| THEY KNOW how to lay on a great occasion at St George’s, Hanworth, in west London. The mass they organised when the Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Richard Chartres, came to consecrate two new altars lasted an hour and 45 minutes, with superb music and every possible Anglo-Catholic ceremony.
The congregation of 400, says the Priest-in-Charge, the Revd Paul Williamson, remained entranced throughout, including the younger members (although he had wisely suggested it was not an occasion for very small children).
An introduction to the service was addressed to each “most honoured guest”, explaining why both the new high altar and the antique Lady altar would be marked with five crosses representing the wounds of Jesus, and how the Bishop would anoint each one.
The music was Mozart’s Coronation Mass, sung in Latin, and after each separate consecration each altar was ceremonially dressed, and the Bishop placed the relic of St George (yes, a piece of bone from the Syrian saint in a gilded case, which had come via the Abbey at Solesmes) beneath the high altar.
Fr Williamson tells me that the Bishop was particularly pleased to use the same consecration prayer as was offered at the consecration of the new altar in St Paul’s Cathedral at its restoration after the Blitz. The reason for the new altars in St George’s is not so dramatic. The previous high altar was collapsing from woodworm, and is replaced by a marble one; the Lady chapel is new, having been formed from the north transept, previously used for storing junk. Its antique altar was found in a French barn and has cost £11,000 to be restored.
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