DROITWICH residents can take a trip back in time to celebrate St Richard’s Day with a special re-enactment parade next Saturday (May 3).
The town’s Probus Club has organised an unmissable commemoration of the saint’s greatest moment – the day he saved the brine baths in 1248.
Residents should meet outside St Andrew’s Church, at either 11.15am or 1.30pm, to join one of the two special parades down to the Pit in Vines Park.
The congregation will be led by David Wornham and his horn fanfare will be followed by altar servers from the Sacred Heart Church, members of Probus, St Andrew’s Church Choir, Mayor Tom Noyes and Rev Peter Kerr as the Bishop of Chichester.
St Richard who was born and raised in Droitwich returned to his home town in 1248 after Spatans contacted him for his help. Droitwich’s future was in the balance, the Great Pit had failed, the brine springs had dried up and the town’s famous salt industry was in a dreadful state of decline.
St Richard took charge and led the townspeople to the well to clean it out before he gave his episcopal blessing which is when the brine began to flow again and the town was saved.
Keith Garvey, a member if the Probus Club, said: “The occasion should be most memorable – do come and enjoy the spectacle with us – we wait in anticipation.”
