Community Carol Service

The Rotary Club of Bath's annual community Carol Service will this year take place on 16 December in Bath Abbey, starting at 6.30pm.

The service will feature music from the Bath Salvation Army brass band, carols from the Lucis Choir and Bathwick St Mary School Choir, alongside several well-loved traditional Christmas congregational hymns and carols.

As space is limited, tickets are required.  These are free and can be obtained from with the Abbey Shop, or event sponsor Bath Building Society's branches in Moorland Road and (from 27th November) Wood Street.

A retiring collection will be taken and this will be donated to this year's event charity, Julian House.

The service will particularly remember a special event from 80 years ago, when 50 children from the Dutch city of Alkmaar in North Holland were invited to spend Christmas with Bath families, after the trauma of the war including a terrible famine inflicted on the people of the Netherlands.  This trip began the tradition of exchanges and home-stays between Bath and Alkmaar which continue to this day, and resulted in the two cities becoming official twinned.