A Whole Year of Celebration!

Keith Nurse writes in the latest edition of the Cornerstone:
The first Service at HTR took place on 18 June 1870, so this year is our 150th anniversary! Our plan was to have our main celebration on 20 June, the nearest Saturday to this, although it now seems likely that we will need to change this. The idea was to have a church morning together followed by lunch, and in the afternoon the Bishop of Southwark, Christopher Chessun, would join us for a Service of Thanksgiving followed by tea. We were also hoping to arrange other special events during 2020, which we will keep under review as the year unfolds.

The 28 August 1869 edition of the Surrey Comet reports on the laying of the Foundation Stone of our church on 26 August by Princess Mary Adelaide of Teck, a granddaughter of George III, grandmother of Edward VIII and George VI and great grandmother of Elizabeth II. The report explains that towards the end of 1868 “… a number of persons, feeling
the need of more Church accommodation in St John’s parish, owing to the great increase of population, consulted together and formed a committee for the purpose of promoting the building of a new district
Church, to be called the Church of the Holy Trinity.” The committee made its first appeal for subscriptions in November 1868, so it’s remarkable that the first Service took place little more than 18 months later!

The report describes in some detail the physical plans for the church and the funding needed, as well as the laying of the Foundation Stone, an event attended by some 2,000 people that ended in interesting fashion! – “The Princess had hardly left the place before several men – the attention
of the police and of the committee being temporarily diverted – commenced, in a very rough manner, pulling the festoons and wreaths to pieces, in order to secure the flowers of which they were partly composed. Probably it was done for the purpose of securing something, however frail, as mementos of the occasion, but it might have been done in a more becoming manner.”

Unfortunately the Coronavirus pandemic put a stop to the events that had been planned for the anniversary weekend. Rather than seeing this as a negative, Holy Trinity have decided that instead they will have a whole year of celebration, culminating in a big celebration on Trinity Sunday 2021. In that year Holy Trinity will not only have events but also some challenges the first of which challenges you to come up with 150 things to be thankful for over the next year.

Check back here for more events and challenges as they happen or click here to find out more.