An Evening at Bakers’ Hall

Dinner with the Worshipful Company of Bakers

A great evening at the Worshipful Company of Bakers dinner. It is always good to come down to Bakers’ Hall.

For anyone outside the trade who has not come across it, the Company is one of the ancient livery companies of the City of London. The bakers’ guild is recorded as far back as the twelfth century, which makes it one of the oldest of them all, and it still sits nineteenth in the City’s order of precedence today. Bakers’ Hall stands on Harp Lane, where there has been a livery hall of one kind or another since the early 1500s.

The motto is on the flag outside: Praise God For All.

There is something quietly grounding about an evening there. Eight hundred years of bakers have organised themselves around that same square mile, worrying about flour, price, quality and standards. The equipment has changed beyond recognition and the ingredients list is longer than it was, but the actual problems of the trade have changed a great deal less than you might expect.

Good company, good conversation, and a reminder of how long a line this is to be standing in.

“The equipment has changed beyond recognition. The problems of the trade have changed a great deal less.” — Lucas Fussnegger