Updates
The spire of St Mary’s church and the Christopher Jones memorial are now illuminated every evening from dusk until 11pm! So the key element of our original vision for the Rotherhithe Illuminated! legacy lighting project is actually in place at long last, celebrating Rotherhithe’s maritime heritage and reinforcing its identity for everyone to enjoy. The church spire is now visible at night from a very long distance away – everyone is amazed. It acts as a beautiful waymark from all directions, as well as along and across the river. My colleague at the HMS Belfast Association is so thrilled with the attached image which shows the spire, Tower Bridge and HMS Belfast that she has sent my text and the pic to the editor of the Association’s magazine, suggesting that he puts the image on the front cover of the next edition! We invited a small number of key supporters to join us in mid-April, and a representative of the US Embassy did the formal “switch-on” for us. It would not have been possible to go ahead with the illumination of the church and the memorial without the Embassy’s very generous $10K award, which referenced the fact that the Mayflower sailed from Rotherhithe in 1620, and the ship’s Master, Christopher Jones, is buried in the churchyard. Despite all the many unexpected obstacles and difficulties we have encountered along the way, it is truly heartwarming how impressed and delighted everyone is with the scale and the impact of what we have managed to achieve for Rotherhithe, after more than 6 long years. Thank you so much for your support and your enthusiasm for the Rotherhithe Illuminated! legacy lighting project! Clare and the Rotherhithe Illuminated! project team. [email protected]
We’re thrilled to share the exciting news that St Mary’s church spire+clock faces and the Christopher Jones memorial will be illuminated before Easter this year! After 6+ years and a huge number of Covid-related delays and other unexpected difficulties, the Diocese of Southwark and the US Embassy agreed to extend their respective deadlines, and our lighting designer kindly redesigned the original lighting plan at no cost to us. So a less expensive scheme now allows us to deliver this key element of the original Rotherhithe Illuminated! legacy lighting project. This historic church was always the centrepiece of the original project, as the illuminated spire will then be seen clearly at night from the river, from Tower Bridge and from London Bridge. As you know we were able to successfully deliver the illumination of another element of the scheme - the two figurines on the Old School House - in December 2021. The $10K grant from the US Embassy will cover the cost of the luminaires and other fittings. These have now been ordered but may not arrive before late March, so it’s not yet clear when the work to install the lighting at the church will begin. We hope that it will be possible to organise a celebration – including formal switch-on by the American Ambassador or one of her senior officials – soon after Easter. The long delays and negotiations have incurred unanticipated additional expenses. We therefore need to raise a further £5K to cover these unbudgeted costs, so we are hoping that some of our many enthusiastic supporters will be able to help us cover this shortfall. Contributions would be hugely welcome – as Tesco says, every little helps! I’m including the link to our JustGiving page below, as well as the details of the Rotherhithe Illuminated! bank account, in case you are able to help us. https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/rotherhithe-illuminated HSBC : What’s On Rotherhithe : 40-06-41 20254584 When we started work on this unique legacy lighting project in 2017 to celebrate Rotherhithe’s maritime heritage, we never dreamed that it would take us more than 6 long years to achieve our vision of illuminating the spire+clock faces of this beautiful and famous old church and the Christopher Jones memorial. So we are obviously overjoyed that from late spring this year, this aesthetic and subtle lighting of the church will enhance nighttime views of Rotherhithe for everyone to enjoy. Thank you so much for your support. Clare and the Rotherhithe Illuminated! project team. [email protected]
The switch-on took place on 13 December - St Lucy’s Day - which is celebrated as the Festival of Lights in Scandinavia. It’s meant to bring hope and light during the darkest time of the year, and we thought that it was a really appropriate day to do the switch-on of the illumination of these two lovely figurines. So these two very special Blue Coat figurines on the Old School House in the historic St Mary’s conservation area in Rotherhithe are now illuminated every evening from dusk until 11pm, for everyone to enjoy and admire. Come and take a look one evening if you are nearby! As you can imagine it is hugely exciting for us to actually have this standalone element of the overall Rotherhithe Illuminated! legacy lighting scheme installed at long last, after more than 5 years of planning, fundraising and many pandemic-associated obstacles. Now we are working flat out in the hope that we will be able to deliver Phase 2 of the Rotherhithe Illuminated! legacy lighting project - St Mary’s spire+clock faces and Master Christopher Jones’ memorial - before 5th March 2022, the 400th anniversary of Master Jones’ burial in the churchyard in 1622. We have approximately 40% pledged so far of the £36k needed to deliver this key element of the wider RI! project, and the spire and clock faces are of course regarded as the centrepiece of the scheme, as they can be seen clearly at night from the river, from Tower Bridge and from London Bridge. Renewed thanks to all our generous supporters for helping us get this far with the project, despite all the many unexpected setbacks along the way. Best wishes from us to you for the festive season and for a happy and healthy 2022. Clare and the Rotherhithe Illuminated! project team [email protected]
After a very long wait we finally have some exciting news! Now that the Licence Agreement with the Amicable Society, the owner of the Old School House, has been signed off we are in a position to go ahead and organise the formal switch-on of the illumination of the two Blue Coat figurines on the Old School House. This will take place in mid-December and invitations will be sent out to everyone who has generously supported this standalone element of the wider Rotherhithe Illuminated! legacy lighting scheme. It will be hugely exciting for us to actually have one element of the project installed at long last for everyone to enjoy every evening after dusk, after more than five years of planning, fundraising and many pandemic-associated obstacles. In the meantime we are making one final push over the next couple of months, in the hope that we will be in a position to install the lighting of the church spire + clock faces and the Christopher Jones memorial in time for the 400th commemoration of Christopher Jones’ burial, which falls on Saturday 5 March 2022. The US Embassy has kindly extended the date by which we are able to draw down their grant, and this obviously makes our ambition more achievable. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were able to organise a very special switch-on event on the actual date of the anniversary of Master Jones’ burial in St Mary’s churchyard in 1622??! THANK YOU to all our generous supporters for helping us get this far with the project, despite all the many unexpected setbacks along the way. Clare and the Rotherhithe Illuminated! project team [email protected]
Our separate "Rotherhithe Blue Coats Illuminated!" campaign to illuminate the two much-loved and recently-restored figurines on the Old School House hit its funding target 4 days before the 11 May deadline, thanks to some extremely generous individual local supporters. This means that we are now in a position to go ahead and plan next steps. Our aim is to deliver this standalone element of the wider "Rotherhithe Illuminated!" legacy lighting project by the end of this year if possible, in the hope that by delivering something tangible and joyful we will find it easier to raise the remainder of what is needed to fund the installation of the remainder of the wider project – at the very least the illumination of St Mary’s church spire+clocks and the Christopher Jones memorial. Watch this space! In the meantime huge thanks and sincere appreciation to all our supporters during these very difficult days we are all having to live through. Clare and the project team.
Our Rotherhithe Illuminated! legacy lighting project has been included as a Case Study in the Centre for London's "Seeing clearly : How lighting can make London a better city" report, which was launched last Wednesday 10 March. Please see the link below which we are sending to all our generous supporters. As noted in in the introduction, from the abandoned streets of early lockdown to the attentive contemplation of our neighbourhoods on our daily walks, we have experienced our common spaces in a different way during the pandemic. The step change in prioritising pedestrians across London – and the focus on safe outdoor socialising and eating - has led to much rethinking of the role and value of our public realm. As this report shows, the benefits for the environment, the wellbeing of Londoners, and the recovery of London’s businesses from the devastating COVID-19 pandemic, are waiting to be seized. https://1drv.ms/b/s!AmOJx2AefKGxiXmgoV5-Q1qITzmx?e=TlBayO To find our Case Study in the report, just scroll down to Section 3 of the Contents page – “Recommendations: what needs to change?”. Clicking on Page 37 will take you to ‘Site-specific ideas’, where you can read the Case Study text and see a couple of nice images taken during the lighting trials. It’s obviously very exciting for us that the Rotherhithe Illuminated! project is included in this very timely and thought-provoking report, as it will give us some welcome publicity which we will definitely need if we are going to be able to manage to deliver at least some elements of the overall project later on this year. Take care and stay well! Clare and the project team [email protected]
Life has changed dramatically for all of us since my last post on 1st March, and I hope you are keeping well and safe. This is an end-of-year update for you and all the other 250+ people who have so generously supported the Rotherhithe Illuminated! legacy lighting scheme. When the first lockdown was announced in March we realised that we had no option but to delay the plans to install and launch the project until next summer – 2021 - so that it is ‘ready to go’ in time to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the safe return of the Mayflower to Rotherhithe in early summer 1621. We are working with our colleagues at Thames Alive on that basis, in the hope that by the time of the proposed celebration - and in conjunction with the proposed flotilla/procession from Rotherhithe to the Palace of Westminster, probably in mid-June - the social distancing requirements will have been significantly eased and we can organise a joyful commemorative event for everyone to enjoy. Applications we had submitted to other funders are all on hold for the time being, as everyone is of course focussing on Covid-related priorities. However we learned in May that our funding application to the US Embassy had been successful. This was wonderful news to receive during lockdown! The Grants Committee was very impressed with our proposal and they are looking forward to working with us. In agreement with the Embassy we will be using their grant for the installation of the lighting which will illuminate the spire and clocks of St Mary’s church and the Christopher Jones memorial. Taking account of pandemic-related considerations, they have kindly given us a window of one year from 1st September 2020 to spend the funds they have awarded us. The feasibility study which we crowdfunded for in 2018 has continued to progress very slowly since March, despite the constraints of lockdown, and it is now complete. All the necessary listed building consents have been obtained, so we are all set to go ahead with the installation, funding permitting. We are looking at only installing specific elements of the scheme, as it is likely to prove difficult to raise the approximately £70K still needed to deliver the entire project. Finally, we have been urged by the GLA and Spacehive to pitch to the Mayor of London again for a small amount of funding via the Mayor’s new Make London programme, which aims to support communities to come together and create new and impactful projects that help their neighbourhoods recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. The criteria include improving public spaces, such as installing locally distinctive lighting, furniture, greening, or public art. They are encouraging projects which celebrate and strengthen the special character of an area, which make everyone in the community feel welcome and involved, and which are environmentally sustainable. We will find out by 15 March whether or not we have been successful. I will be in touch again when there is further news to report. In the meantime all good wishes to you for the festive season and for New Year 2021, and stay well! Clare and the project team [email protected]
