The Rev Edward Carter is exchanging the grandeur of Windsor Castle for a parish church in Didcot.

Fr Carter, 37, who is Dean's Vicar and Minor Canon at St George's, Windsor -- the Royal chapel within the castle precincts -- has been appointed priest-in-charge at St Peter's, Didcot.

He succeeds the Rev Nicholas Gandy who left last autumn to become Vicar of Brackley, Northants, and is expected to take up his appointment in May.

Fr Carter's wife, Sarah, is an antenatal teacher and they have two boys, John, 10, and Matthew, eight.

He said: "I see Didcot as a new and different challenge. Didcot is a young and growing town and I have a young family."

Fr is no stranger to Didcot, having spent several weeks at St Peter's in 1976 during his training.

He initially studied at Exeter University gaining an economics degree before embarking on a graduate enterprise programme at Bristol University, followed by five years as an entrepreneur and production executive in industry.

He trained for ordination at Ripon College, Cuddesdon, when he took a degree in theology at Oxford University and has since undertaken further studies in theological ethics.

Fr Carter was ordained deacon in the Diocese of Norwich in 1997 and priest a year later. He served as a curate in the St Matthew's, Thorpe Hamlet, a single church parish of 10,000 people in Norfolk with many similarities to St Peter's parish.

Having an interest church music through singing, he was attracted to St George's Chapel, Windsor, where his responsibilities include leading the daily choral worship.

As Dean's Vicar, his role is that of pastor to the chapel and the wider castle community where he has been involved in leading bible study groups, Advent and Lent groups, and ministering to the children and teenagers while editing the weekly community newsletter.

With his choral background, Fr Carter might have stayed in the world of cathedrals and cathedral music, but said he felt called to the life and work of a parish priest.

Commenting on his appointment, the Archdeacon of Berkshire, the Ven Norman Russell, said Fr Carter has an Anglo-Catholic background.

St Peter's was proud of its church choir, and the Ven Russell said: "Fr Carter is steeped in the choral and liturgical traditions of the church therefore well qualified to fulfil the desire of St Peter's parochial church council to have an incumbent who will value St Peter's own musical tradition and build on that."