By Laurie Burrell
On Friday the 11th of June 2021, an important event took place at The Burlington Resi-dential Care Home, Manygate Lane, Shepperton, when Mrs Pat Burrell, one of the last Chairman of the ‘Friends of The Bradbury Centre Residen-tial Care Home’ visited The Burlington to celebrate the installation of the cabinet and cross presented by H M Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother on the inauguration of the Bradbury Centre in 1995.
When the Bradbury Centre was closed by Agecare UK in 2014 as the home did not fulfil the requirements in legislation the land and build-ing was sold and subsequently demolished to be replaced by a very modern and up to date building called The Burlington.
The gift of the cross and cabinet was removed on the closure of the Bradbury Centre for safekeeping, and prior to the completion of new residential care home Pat Burrell made enquiries locally and with Agecare UK to trace the whereabouts of the cabinet and cross. These did not result in establishing the where abouts of the gift, and she was at a loss to trace who had taken responsibility for its safe keeping.
At a meeting of the Sunbury & Shepperton Local History Society, Laurie Burrell was reading an archive sheet of local history on display and saw a copy of an article in the ‘Surrey Herald’ which outlined the presenta-tion of the cabinet and cross to the Bradbury Centre. He highlighted it to the attention of Monica Chard, editor of ‘Shepperton Mat-ters’, explaining that he had also tried to find where it was stored but had meet with no suc-cess. Monica photographed the archive sheet and wrote an article in Shepperton Matters which was published a month or so later. The cabinet and cross were subsequently delivered to St Nicholas Church in Shepperton for safe keeping by the Parish. As the church could not accommodate the gift at that time Laurie Burrell was contacted to seek his help. The cabinet was refurbished and cleaned and handed it to Pat and Laurie to find a home in Shepperton for it.
After Covid restrictions were relaxed they ap-proached the manage-ment of the Burlington to enquire if they would undertake responsibility for its future safe keeping, and they gratefully accepted it for nondenominational services for the resi-dents.
The gift from H M Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother has been installed in one of the homes community room and has already been used by the residents for quite prayer and services. At the handover of the gift Pat ex-plain to a group of residents the history be-hind the cross to the Bradbury Centre and hoped that it would bring comfort to residents for the future.