On Wednesday 6 December, a full house of students, staff and friends of UAL gathered for carols by candlelight at St George’s Bloomsbury, the last London church to be built by the great late 17th century architect, Nicholas Hawksmoor.

The beautiful church interior glowed with candlelight as popular carols were sung, alongside performances by professional singers of early medieval European Christmas songs.

There were readings of the Christmas story given by the Vice Chancellor, Nigel Carrington, students and staff, while the Rector of Bloomsbury, David Peebles, spoke of the message of Christmas in terms of the challenges facing our world today, and the ongoing need for justice and peace.

In our prayers to address these needs, we also remembered  those who have died within our University community over the past year:

Ebony Daley (LCC student, January)
Drew Goorney (CSM student, February)
Manfei Zhu (CSM student, February)
Ying-Cheng Lai (LCF student, March)
Zachary Geddis (LCF student, March)
Renata Rusieska (CSM student, May)
Kylie Simpson (Chelsea student, July)
Professor Chris Wainwright (September)
Ines Peixoto (Wimbledon student, October)
Paulo Souza (Camberwell recent graduate, November)

During the last carol, and before refreshments were served, £300 was generously raised for the London based homeless charity, Shelter, for their Christmas appeal.