Thomas Lyte CEO, Kevin Baker, was humbled and honoured to be invited with the Royal Warrant Holder’s Association to meet Her Majesty The Queen to gift the Queen Elizabeth Platinum Jubilee Processional Cross.
The Times, Court Circular
The Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Processional Cross will be used at religious services and State occasions, including at the Cenotaph, and will replace the current cross in the Chapel Royal, St. James’s Palace, London. It will be used during weekly services there and in other places of worship and on Royal visits around the UK and overseas. It is expected to be used at the National Service of Thanksgiving for The Queen’s reign at St. Paul’s Cathedral on Friday 3rd June during the Platinum Jubilee Central Weekend.
The cross has been made by Royal Warrant-holding company, Thomas Lyte, Goldsmiths and Silversmiths, from one of their designs chosen by Her Majesty. The silver-gilt cross is made of 2.8 kilograms of sterling silver and mounted on a staff of oak from the Sandringham Estate to stand at a height of 2.2 metres. The project took 340 craft hours, involving every aspect of silversmithing, many of these skills dating back to antiquity.
The cross’s wooden staff was turned by QEST Scholar Joey Richardson, who selected the oak and sketched the national floral emblems – Tudor rose, daffodil, shamrock and thistle – and applied the designs to the staff, with a pyrography wood burning tool and hand painting to bring the flora to life.
The Royal Warrant Holders Association (RWHA) launched an appeal amongst its 700-plus member companies to fund the construction of the cross, which also enabled almost a quarter of a million pounds to be raised for distribution to local charities across the UK through the RWHA’s Charity Fund in the Platinum Jubilee year and beyond.
Read about our press mentions and awards for the project
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