Parish of St Mary and Christ Church Hendon

06/06/2026

Table Top Sale at St Mary’s Hendon TODAY - Saturday 6 June 10.00-14.00. Refreshments available.

21/05/2026

Join us this morning at St. Mary’s, Hendon for our coffee morning, in aid of Great Ormomd Street - Children’s Cancer Centre. We’ve got a great selection of cakes, raffle and children’s books/toys stall. We’re here till 12.30.

21/05/2026

15/01/2026

Everyone welcome.

24/12/2025

A lesser known but very beautiful one this morning - No Small Wonder.

Paul Edwards, an English organist, composer and conductor, wrote this sublime carol in 1983, setting a poem by Paul Wigmore that describes how Jesus’s birth and life were “no small wonders”.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MuW18gAvDXY

24/12/2025

This is Ding D**g Merrily as you’ve never heard it, arranged by Richard Morrison.

The tune dates back to 16th-century France, first appearing in a book of dances called Orchesographie, by the French priest, composer and writer Thoinot Arbeau. The English words were supplied by George Woodward, a Victorian priest. Our arrangement syncopates the tune and adds a virtuoso piano part.

https://youtu.be/LXAjG8-W6fQ

24/12/2025

The last Sunday of Advent brings Lully, Lulla - Traditional English, arranged Richard Morrison

Also called The Coventry Carol, because it originally formed part of the 16th-century Coventry mystery plays, this beautiful but sad carol reflects on the massacre of the innocents by Herod after Christ’s birth. Our arrangement emphasises this tragic and disturbing dimension to the Christmas story.

Link in our bio/story or here: https://youtu.be/JiWvvXkf2-8

24/12/2025

God rest you merry, gentlemen - English traditional
This stirring English carol is centuries old, and mentioned in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. We present it in a new jazz arrangement that, we hope, still remains faithful to its exuberant spirit.

Link in bio/story and here: https://youtu.be/aHMtoMIG3Cg

24/12/2025

This day, we bring you Bethlehem Down by Peter Warlock (1894-1930)

The composer Philip Heseltine, who wrote under the pseudonym Peter Warlock, had a turbulent life that ended tragically. There’s darkness, too, in this little masterpiece that anticipates the trials to come in the baby Jesus’s life. It’s said that Warlock and the poet Bruce Blunt wrote words and music in a single session in a pub in 1927 in order to enter the Daily Telegraph’s carol competition, which they subsequently won.

Link in bio/story and here: https://youtu.be/1pqXYynsxE8

24/12/2025

The Boar’s Head Carol - English medieval

First published in 1521 in a London printer’s collection of “Christmasse carolles” this rumbustious carol celebrates the custom of serving a boar’s head as the main dish at Yuletide feasts. The final verse laments the fact that the feasting stopped after the 12th day on Christmas, and the boar disappeared for another year. The Latin refrain suggests, improbably, that the boar’s head itself is praising God.

Recorded at the

Link in bio/story or here: https://youtu.be/-ienUoOza3g