Our Story - CoB at So Beautiful and Strange and New

Church of Burn at So Beautiful and Strange and New

So Beautiful and Strange and New was ostensibly a poetic and artistic experience at the Bank of England, rooted in the work of The Wind in the Willows author Kenneth Grahame — and in particular the mystical Chapter 7, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Grahame joined the Bank in 1879, rising to a senior position by the turn of the twentieth century. He retired in 1908, the same year The Wind in the Willows was published.

However, within and around this reflection on Grahame’s work, the event’s curator — poet and Church of Burn supporter Thomas Sharp — created space for magical action, offering a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for forty-two magicians.

Several members of our Company, along with others closely associated with Church of Burn, were involved in the day’s activities. Among these was a pilgrimage from St Leonards in Shoreditch to the Bank of England, via the Monument to the Great Fire of London. The route followed the buried course of the River Walbrook until London Wall, before diverting to the Monument to make ritual.

There, joined by Pilgrims arriving from other starting points, a synchronous invocation of Total Burn was performed, during which £140 was destroyed by fire (details recorded in the Record of Burn). Following the Burn, Pilgrims visited the Temple of Mithras, where ritual offerings of coins were made some eighteen hundred years ago. Excavations at Coventina’s Well yielded over 13,000 coins, and visitors today have revived the practice by leaving coins on the reconstructed altar.

As evening fell, the event continued across both public and private spaces within the Bank of England. The public space featured works by Bryony Ella, Greg Humphries, Will of Margaret and Adam Cartwright, alongside a sirenesque musical performance by the improvisational choir Sorori. At 7pm precisely, all magicians gathered in a private room of the Bank to perform sigil magic, accompanied by a cut-up retelling of The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

The working was completed without interruption. Afterwards, we adjourned to the pub.

[ A poetic response by Rev Jonathan is available in The Vestry, ]