CHRISTMAS has come early for one of south Hampshire's biggest Roman Catholic churches.

An anonymous person has given thousands of pounds in shares to the Waterside parish of St Bernard and St Michael.

The donation is currently worth £43,000 to church leaders who are in the middle of a fundraising campaign to pay for a £2 million "superchurch".

It would replace St Michael's at Hythe and St Bernard's at Holbury, near Fawley, which would be sold for housing developments.

The sale of the sites could bring in a sum approaching £900,000 and the donation of 10,000 shares has pushed the appeal very close to the halfway mark.

"It is so generous and has set a good example to us all," said parish priest Father Ray Lyons.

"Altogether, we now have between £800,000 and £900,000 towards the cost of building our new church, pastoral centre and presbytery. To some people, this may seem a lot of thousands of pounds, but to put it bluntly we are almost halfway there."

He added it was hoped that before Christmas there would be a drawing of a church where squares could be coloured in to show how much progress was being made towards the target.

The irrepressible priest has also appealed to people to consider backing the project.

In his latest newsletter to parishioners he refers to the £43,000 donation and says: "Obviously there are only a few parishioners who can be so generous but every little helps."

He has also referred to the generosity of parishioners who have bequeathed money to the church in their wills and added: "This is the traditional way in which most churches were built, so please consider your parish when making or renewing your will."

The church is looking at a number of sites for its planned new building.

The parish of St Bernard and St Michael has seen some amazingly successful fundraising schemes have resulted in hundreds of thousands of pounds for other churches.

St Andrew's Church at Dibden Purlieu was able to build a £600,000 church and community hall and St John's Church at Hythe now has a £350,000 community hall and centre.