The Traveling Ashlar Weekly Trestleboard | Edition 0009 | Week of October 19, 2026 · A.L. 6026

Boston Masonic Hall, on Main Ridge West, has been given one of the first grants from the Centenary Hall Stone Appeal: more than £14,000 to repair an Egyptian Revival front last touched in 1988. Lincolnshire has not even launched the appeal yet. That is due in January.

G. Hackford built the hall in 1860-63 for the Lodge of Harmony, which still meets there. The Ancaster-stone portico was modelled on the Temple of Dendur in Nubia, completed by 10 A.D. and, since the 1960s, standing inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Historic England lists the building Grade II*, particularly important and of more than special interest. The listing records a winged sun on the cornice, palmette capitals, a civic award on the frontage, and an inscription in hieroglyphics that reads, in translation, 'In the 23rd year of the reign of Her Majesty the Royal Daughter Victoria, Lady Most Gracious, this building was erected. May it be prosperous.' Over the inner door, in Greek: Know Myself.

It was the home Lodge of Walter Clegg and Walter Bond Gilbert, who wrote the words and music of the English Craft's Opening and Closing Odes. Pevsner lists it among Boston's buildings of great historic importance.

Provincial Grand Master Dave Wheeler said the grant, made before Lincolnshire's formal launch, will help sustain a 160-year-old hall for Freemasons and for the wider community that uses it. He congratulated Mike Gerry, Provincial Grand Superintendent of Works, and the Brethren who built the application. The £100 million appeal is a ten-year job. This is what an early cheque looks like when it lands on a building that does not resemble any other hall in the Province.

Evadale Lodge No. 1366 A.F. & A.M. brought Grand Lodge of Texas officers, county dignitaries, Evadale ISD faculty and students into a school gymnasium on Oct. 15 to level two granite stones. Each face reads the same sentence: Leveled by the Grand Lodge of Texas A.F. & A.M.

The public ceremony included prayers, blessings and the old consecration elements. Chip Green, Right Worshipful Grand Senior Warden, told the room the work is as old as Freemasonry and pointed to the United States Capitol in 1793 and the Texas State Capitol in 1885. Wade Peek, District Deputy Grand Master of Masonic District 25B, said the stones are historic for the Lodge and for the young people who will walk past them for years.

The cornerstones are for new elementary and high school buildings, due next year if the schedule holds. Two weeks after Sapulpa, another American school district asked Masons to do the public work in front of the students who will use the building. The interesting photograph is not the gym. It is the pair of stones, a 24-inch gauge, and a Grand Senior Warden doing the job in daylight.

Doric Lodge No. 623 A.F. & A.M. handed Teck Centennial Library an Ontario Masons cheque for $15,000 toward a roof that has been leaking long enough to close rooms.

The current building has stood since 1967. Water has already damaged the adult department. Access has been restricted. A full redesign and replacement is estimated at $280,000 plus HST, with no municipal money assigned to the capital work. Jordan Ayres, director of strategic initiatives, said a gift of this size is a huge boost and a reminder that people in Kirkland Lake still believe the library is worth protecting. Cheryl Lafreniere is the library's chief executive. The original town library opened nearly a century ago.

Ayres put the problem in one sentence: protecting the roof means protecting everything that happens underneath it. In the photograph, Brethren in Lodge shirts stand in the stacks with the library staff and a ceremonial cheque. Northern libraries are not scenic restoration projects. They are the room a town still has when the mine, the mill or the winter closes everything else. Doric Lodge paid for a measurable piece of that room.

London Freemasons awarded The For Baby's Sake Trust £60,000 to keep Therapeutic Practitioners with families from pregnancy until a child is two, where there is domestic abuse in the parental relationship.

The practitioners work separately with each parent. The aim is emotional safety, a stronger parent-infant bond, and a more stable first two years. The grant also pays for awareness-raising and training so local services can recognise abuse in the perinatal period. Around one in five children in the United Kingdom are exposed to domestic abuse in their lifetime. Up to 30 percent of domestic abuse begins or escalates in pregnancy.

Lauren Seager-Smith, the Trust's chief executive, said the money will reach more London families at the point when a baby's brain, emotional regulation and later relationships are being formed. Will Clayton of London Freemasons called those first two years crucial and said the charity is doing the work there.

A Lodge cheque can buy a roof, a hall or a hospital fan. This one buys time with parents who are still expecting. That is a harder sentence to print, and a more useful one.

Four days after the For Baby's Sake grant, London Freemasons put another £60,000 into Tower Hamlets. St Hilda's East will use it for specialist early-years work with 150 children under five and their families, including inclusive Stay & Play and sensory-room sessions aimed at communication, sensory development and nursery readiness.

The project is built for neurodivergent children and for families facing poverty, poor health and isolation. Nearly half of the children in Tower Hamlets grow up in poverty, the highest rate in England. Lucy Bingham, director of St Hilda's East, said the money will also help parents and carers with practical advice and a path into wider services. The award came through the Masonic Charitable Foundation.

St Hilda's has been on Club Row in Shoreditch since 1889. A sensory room in the borough with the country's highest child poverty is not a ceremonial gift. It is a room a parent can actually enter on a Tuesday morning. London wrote two cheques in a fortnight. This is the one that lands on a playmat.

Suffolk's Masonic Fishing Team laid on breakfast for volunteer anglers, then spent the day at Hintlesham Fisheries with members and staff of Ferriers Barn, a day centre for people with additional needs. It was the sixth year of the same outing.

Each guest was paired with an experienced volunteer. Nicola Goodman, manager of Ferriers Barn, said members look forward to the day every year: fresh air, fishing, and time with the team. Jon Neill, Provincial Grand Charity Steward, said many of the volunteers now know the members well, which is the part that does not show up in a grant table. Assistant Provincial Grand Master Ralph Robertson closed the afternoon by presenting every participant with a certificate and a medal.

More than 1,000 people have been through Suffolk Masonic Community Fishing Days in the past decade. The national fishing charity story is a different one. This is a Province that keeps returning to the same fishery with the same day centre until the friendships are the point, and the fish are a bonus.