A huge thank you to the 111 humans and Miaow the cat who joined us for our final Choral Evensong of the year when we displayed Samuel Pepys Prayer Book amongst other treasures.
We were delighted to welcome Diana Cheal, Chief Executive of The Prayer Book Society and Bradley Smith Chairman of the Prayer Book Society as well as members of the PBS as well as the Pepys Club and organisations interested in lettering, calligraphy and bookbinding.
Thank you to Colin Spinks and the choir for the beautiful music – all selected from composers who lived during the time of Samuel Pepys, who is buried here with his wife Elizabeth and called it his “own church”.
Thank you all the team who helped to serve refreshments to all our guests afterwards, to all who read and led the prayers and to Churchwarden Penny for supervising the viewing of the Pepys Prayer Book.
As a result of a bequest from Mrs Pepys-Cockerell, the church came into possession of Samuel Pepys Prayer Book, which includes a metrical version of the Psalms dated 1680. The book was enriched with engravings and sacred pictures and rulings of red lines. The title page, illustrated by hand, is thought to be the work of Pepys’s friend Edward Cocker, the Writing Master. The embellished prayer book follows the example of Charles II. The book survived the near total destruction of the church during WW2 after being stored, along with other valuable documents, in the crypt of St Petroch’s Church, Exeter.
We were delighted that Bradley Smith was able to present Graham Mundy, Treasurer and Churchwarden, with a certificate of Corporate Membership to the Prayer Book Society. We have been grateful to the Edith Matthias Fund of the PBS for allowing us to purchase new Prayer Books for use at our services of Morning and Evening Prayer.
Please join us when Choral Evensong returns after our summer break on Tuesday 8th September 2026 at 5.30pm. Do check out our St Olave Lecture programme (at this link) to find out more about our monthly talks on Tuesday evenings after Compline or Evensong
