News from the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem

His Grace Archbishop Bernard Longley, as Prior of the Midlands Section of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, presided over two services at Warwick on 12th and 13th July 2024, where about 100 members of the Order had gathered to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Order being re-formed in England and Wales in 1954. 

The service on Friday evening included Vespers and Benediction in St Mary Immaculate church and on Saturday the Archbishop concelebrated Mass with Bishops Peter Collins and Nicholas Hudson and seven other priests in the Collegiate Church of St Mary in Warwick. The Mass was attended by Canon Angus Aagaard, the newly appointed Rector of the Collegiate church, His Worship the Mayor of Warwick, Councillor Dave Skinner and the Master of the Lord Leycester Hospital, Dr Heidi Meyer. 

Following Mass, there was a celebration lunch at the Chesford Grange Hotel, hosted by His Excellency Michael Byrne, the Lieutenant of the Order in England and Wales at which the Order was pleased to entertain the above guests.

Although celebrating 70 years the Order’s connections with Warwick date back to the 12th century. Entrusted to Augustinian Canons of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, the first Priory outside the Holy City of Jerusalem was established at Warwick in 1109 by Henry de Newburgh, a Knight Crusader and first Earl of Warwick. The monastic buildings were completed in about 1119. The Prior became Superior of the Order in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The Priory was confiscated at the start of the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536 and over the centuries the Priory passed through the hands of different owners. The first was Thomas Hawkins, who acquired the buildings and the land in the reign of Edward V! (1547-1553). Hawkins dismantled most of the monastic buildings and, from the materials, built a house which he completed in 1556. Subsequent owners were Henry Wise, Royal Gardener to Queen Anne (1702-1714) and the Lloyd banking family (c. 1850).

In 1925, the shell of the house on the Priory site was bought by the Weddell family of the United States. Alexander Weddell was then US Consul-General to Mexico City (1924) and later, US Ambassador to Argentina (1933) and Spain (1939). The shell was dismantled and shipped to Richmond, Virginia and rebuilt there. It is now owned and occupied by the Virginia Historical Society. The original site in Warwick is now covered by The Warwickshire County Records Office.

The Order’s purpose today is to support the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem by prayer, pilgrimage to the Holy Land and financially.

Find out more about the Order

Photo Gallery by Con McHugh