Thought for the Day-God Save our Gracious Church

King Charles III (b. 1948) by Peter Kuhfeld (b. 1952), Royal Collection Trust.

A meditation drawing on the imagery of Proverbs 8.1-17 and Revelation 21.22-22.4 and on the words of the first verse of the national anthem, offered during a lunchtime service of Holy Communion at St Olave Hart Street on Tuesday 8th September 2026. Following the service, at 1pm, a 62 gun salute was fired at The Tower of London, nearby.

Great Fire Anniversary Sermon-Stirring Up Old Coals

The Great Fire of London, depicted by an unknown painter (1675), as it would have appeared from a boat in the vicinity of Tower Wharf on the evening of Tuesday, 4 September 1666.

A sermon given at St Olave Hart Street on Sunday 6th September 2026 during a service of Holy Communion on Great Fire Anniversary Weekend. The service took place the day after our Faith & Fire Discovery Day, exploring the Great Fire through the lens of science and faith. The sermon is based on readings from Romans 13.8–end, Matthew 18.15–20 and the words of an Great Fire Anniversary Sermon preached at St Olave Hart Street on 2nd September 1682 by Reverend William Wray, the text of which can be read at this link. 

BOOK REVIEW- Lady Fanshawe’s Receipt Book: The Life and Times of a Civil War Heroine by Lucy Moore

It is a nice change to reada book about the record of a life of a woman connected to the church. Ann Fanshawe left a memoir and a ‘receipt book’ - not a record of things she has bought but a sort of recipe book, containing details of medicines as well as food and other tips on household management.

Ann was born in the parish of St Olave Hart Street in 1625 and spent her earliest years here. Her father, John Harrison, came from a modest background to occupy an important official position which involved engaging with the merchants, display rooms and warehouses that surrounded the church for most of its modern history and would have been well known in the parish.

In this book, Lucy Moore cross references both Ann’s memoir and her receipt book to tell the story of a woman raising a royalist family through the Civil War from exile to the Restoration.

BOOK REVIEW- Golden Lads: A Study of Anthony Bacon, Francis and their Friends by Daphne du Maurier

Daphne Du Maurier’s account of the lives of Anthony and Francis Bacon ends with a description of her visit to St Olave Hart Street in October 1973.

Like a passage from her novels and short stories it offers a romantic scene in which an organist suddenly starts to play the Tudor melody Greensleeves as she ponders the life of Anthony, whose burial at St Olave’s she had rediscovered in the parish records but whose final years are shrouded in mystery. Most of this book focuses on Anthony - the lesser known of the two brothers.

Sermon on the 75th Anniversary of the start of the restoration of St Olave Hart Street

A sermon given at St Olave Hart Street on Sunday 21st June 2026 during a service marking the seventy fifth anniversary of the start of the restoration of the church after World War II, based on readings from Ephesians 2:19-22 and John 2.19-22 and the words given by Bishop Arne Fjelbu and King Haakon VII at St Olave Hart Street in June 1951. More information and pictures of the service are at this link.

Thought for the Day-Seeing Salvation

Earthrise by William Anders, Apollo 8, NASA, 1968

A Thought for the Day given at a lunchtime service of Holy Communion at St Olave Hart Street on Tuesday 7th April 2026 based on John 20.11–18

Easter Vigil Sermon-The green blade riseth

The nave of St Olave Hart Street following bomb damage c1941

A sermon given during the Easter Vigil at St Olave Hart Street on Saturday 4th April 2026 based on the Vigil Texts of Genesis 1.1 – 2.4a, Exodus 14.10-end; 15.1a, Jeremiah 31.31-34 and the texts at Holy Communion Romans 6.3-11 and Matthew 28.1-10 and the astounding history of this church.

Thought for the Day-Marked by God's Mercy

Detail of East Window of St Olave Hart Street

A Thought for the Day given at a lunchtime service at St Olave Hart Street on Ash Wednesday 18th February 2026 at 12.30pm based on the texts of Joel 2.1-2, 12-17 & Matthew 6.1-6, 16-21

A Grace in honour of two trailblazing City women

Miss Sylvia Tutt, Master of the Worshipful Company of Secretaries and Administrators (1983/4)

A grace written for a lunch held by the Lady Masters Association at Trinity House, London on Thursday 12th October 2023 marking the fortieth anniversary of the first Lady Master of a Livery Company (Miss Sylvia Tutt) and the fortieth anniversary of the first female Lord Mayor of London (Dame Mary Donaldson). It was a great honour and privilege to be invited and to meet so many other trailblazing City women - and to hear from the second female Lord Mayor of London, Dame Fiona Woolf.

The Irreplaceable Human Being - Bonhoeffer in Lent

Bishop Martin Lind gives the Bank Churches Lent Lecture 2019  (Picture: Lutheran Church of Great Britain)

The 2019 Bank Churches Lent Lecture was delivered by Bishop Martin Lind, Bishop of the Lutheran Church in Great Britain and an expert in the life and work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), the Lutheran pastor and theologian who resisted the Nazis and was killed in 1945 at the age of 39 in a concentration camp.