A few more thoughts in retrospect, while it is still reasonably fresh in my mind. The politicians were all in the transepts so were effectively invisible to the bulk of the congregation. The nave was filled not with the political establishment, but by-and-large, representatives of national and community groups, including those, like the Prince’s Trust, which operate under the crown: so, deliberately apolitical. I thought this was interesting: the idea of the crown binding the nation together through public service and community action, outside the remit of national and local government. Not sure where this leads us, except perhaps to demonstrate how divisive recent politics has been, as demonstrated by the procession of former prime ministers exiting the Abbey right at the end.

My impressions being there are probably no different from those who saw it on television: particularly the full glory of the English musical tradition, beginning with John Eliot Gardiner conducting the Monteverdi Choir, and including a great number of pieces composed for the occasion. Purcell, of course, and Handel; Vaughan Williams; ending, slightly oddly, with a fanfare by Richard Strauss. I thought Rishi Sunak read particularly well. It was a mixture of ecumenism and the Anglican post-Reformation tradition at full throttle. A pretty impressive piece of organisation by, I presume, a mixture of the Lord Chamberlain and DCMS. Faultless, apart from the cold.

The Order of Service is a very beautiful piece of classic English typography, but no designer is given. I’m told that it is just the standard form used by the Abbey’s printer, Barnard & Westwood. They deserve a medal.

Well, I made it through security, a bit like Gatwick except that people were wearing morning dress, suits or national costume – a lot of the latter. Big Ben struck eight o’clock as I entered Westminster Abbey. A lot of military, and people from all over the country, as well as New Zealand. Good. You may not get any further posts.

It is quite a long time since I have been to 18, Folgate Street, Dennis Severs’s magical, make-believe house, which re-invents the eighteenth-century interior with much more theatrical invention than any National Trust house – intelligently creative and atmospheric:-

Many years ago – it was on 5 December 1991 – we went to an exhibition in a studio in Gun Street in Spitalfields:-

We were very impressed by the work of a young potter called Simon Pettet who did work in a style which was a free interpretation of Delftware with touches of humour as well as vivid observation. We bought a mug which we gave to the people we were having dinner with that evening.

Now Pettet, who died two years later, is having an exhibition of his ceramics at Dennis Severs’s house in Folgate Street, where he lived for ten years. The ceramics are part of the mise-en-scène:-

I have kindly been asked to do a version of my talk on the Castle Howard mausoleum at the Warburg Institute on June 1st (Director’s Seminar – ‘The Castle Howard Mausoleum Revisited’ | The Warburg Institute (sas.ac.uk)). For those who heard my lecture to the Monuments and Mausolea Trust, this will be a slightly different version, focussing more on Vanbrugh than Hawksmoor. Do please come if you can.

I recently went to the excellent small display at the Paul Mellon Centre about Gavin Stamp, who was one of the people who taught me at Cambridge.  I wrote about him for my monthly column in The Critic and very much look forward to his magnum opus due for posthumous publication.

The exhibition closes on Friday !

https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/may-2023/stamp-collection/

We travelled to Cardiff to see objects which Romilly is showing in an exhibition titled Uncommon Beauty. They are indeed. Recent work, some of which was shown in her exhibition at Make Hauser & Worth in 2020:-