A CHURCH musician has been honoured for her outstanding contribution to music in worship.

Anne Harrison, from Durham, was presented with The Thomas Cranmer Award for Worship by Archbishop of Canterbury the Most Reverent Justin Welby in a ceremony at Lambeth Palace.

A regular worshipper at St Nicholas’ Church in the city and also at Durham Cathedral, the Oxford University graduate moved to Durham in the mid-90s to become music co-ordinator at St John’s College.

The music tutor was editor of the Royal School of Church Music’s publication Sunday by Sunday, is a committee member of the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland and sat on several bodies dedicated to refreshing worship through hymns and songs.

She said: “It was quite extraordinary, I felt overwhelmingly humbled really especially when others in the room were far better known and widely accomplished than I - but it was a real affirmation of the work that I have done and the borders I have tried to cross between different types of music.”