"COMMANDERIES" BOOK LAUNCH - NEXT WEDNESDAY

The Grand Priory is thrilled to announce the publication of THE KNIGHTS HOSPITALLER IN GREAT BRITAIN IN 1540, written and illustrated by Michael Hodges, Chancellor of the British Association.

The launch will be held at St Wilfred’s Hall at the Brompton Oratory, SW7 2RP, on Wednesday 10th October, from 6.30 to 8pm. 

This volume is a wonderfully pictorial gazetteer of the Commanderies, churches, and other properties of the Order of Saint John in Britain in the centuries leading up to the Reformation. Each property is photographed in its present condition, and people will be truly amazed at how much survives dotted around the country, notwithstanding the dreadful devastation and plundering of religious houses under Henry VIII. The book is entertaining and colourful, as well as having a seriously academic underlying thesis.  This is the first ever published major collection of the Order's properties.

It is an invaluable work for members of our Order to learn more about an important subject upon which we have all been a little hazy (one cannot fully serve the future without learning of the past), and constitutes at the same time a very attractive and informative present for our friends. 

Michael Hodges is a well-known author of books on churches, including the recent "Parish Churches of Greater London : A Guide", and "The Urns and Sepulchres of Mortality – The Church Monuments of Wiltshire". He is also a fine photographer.

Please inform Caroline de la Force if you propose to attend the launch, by telephone on 020 7286 1414 or at basmom(AT)btconnect.com, substituting @ in the usual way.

Copies may be ordered by post, for those justly impatient or unable to come, by printing out and using the form below and sending a cheque, a suitably historical way of paying.