Joy Mowatt writes about a rare visit to an historic chapel as part of the year of celebration for the 90th anniversary of St Anne's, Chertsey.

Our year began with the installation of a 1st class relic - a letter written by St John Bosco to Fr Macey, the priest in charge at the time. This event was followed by a complete overhaul of our PA system, the Feeding the Hungry project, a murder mystery evening, and a Parish pilgrimage to Lourdes.

One of the other highlights so far has been celebrating mass in Lady Holland's Chapel. She was the niece of Charles James Fox, a Whig MP, who converted to Catholicism and had a chapel built in all of her properties here and in Italy. We were allowed access to the chapel in order to celebrate Mass and in the 2hrs prior to this, the public were given permission to view it. Lady Holland is buried in the chapel as her will stated that she was not to be placed underground.

On the day there were 19 of us, inside and out of the chapel, who took part in the Mass. We were blessed with good weather and could take advantage of the gardens as well as appreciate the beauty of this tiny place of worship.

Still to come this year are our Flower Festival at the end of June; a guided walk on the history of Chertsey; our Parish high tea, a talk on the Salesians in Chertsey and a Barn Dance.

The culmination of our celebrations will be a Parish Pilgrimage to Arundel Cathedral to see the Walsingham statue and celebrate Mass.

We look forward to having more to tell about these in the future!

Joy Mowatt