| Where: | London, on London Bridge |
| When: | Sunday after 6th January (usually!) |
| Time: | 12.30pm |
The parishes of Southwark Cathedral (on the South bank ) and St Magnus the Martyr (on the North bank) meet in the middle of London Bridge, and each January the clergy of both churches process to this point and perform a short religious service during which a wooden cross is cast into the river. The custom has only been established during the twenty-first century but harks back to the ancient ceremony in the Orthodox church of throwing a cross into the waters on the Sunday after Epiphany.
Helpful Hints
In 2025 it was on Sunday January 12th- 2026 date os yet to be confirmed.
Click here for the Southwark Cathedral website & Calendar : http://cathedral.southwark.anglican.org/
Click here for the St Magnus the Martyr website : http://www.stmagnusmartyr.org.uk/
and Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/stmagnusthemartyr/
As a member of the Church, and one fairly tolerant of some of its eccentricities, I do nonetheless wonder if this kind of thing is helpful.
I would like to commend the efficiency and style of this years traditional Church bridge blocking. A real challenge for any of non-religious bridge users to pass
A wonderful long standing ceremony to remember those that have gone before on the bridge and river. People attending the short service stand on the pavement being mindful not to block access for others.
That’s a good point- it’s still a busy thoroughfare and important not to force pedestrians into the traffic!
Hardly ‘long-standing’. They started doing it in 2008. Little more than a PR stunt. If they want to actually ‘bless the river’ then go down to the water, bless it, and do some baptisms in it. Throwing in what amounts to litter, that will need to simply be hauled out, is pointless. I mean, I’m a great lover of Christian tradition and pomp but this is neither. Merely a stunt, and that I don’t agree with.
As a member of the church I find this kind of liturgical flight of fancy to be bordering on the silly and indulgent. I urge the two parishes to find more substantial ways of using their time to witness to the gospel.
Oh for goodness sake all you detractors. It is a very important service and surely you can just tolerate a little delay once a year or maybe use another crossing.
It is to remember those who have lost their lives to the river.
How can that be ‘silly and indulgent’? Frankly as a Londoner whose ancestors were mast makers, wherry men and ship builders some of whom did indeed loose their lives in accidents to the Thames I find this insulting.
Someone says ‘it is hardly ancient’ but actually it is and has just been revived this century.
As far as ‘rubbish’ goes when does wood count as ‘rubbish’? It either washes up or gets transported out to sea and becomes beautifully weathered and is part of flotsam and jetsam.