Jeremy Wilding is due to take up the additional position of Hereford Diocesan Registrar in the summer of 2020. The Diocesan Registrar is the Bishop of Hereford’s legal adviser as well as registrar of the diocesan synod – the governing council of the diocese. The role also involves giving legal advice on any decisions or issues including works to churches and churchyards across the diocese. He will also be responsible for providing advice to parishes and church officers on the variety of legal matters which arise from time to time in parish life-supporting hundreds of churchwardens, clergy and PCC members about their various roles and duties.

Jeremy Wilding says: “I am delighted to have been chosen to take on the role of Hereford Diocesan Registrar with effect from August 2020. My connections with the Diocese of Hereford go back to my earliest days - I was christened in our cathedral and later I was a chorister in the cathedral choir. I have spent most of my life in our beautiful diocese.

I am very much looking forward to getting to know more people across the diocese and to forming new links and connections. In my role as Registrar, I will be the personal legal adviser to the Bishop as well as carrying out a number of important diocesan legal functions. There is so much good work which is being done right across the diocese, and I will be very glad to be a part of that.

I am also very grateful to Gabbs for allowing me to take on this new role. I do so with their full support and encouragement. My office is in the centre of Hereford – just a stone’s throw from the Cathedral and the Bishop’s Palace. We also have offices in Hay-on-Wye and Leominster. I am very pleased that two of my colleagues, Melanie Tree and Rachael Hughes, have agreed to act as Deputy Registrars, as and when required. Melanie has strong connections with the area around Eardisley and works in our Hay office, while Rachael, who is based in our Leominster office, is a farmer’s wife and lives in south Shropshire.”