in a house facing the Green. When the Church-cum-school was completed, the first school mistress was a Miss Freeman. A separate classroom for infants was added to the original building in 1892. When St Mary’s was rebuilt in 1968, this classroom was incorporated in the present Church Hall.

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