He succeeds the Venerable Martin Gray who retired in January.

John Ashe (55) comes to the Diocese from Godalming in the Diocese of Guildford where he has served as Team Rector since 1993. He was ordained in 1979 after training at Ridley Hall, Cambridge. He has served in the Guildford Diocese since then, apart from a period of five years in the early eighties when he served in Cape Town in a church struggling to live out its calling in an apartheid society. Before ordination he worked as a metallurgist at Hadfields Steel in Sheffield, followed by a period as a Director of Witley Enterprises in Surrey - a scheme to help unemployed school leavers to find work.

John Ashe is married to Shelagh, a garden designer, and they have three adult daughters. When not working he enjoys carpentry and woodturning, gardening and running.

Canon Ashe said, “I am much looking forward to this new area of work in a lovely part of England.  The Diocese of Norwich is an exciting place to be I am grateful for the warm welcome I've received."

The Bishop of Norwich, the Rt Revd Graham James said, “I am delighted that we have a priest of such wide experience joining the senior staff team in Norwich and I’m sure that he will quickly win the confidence of both the clergy and lay people in the Diocese.”

ENDS