The Glastonbury Unity Candle and the Silent Minute of Peace at 9pm
Join our Unity Candle ambassadors live, streaming nightly 20.55 - 21.10
on The Glastonbury Unity Candle Facebook page.
Click 'like' to get a notification when we go live.
on The Glastonbury Unity Candle Facebook page.
Click 'like' to get a notification when we go live.
On the 23rd of March 2020, a stay-at-home order was issued to the UK, and all social contact was to cease. On that evening, the Glastonbury Unity Candle was lit in a livestream to hold the Silent Minute of Peace at 9pm. Its purpose was to offer companionship, healing, and connection at a time when it was felt it was needed. To this day, volunteers continue to hold this gentle space for people to join and hold peace in their hearts and share messages of support, from all around the world.
Our volunteer Unity Candle ambassadors are not only in Glastonbury and surrounding areas, the live-stream also comes from Greenbelt Maryland, Wales, and the Midlands.
Our volunteer Unity Candle ambassadors are not only in Glastonbury and surrounding areas, the live-stream also comes from Greenbelt Maryland, Wales, and the Midlands.
The Silent Minute
Major Wellesley Tudor Pole
The original Big Ben Silent Minute was a peace prayer initiated by Wellesley Tudor Pole, a major in the British Army and the founder of the Chalice Well Trust, right here in Glastonbury. Every day at noon, a bell is chimed in Chalice Well Gardens to remind us of the Silent Minute and the peace that can be drawn from it. Tudor Pole’s vision was for people to unite in meditation, prayer, or focus (each according to their own belief) and consciously will for “peace to prevail”.
During World War II, all over Britain and the Commonwealth, millions of people joined together every evening at 9.00pm just before the news, to the chimes of Big Ben, to pray for peace.
In the dark days of war the Silent Minute became a vast network of Light and Hope in the hearts of all people of goodwill. It had the blessing of King George VI, Sir Winston Churchill and his Parliamentary Cabinet, and it was also recognised by the US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Silent Minute was observed on land, at sea, on the battlefields, in air raid shelters and in hospitals. With Churchill’s support the BBC, on Sunday, 10th November 1940, began to play the chimes of Big Ben every evening at 9pm, on the radio, as a signal for the Silent Minute to begin.
During World War II, all over Britain and the Commonwealth, millions of people joined together every evening at 9.00pm just before the news, to the chimes of Big Ben, to pray for peace.
In the dark days of war the Silent Minute became a vast network of Light and Hope in the hearts of all people of goodwill. It had the blessing of King George VI, Sir Winston Churchill and his Parliamentary Cabinet, and it was also recognised by the US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Silent Minute was observed on land, at sea, on the battlefields, in air raid shelters and in hospitals. With Churchill’s support the BBC, on Sunday, 10th November 1940, began to play the chimes of Big Ben every evening at 9pm, on the radio, as a signal for the Silent Minute to begin.
