Two local organists have finally published a new volume which includes all 150 psalms after the original publication was destroyed in the fire at St John’s Church in Devizes in 2006.

Jon Riding and Nick Hale have spent the past three years putting together a new liturgical psalter, includes all 150 psalms using the translation found in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.

Mr Riding has been organist and choirmaster at St John the Baptist Church, for the last 11 years, and Nick Hale, until he retired in 2006, was organist and assistant director of music at Dauntsey’s School, West Lavington.

This week they saw the result of their efforts with the publication of The Wessex Psalter, which has a foreword by the Bishop of Salisbury, the Rt Rev Dr David Stancliffe.

Mr Riding said: “Much of the practice of singing psalms in parish churches has not inspired either choristers or congregations, mainly due to methods rooted in the formality of approach advocated in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

“If the psalms are set carefully to enhance the meaning of the words, many of these difficulties vanish.

“This was the motivation behind our original psalter, four years in the making, which was destroyed in the fire at St John’s in 2006.”

The Wessex Psalter is available from The Royal School of Church Music, www.rscm.com, priced £17.99.