The Queen's College Record 2020

Regular services have been a different
matter. We started the academic year with
a celebration of the Chapel building, and we
could scarcely have imagined we would end
by learning to manage without it. For me, the
highs and lows of this past year have only
reinforced the importance of sacred space.
As many of us have been experiencing the
challenges of life when ‘work’ and ‘home’
are the same room, we can appreciate
anew the necessity of a place set apart,
where we take up Jesus’ invitation to
‘come away with me to a quiet place.’
Reports and College Activities
At the start of the 2019-20 year, the
Chapel welcomed a new occupant to the
Provost’s stall. Dr Claire Craig has fully
engaged with Chapel as an integral part
of the College’s life, and we gave her a
memorable first term, with a schedule of
events to coincide with the Chapel’s threehundredth
anniversary. On 3 November
Archbishop Sentamu in the College Chapel
we hosted the College Visitor, the Most
Revd and Rt Hon. Dr John Sentamu,
Archbishop of York, for his final visit to the College before his retirement this year.
In his sermon, he described the Chapel as ‘a home for God to be hospitable.’
The following week, we were joined for a study day by historians Dr Geoffrey Tyack,
the Revd Professor William Whyte, and the Revd Dr Andrew Braddock, alongside our
own Professor Owen Rees and archivist Michael Riordan. I was especially amused by
Professor Whyte’s observation that we owe the preservation of the Chapel’s unspoiled
eighteenth century interior to the stick-in-the-mud attitude of the College’s northern
Fellowship, who were sceptical of spending money on the latest fads! (Some might
say this remains a proud Queen’s tradition…) The talks were followed by a sell-out
choir concert of music by Bach and Handel.
That was the culmination of a challenging but exciting programme for the choir. We
also shared our tercentenary celebrations with the nation, welcoming back BBC Radio
3’s Choral Evensong crew for a live broadcast on 30 October, as well as recording
a second evensong for later broadcast on International Women’s Day in March. Live
broadcast worship was a new experience for me, and rather a hair-raising one! I
was enormously grateful to hand over the sung parts of leading the service to my
co‐chaplain for the term, the Revd Laurence Price. (The youngest and arguably most
musical member of the Price household remained outside in his pram, ably watched
over by our newly-arrived Professor of Philosophy!)
College Record 2020 | The Queen’s College 47