London’s “other” Masonic Venues, Part II:


50 years of service to Masonry in Southgate


arena’s sees itself as serving ALL London brethren and whilst it is perhaps natural for many of us to consider Freemasons' Hall the "home" of Metropolitan, it is not of course, the masonic home of many London masons. With this in mind, it is our intention to have arena writers visit as many of the "specific purpose" masonic venues in the area and try to redress the balance somewhat. We continue the series with the Southgate Masonic Centre, based in Southgate, London N14...


A


nniversary congratulations are due to Southgate Masonic


Centre which has recently reached its fiftieth year, having first been incorporated in April 1963 under the name of the North Middlesex Masonic Centre Ltd by prominent Masons of the area. Several of them became directors of the Company and interestingly had attachments to various Provinces and Lodges. Most Lodges had previously been meeting in pubs and similar venues and were increasingly hard pressed to find suitable meeting places to sustain their growing numbers; in fact the close proximity of provincial boundaries between Middlesex, Hertfordshire, London and Essex only added to the difficulties of finding a suitable venue. This brought an added


consideration to factor into any prospective move of meeting place, should the Lodge wish to remain on the periphery of its province, especially for any London Lodges that wished to continue their attachment to the capital. The "five


30


mile” guidance stipulated for any London Lodge initially made Southgate an unattractive location until Grand Lodge gave a dispensation to broaden the five mile London rule, declaring it a neutral territory in which Masons from London could all meet without any change of Province. Southgate is one such Masonic centre with a mixture of several provinces all meeting under one roof, this has helped to sustain the centre over the years and formed a happy home to roughly 130 Lodges. The centre was originally built as a


church hall in the early 1930’s for Christ Church, Southgate Green and completed around 1935. It is comprised of large and small halls, dining rooms, committee rooms, kitchen, cloak room facilities and a caretaker’s flat. In January 1968 the purchase of the building was undertaken with the new name of the Southgate Masonic Centre Ltd to express its capacity of operating in neutral territory and the refurbishment of the building's


ISSUE 13


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40