St Michael’s-on-Wyre Lodge was consecrated on Wednesday 14th April 1971 and took the number 8348 which is registered by the United Grand lodge of England.
This was a time when local Masonic lodges were continuing to burgeon resulting in pressure on existing lodges to assimilate the number of men making application to join.
The actual ceremony of consecration took place at the Ashton Hall, Lancaster at 3.00 pm and was conducted by Sir Knowles Edge Bt, Provincial Grand Master assisted by other distinguished Freemasons.
Over the course of its history the lodge has weathered a number of societal changes, attacks upon Freemasonry itself and other challenges but perhaps none more so than on the evening of 23rd May 1984 when a gas explosion in an underground water treatment plant at Abbeystead killed 16 and injured 28 mostly from the local community.
There was scarcely a member of the lodge that the tragedy did not touch in some way and everyone in the lodge and beyond mobilised to help the injured and affected families in the days and weeks following the disaster. It was an occasion that was to have a catastrophic effect on many lives with consequences that endure to this day.
The injured, many suffering from the most horrendous and extensive burns, were treated at the Royal Preston Hospital Burns Unit and there is no doubt that the ultimate death toll would have been even greater without the skill, care and compassion of the consultants and staff of the Burns Unit at Preston to whom the community of St Michael’s on Wyre owe a great debt of gratitude.
Indeed, one member of the lodge is himself a survivor of the disaster and was this year, on the 40th anniversary of the explosion, moved to recognise and commemorate the debt of gratitude that he and many others owe to the Burns Unit at Royal Preston Hospital by raising the fantastic sum of over £33,000 which was presented to the hospital burns unit at a dinner at the Cross Keys Inn on 11th October 2024.
St Michael’s on Wyre Lodge No. 8348 