New Boxford rector delighted to return to Suffolk after taking charge of Box River benefice
The new rector of the Box River benefice covering Boxford, Edwardstone, Groton, Little Waldingfield and Newton is delighted to be back on familiar turf.
The Rev Rob Parker-McGee has moved into The Rectory in Boxford with his wife Sarah and teenage children Jasmine and Thomas.
He was previously vicar of All Saints’ Church in Orpington, Kent, but he grew up near Newmarket and has studied and worked in Yorkshire, the West Midlands and Northamptonshire.
“It’s a real pleasure and delight to come back to a place that’s familiar because I grew up in the Fens just outside Newmarket,” he said.
“These beautiful rural villages have a rootedness in Christian history.
“We have been made very welcome by everyone we have met.”
He takes up the post left vacant by the Rev Judith Sweetman, who was priest-in-charge of the benefice for nearly eight years before her retirement last year to Norfolk with husband Rufus.
Mr Parker-McGee grew up half way between Newmarket and Ely on the border of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, where he lived for 29 years.
After studying science and sport studies at college, he worked for two years as a fitness instructor before joining an animal feed mill in Suffolk, where his father and grandfather worked, eventually becoming mill manager.
After the mill closed, he worked at a church outreach initiative before starting work at Anglia Ruskin University as a risk advisor, and it was here that he “began exploring my call to the priesthood”.
He moved to Mirfield, in West Yorkshire, to begin his training and was ordained in 2010, before joining the priesthood in 2011.
He will be officially instituted by the Bishop of Dunwich, the Right Rev Mike Harrison, and inducted as rector by the Archdeacon of Sudbury, David Jenkins, at a service in St Lawrence’s Church in Little Waldingfield on August 20 at 7.30pm.
He has a passion for sport and plays football, cricket, golf and racket sports, adding that he likes informality and prefers to be called Rob rather than Robert.
His children are already enrolled to attend Hadleigh High School and sixth form at Thomas Gainsborough School in Sudbury.
Sarah is in the process of applying for jobs in the area of HR, having worked in legal and accounting.
