St Lazarus Vigil

Members gathered at the church of St Margaret Lothbury in the City of London.

The interior of the church of St Margaret of Antioch in Lothbury, the street that runs along the north side of the Bank of England. 

There has been a church here since the 12th Century. In later centuries the parish was augmented by the incorporation of seven adjacent parishes, whose churches were lost through the Great Fire, the Second World War and the expansion of City institutions. The parish is now officially that of ‘St Margaret Lothbury and St Stephen Coleman with St Christopher-le-Stocks, St Bartholomew-by-the-Exchange, St Olave Old Jewry, St Martin Pomeroy, St Mildred Poultry and St Mary Colechurch.’

The original church was rebuilt in 1440 at the expense of Robert Large, that year’s Lord Mayor, but destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. The current church designed by Sir Christopher Wren was completed in 1692. The tower by Robert Hooke was finished in 1700.

Among the noteworthy furnishings made for St Margaret’s are the high altar reredos and the pulpit.  Of the subsequent additions to the church the most splendid is the choir screen, one of only two in a Wren church, erected originally in the Church of All Hallows the Great, Thames St. in 1683-84 and moved to St Margaret’s in 1894 when that church was demolished. The pulpit sounding board is also from All Hallows.

 The Chaplain General addressing Postulants - including this year new members, new Esquires and transfers from other Green Cross Organisations.

 H.R.H. Prince Charles-Philippe d'Orléans, Duc d'Anjou and Grand Master Emeritus of the Order with our own Grand Prior of Great Britain, H.E. the Much Honoured Baron of Fetternear, Martin Thacker.

Members gathering to process in.

 The Grand Chair on the Sanctuary gave me a rather serious air (for which read; po-faced!)

 The Chancellor addresses the Postulants on the similarities of the Order with Don Quixote dela Mancha! (Of which more at a later date if I can get the text.)

 And so to Dinner afterwards.

The snapshots will give the feel of a very jolly evening at the Mercer on Threadneedle Street.