A board is a simple thing until the names go.
In Alcester Town Hall, two High Bailiffs boards had reached that point. The Court Leet is still a living office in the town: customs, ceremonies, a High Bailiff who stands for the place. The boards are the roll. Centuries of names, painted up, and then, slowly, not.
Many of those High Bailiffs were also members of Apollo Lodge No. 301, and of Alauna Lodge No. 6266. Civic Alcester and the local Lodges have been writing on the same wall for a long time.
The Province of Warwickshire put £3,000 into a proper restoration. Not a touch-up. Both boards, done professionally and completely, so the names can be read again.
They were unveiled on Saturday 19 September, at the town’s Heritage Open Day, by Henry Jocelyn Seymour, 9th Marquess of Hertford, and the current High Bailiff, Sharon Constable.
Michael Littler, Secretary of Apollo Lodge, spoke on the Lodge and its link with the boards. He had the minutes of Apollo’s first meeting with him, held on 26 February 1794. That is the right object to bring out when you are talking about names that nearly disappeared.
The Province also names David Henderson, Steward of the Manor and a member of Apollo, among those pictured with the boards.
This was not a Square Wheels meeting. We did not make the grant, and we will not pretend we stood in the Town Hall. It is still our Province, and it is the sort of work the Province is for.
A travelling lodge of vehicle people understands a roll of names. Chassis plates fade. Workshop stamps wear off. You either restore them while someone still knows who they were, or you lose the line.
The photographs are the Province’s, taken on the day. Provincial account by Andy Staker, Provincial Grand Charity Steward. We have only retold it.