A popular, long-serving Burnham-On-Sea vicar is set to retire next month after almost two decades in the town, it has been announced.
Reverend Graham Witts, Vicar of St Andrew’s Church, will be taking his last service there on Sunday 11th September and will be retiring at the end of September.
Rev Witts became Vicar of St Andrew’s in Burnham-On-Sea in 2003 and has also served as a Governor at Burnham’s St Andrew’s Primary School, and as a trustee of the town’s Foodbank.
He also had the role of Mayor’s Chaplain on a number of occasions, and shared in the civic life of Burnham with various groups.
Fr. Graham will be retiring with his wife Mary and their two dogs to a small village on the Mendips where he says he will continue his love of painting and walking in the countryside.
He was ordained in Lincoln Cathedral in 1982, followed by a Curacy in rural Lincolnshire, a ministry in Grimsby, and served in a parish on the edge of Dartmoor before he took up a ministry at St Benedict’s Church in Glastonbury and then came to Burnham. In 2020, he was appointed a Prebendary of Wells Cathedral, allowing him a seat in the Prebendal stalls.
St Andrew’s Church is to start a vacancy process, during which a new priest will be selected through the Diocese of Bath & Wells.
The work of St Andrew’s will continue under the guidance of the Rev. Sharon Eldergill and Rev. Margaret Hayward, together with the Churchwardens and Church Council.
