I guess if you’re going to a Harvest Festival Service in the City of London there can be few better than that of the Worshipful Company of Gardeners, who this year decked out All Hallows by the Tower in all manner of fruit and flower and invited other companies to join them - not just to enjoy the pumpkins and pippins and to proclaim “all is safely gathered in”, but for lunch and a lecture by Heatherwick Studio on the proposed Garden Bridge across the Thames at Temple.
For me, apart from the lusty, celebratory singing, the most memorable aspects of the service itself were the procession of the Gardeners which included a ceremonial ‘Spadebearer’ and the roof of the nave of All Hallows which is of moulded concrete, aping the medieval design that was destroyed in the blitz and looking like it had been poured in one go. Whether this is one of the earliest Post Modern projects in the world or the impact of post war rationing, I have yet to find out.
The Spadebearer literally carried a spade - albeit a silver one - in the procession into the church and got me thinking that the WCCA should have a T-Square Bearer - to processes with the Wardens into dinners and church services. I discussed this with Past Master Jaki Howes - who still has her own T Square - and she thought it an excellent idea; although in mahogany rather than silver.
As we walked from the church to Trinity House where we were to lunch, the Past Master and I took a slight diversion to view the magnificent installation of poppies in the moat around the Tower of London. This moving tribute to the fallen of the Great War was justly surrounded by huge crowds admiring the 888,246 ceramic blooms and paying their respects. If you haven’t yet seen this spectacle, make sure you do before it is removed on November 11.
Then onto Trinity House - designed by Samuel Wyatt and built in 1796 - for a very pleasant lunch in a room overlooking the Tower and decorated with some fine portraits of seafaring chaps. The presentation on the Bridge, for the gardeners on my table at least, contained rather too much design and engineering and not enough about the planting. It also went on so long that your correspondent had to leave for another engagement, which was annoying because I had hoped to add something to the Heatherwick history of the bridge. The designers who stand in for Thomas always fail to mention that the idea of a pedestrian bridge at this point in the river was John Gummer’s, when he was SoS for the Environment and advised by the architect Liam O’Connor. The concept of a garden bridge was dreamt up by French architect Antoine Grumbach who was the public’s winner in the Royal Academy’s Living Bridges competition in 1996. Credit where credit is due. I missed being able to stick up for the architects, but enjoyed the format of lunch and lecture, which perhaps the WCCA should emulate.
Peter Murray - Upper Warden
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