Jonathan to be new vicar of St Peters (From This is Hampshire)

Jonathan to be new vicar of St Peters

3:19pm Friday 12th March 2010 in

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Stockbridge Benefice has announced that its new priest-in-charge will be the Rev Jonathan Watkins.

He will be installed and licensed at a service at St Peter’s on April 21, starting at 7.30pm.

Mr Watkins succeeds Graham Trasler, who retired in January, 2009.

He said: “I feel privileged to have been offered this post, but I am also aware of the work we have to do as we plan towards the new Test Valley Benefice being established over the next couple of years,”

At present, the parish of Stockbridge includes four churches, St Peter’s and Old St Peter’s, together with St Mary’s at Longstock and St Nicholas’s at Leckford.

However, the church has decided that, in 2012, the parishes of Stockbridge and Somborne and Ashley will merge to form the Test Valley Benefice.

The change will coincide with the retirement of Somborne’s vicar, the Rev Rob Stapleton. The new benefice will part of the Winchester Deaner, previously Stockbridge came under Romsey.

Mr Watkins is the former chaplain of King Alfred’s College, Winchester, a post he held for nine years until 2008, seeing the college through to its university status.

He then took a self-funded sabbatical, during which he visited churches in Canada and the USA.

Since his return, Mr Watkins has been covering an interregnum at Winchester United Church.

Mr Watkins was born in the Midlands and spent his later teens in Cornwall.

He was ordained in 1992 and served as a curate in south London and Surrey.