Remembering Erkenwald Conference, 2024
James D. Wenn presented this informative lecture at our Remembering Erkenwald Conference, 2024. You can find the lecture embedded below.
Erkenwald is the Patron Saint of London, where Old Sir Rowland was Lord Mayor, and James links the mathematics in his shrine with the mathematics hidden in Soulton Hall and the later buildings of Thomas Tresham.
We were delighted to host an exhibition of art from Byrga Geniht that ran parallel with James’ talk, which is explained over on the Byrga Geniht webiste.
A subsequent lecture by Tim Ashton, delivered on behalf of the Ashton family during the conference, is now embedded above. This recording was held privately after the event to allow for sober reflection and ecumenical engagement, including services that welcomed stakeholders from various denominations of the undivided church. This blog post was updated on November 16, 2025, following the St. Erkenwald Day in November, to include the public release of this lecture.
In this video, a lecture presented to the ‘Remembering Erkenwald at Soulton conference, 2024’, Tim Ashton, representing the Ashton family who are the incumbents at Soulton, presents the unique questions posed by recent research in both art history and historical biography that have converged on a possibility of relics from the old St. Paul’s in London having been preserved by Old Sir Rowland Hill at Soulton.
The conference was attended by stakeholders including representatives of Churches, and this professional and ecumenical panel of delegates was invited to help address the sensitivities of the questions Tim outlines in a careful and respectful way prior to public engagement with these questions. Since the 2024 Remembering Erkenwald at Soulton conference, there have been high-level meetings in the City of London and in the House of Lords, involving inter-faith stakeholders, as well as Government, civic, and cultural liaisons.
A consensus has been reached that the relics of St. Erkenwald and the altar of the old St. Paul’s were “very probably” intended to be given an asylum at Soulton by Sir Rowland Hill in the 16th century, and that the presence of this material at that time is “likely”, and that their presence today must be assumed for the purposes of respectful handling of this heritage legacy.
Consequently, prior to the setting of this video to public, security has been tightened at Soulton in ways that are visible and not visible. In order to facilitate appropriate access to this heritage, tours have been arranged through Historic Houses, and ecumenical religious observances are scheduled at key times in the year in partnership with the Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox dioceses in which Soulton is located. Additionally, programmes of cultural remembering have been set up including a dramatic reading of the poem ‘Erkenwald’ by Harry Frost in 2025.
