Schoolchildren have played a role as a Dorchester Church prepares for the Christmas celebration

Youngsters from the Prince of Wales School have been busy helping decorate St Mary's Church on Edward Road and create a nativity scene in time for a carol service on Sunday, 17 December.

Church congregation member Jill Minchin is looking forward to the Christmas celebrations and said: "As it is a large church there is room for everyone, and this year we decided that we would like to make a more specific invitation to the community (young and old) to be part of our Christmas celebrations.

"A good way of doing this, apart from coming to our services, is to join in decorating the church for Christmas, and as the Nativity story is so well known and with such a large cast of characters, we invited the local community to make illustrations of elements of that story.

Decorations around the altar. Picture - Jill Minchin.

"This being our inaugural celebration we are delighted to have contributions from the Prince of Wales school, from some of the organisations who have connections to either the church or our hall, from groups and individuals within the church community and from a local artist, Emily Morgan.

"Next year we hope that there will be more contributions from our local community."

https://dorchester.nub.news/whats-on/religionworship/celebrate-the-nativity-62594

The display will be available for anyone to come and visit the church free of charge from Sunday, 17 December from 10am until 4pm daily.

St Mary's vicar Rev Jimmy Holden said: "We know that people in our community, especially our young people, are really creative, and are always making sense of the story of Jesus' birth in new ways.

"It's a privilege of being a parish church that you get to host and celebrate that creativity."