Patronal Festival Grants 2026

These grants – made possible through you and the generosity of many patrons, including HM The King – support parish churches in celebrating their patronal festival (the feast day of the church’s patron saint, or the nearest Sunday) through a service of choral evensong as a central feature of the festival, followed by a reception.

In 2025 the Choral Evensong Trust funded 80 patronal festivals in Britain (you can find details here). We have witnessed swelling congregations and a joyous sense of local community. Reports from the churches themselves are online here, with descriptions of “a huge amount of local support”, “a rousing success” and a “glorious evening”.

What’s offered
We are once again offering a two-tier grant structure:
• Full Patronal Festival Grant (£500) for those parishes inviting a visiting choir to sing choral evensong, followed by a community reception, with ancillary activities such as bell ringing, flower displays, and local pilgrimage.
• Patronal Festivities Grant (£250): for parishes whose own choir will sing the evensong for a reception following the service and other celebrations.

Eligibility & Key Conditions
•    Churches must be part of the Anglican tradition and located in the UK.
• The grants are for parishes where patronal festivals and choral evensong are not already a regular tradition.
• Any parish that received a grant in 2025 is not eligible to re-apply in 2026. This ensures that new parishes are given priority, helping to revive the ancient tradition of patronal festivals.
•    The ideal time to schedule your patronal festival is the Sunday closest to the patron saint’s day (for churches dedicated to the Holy Trinity, this would be Trinity Sunday).  

Why give?
As one recent Church Times article on parish festivals observed: choral evensong “has the power to draw in far more people … and fits seamlessly with an evening reception”. The 2025 round of grants saw an overwhelming response: by the close date the Trust had received 87 applications, far exceeding initial expectations.

For many parishes the grant has provided a catalyst to revive or start a new tradition of music and community worship, linking the local congregation with wider cultural and spiritual engagement.