The Bishop of St Asaph is to license a new priest in Deeside Mission Area with pastoral responsibility for Broughton, Hawarden and Sealand in Flintshire.

The Rt Revd Gregory Cameron will visit St Deiniol’s Church in Hawarden on Sunday (6 September) to licence the Very Reverend Dr Sarah Rowland Jones LVO OBE as the new priest. Sarah Rowland Jones moves to Hawarden from west Wales, where she has been leading the cathedral community at St David’s since May 2018.

Sarah grew up in Welshpool and Shrewsbury where her mother and other family members still live. After reading mathematics at Cambridge University, Sarah joined the Diplomatic Service, and in the following 15 years had postings in the British Embassies in Jordan and Hungary. Sarah then trained for ministry and was ordained in 1999, serving as a curate in Wrexham.

Sarah said: “I’m delighted to be returning to my home diocese of St Asaph, and to be able to focus more fully on parish and pastoral ministry after more than eight years as Dean of St David’s. Everyone within and beyond the mission area has already made me so welcome, and it will be a joy to serve the people of God in Hawarden, Broughton and Sealand, and to renew a closer relationship with Gladstone’s Library which I’ve been visiting regularly since the 1990s.”

Sarah broadcasts regularly with BBC Radio Wales and elsewhere on both religious questions and current affairs, and she is a frequent contributor to Radio 4’s Prayer for the Day and Sunday Worship. She is also a published poet, and the proud owner of Cockerpoo Daisy and Cavapoo Eva.

Welcoming Sarah back to the Diocese of St Asaph, Bishop Gregory said: “Sarah brings a very distinguished career as a diplomat and in Christian ministry. We are delighted to welcome her to her new role in the Hawarden group of churches and wish her God’s blessing in all her ministry there.”

Sarah’s service of welcome takes place on Sunday 6 September at 3.30pm at St Deiniol’s Church in Hawarden. All are welcome.