Masonic Secrets, London

Its been a while since I did a lot of shooting apart from the new year break (slightly dry patch)

I've just started a project though where I intended to do little photo essays in the vicinity of tube stations in London, partly to give me new perspectives.

The area just north of Holborn Station is dominated by Freemasons’ Hall, the epicentre of freemasonry in England.

It’s an impressive but ultimately ostentatious hulk, in part late 1930s deco with a dollop of 1930s fascism and Hollywood film set ideas of what freemasonry should look like.

You can tell who the masons are here because they are invariably elderly, highly starched, and carry peculiar square briefcases that hold their apron, gloves and other paraphernalia of freemasonry. Many of the shops in the area are obscure boutiques selling fancy clothes and the like (think Olivander’s wand shop at Diagon Alley to get an idea)

I may of course be entirely mistaken (being not given to the brotherhood myself) but I can’t help thinking that high masonry of the kind practiced her will die out with the generation in some of these pictures. The nature of networking has changed

Olympus OM2
Ilford Delta 3200 +1 (grainy, sorry)