Datchelor carols in the heart of London

Those of my regular blog readers will remember that some years ago I attended the 125th anniversary of my old school's old girls club in London. It was such a lavish occasion held at the Clothworker's Hall in London. If you missed that post this is the link

My wonderful old school sadly shut its doors forever in 1981 and every year since then there has been an annual carol service held at St. Olave's Church in London. This article is a lovely write up of my old school.  

Every year I have tried to make the service and every year something has come up or the weather has been awful (last year it snowed) but this year I was finally able to make it. I was originally going with my Mum and my BF Karen (both fellow Datchlelor old girls). Sadly both had to pull out but I was determined to go anyway so I set off on Sunday afternoon to make the journey to St.Olave's church.

This amazing medieval church is nestle between modern skyscrapers round the block from Tower Hill tube.

This road name had me giggling to myself.

How unassuming is the entrance to the church yard.....but how cool are those skulls! Charles Dickens described this as "The churchyard of St. Ghastly grim!"

I did study a bit of Latin but even my husband who has an excellent command of Latin struggled to translate this. Google came to the rescue and it means"For me to live is Christ, to die is gain". The date is 1658 when the church yard was rebuilt. Samuel Pepys walked though this gateway into the tiny churchyard, with his wife on his way to the Sunday service. It is an incredible hidden gem in London and the church is thought to date from 1056 however the original building was wooden. It was rebuilt in 1450 in stone and survived the great fire of London in 1666. 300 plague victims were buried here which is why the South entrance is below ground level. The church was severely damaged by bombing in the 2nd world war but enough survived to restore it to full glory in the 1950s. This is now a listed building. 

 Samuel Pepys and his wife are buried in the church. 

He even has a street named after him

This was the entrance I took to the church

a lovely Christmas tree greeted me in the porch

and then the glorious interior was revealed.

We sung some wonderful carols and yes us Datchelor girls do sing rather tunefully.

Sadly Moira got stuck in a traffic jam so wasn't able to lead the service but in true resourceful Datchelor spirit the organizers stepped in and lead a wonderful service.
The opening carol was one of my Datchelor favourites, "Hills of the North rejoice" and our voices lifted into the air of this medieval wonder of a church.
There were Christmas readings, prayers, Hosanna was sung by the Old girls' choir, a fun prize giving (I won a little prize for attending for the first time) and we finished the service with the rousing "O come all ye faithful".

It really was the most splendid way to spend the 2nd Sunday in advent afternoon. It brought back so many fond memories of my Christmas years at Mary Datchelor from 1972-1979. Memories of Dorcas Day (a charity day where we filled boxes for good causes), knitting squares for blankets, copying carols into our Christmas Carol books, decorating our form rooms (which usually involved lots of tinsel), having a "post box" in every form room to put our Christmas cards, singing such wonderful carols and the piece de resistance; Christmas dinner when the Boar's Head carol was sung during a procession through the dining room. Datchelor girls have very good singing voices!

After the service there was welcome tea and mince pies and lots of chat. I didn't see anyone there from my year but it was fun to exchange memories with several lovely old girls and old teachers I spoke to.

As I stepped out of the church to come home, the church yard looked even more beautiful to me in the crisp darkness.

As I made my way back to Tower Hill tube London was looking her usual stunning self.

 The Shard was lit up on the skyline.

Looking across to the Tower of London made me feel so proud to be a part of this wonderful city.

 There is just so much history here.

Even the tube entrance was warm and inviting on a crisp December evening.

So my card today just had to be one to remember such a joyful occasion.

The image is one of my old Nicecrane (sadly no longer trading) digis. I thought the joy die, carol sheet of O come all ye faithful and the deers (or harts as deer were known in medieval times and Hart Street is where St.Olave's is situated) were very appropriate. The red and green colour scheme reminds me of the trees inside the church.
This card is up for sale at Dotty's Teahouse, Carshalton High Street, SM5 2AE

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;

Card Mania 4/5 Christmas
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas anything goes
ABC Christmas 3/3 Y is for your favourite things mine just has to be the joy of Christmas.
Crafty Catz 2/3  anything goes
Moving along with the times 2/3 anything Christmas
Crimbo crackers 3/3 anything goes
Winter wonderland 3/3 anything goes
Alphabet challenge 1/3 s is for season's greetings
Time out 1/3 Joyful

I would like to thank the organizers for rekindling my Datchelor Christmas school memories again. I really hope to make the service again next year.

Thanks for stopping by today,

Billy my cat has managed to finish typing up his annual Christmas post which I know you all enjoy. He will be here tomorrow to share the mayhem of the annual arrival of the Christmas trees 😼

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x