The community remembers Ras Bandele, Sister Wolete Medhin and Benjamin Zephaniah
The community marked the passing of a trio of Fairfield House giants on a special date. The 5 May is Liberation Day, Sylvia Pankhurst’s birthday, and also this year Orthodox Easter. Volunteers and community members gathered to remember Sister Wolete Medhin, Ras Bendele Selassie and Benjamin Zephaniah.
Family and community in attendance for the Rose Garden remembrance
Community members Ras Habbakuk, Ras Rainbow and others had prepared a new memorial garden. Friends and family members were invited to lay memorial plaques under three newly planted roses.Artists had also prepared two commemorative posters which were presented to family members. Copies are now on sale in the Fairfield House shop.
From left: Qian Zephaniah (widow of Benjamin), AbiJah and Yahshowa Selassie (children of Ras Bandele) are presented with commemorative posters by Shawn Sobers (right).
Watch "Footsteps of the Emperor"
Two senior Abunas visit Fairfield House
Fairfield House received in April a special short-notice visit from two Ethiopian Orthodox Archbishops - His Grace Abune Gabriel and His Grace Abune Dionasiyos - on their recent trip to the UK. Travelling from London, they were accompanied by priests and deacons.
The Archbishops’ party photographed in the same spot as the Emperor, joined by Ras Benji, Ras Cos, Abiy Mengistu and B&NES’ Rebecca Hales.
The Archbishops’ party were treated to a historic tour of Fairfield House before breaking their Lenten fast with a celebratory lunch and speeches. They went into the Somerset countryside to visit nearby North Stoke (see story), were welcomed to the Roman Baths by B&NES’ heritage team, and given a guided tour round Bath Abbey by Revd Canon Nigel Rawlinson.
After their busy day the Archbishops thanked and said they extended their utmost gratitude to all involved. They pledged the support of the Ethiopian Orthodox church for the continuing work at Fairfield House to preserve and celebrate HIM's legacy.
Picture: Visiting Ethiopian Archbishops study HIM's deed of gift while the local BEMSCA Mah Jong club carries on.
Meet the team: Ras Cos Wadadda
Ras Cos Wadadda was invited and welcomed on to the Fairfield House Bath CIC board in January 2024. His role is to assist in the short and longer term plans for building maintenance and building improvements required to make Fairfield House compliant with current Health & Safety regulations and energy-efficiency standards. Ras Cos has been a visitor to Fairfield House over many years. “It is a great honour to be invited to my Fathers house in this professional capacity,” he said.
“I must at this point acknowledge the great work and efforts of Ras Bandele Selassie I in preserving the House over previous decades and for ensuring that it was a community hub for RasTafari. His work lives on through all who value the presence of this unique historical legacy. Let Jah be Praised!”
“I acknowledge the fellow CIC board members and partners in the local authority and various local institutions who, from what I have seen, are sincerely invested in the preservation of Fairfield House.”
Social media milestones: 10k Instagram followers; top 40 on Tripadvisor
Fairfield House hit a social-media milestone passing 10,000 followers on Instagram (follow us here). The vibrant, colourful life of the community is ideally suited to the very image-based social medium. Fairfield House now reaches over 250,000 accounts each month.
You can also stay connected with Fairfield House on Facebook and LinkedIn. This Substack newsletter currently goes to a total of around 1000 readers.
Fairfield House even made a first brief appearance in the Bath thread on Reddit.
Do forward and share your posts and newsletters to spread the word more widely and grow our communities.
Meanwhile Fairfield House is fast climbing the charts on Tripadvisor. From a standing start last year it is now in the top 40 of places to visit in Bath. Good reviews that take this higher are a huge win for Fairfield House; Tripadvisor is a key resource for visitors deciding what to do in the city
Best of all: come and visit Fairfield House yourself by booking one of the historical guided tours available most Sundays. If you do that, like it, and leave a review: we’ll make it into the top 10 soon enough.
Fairfield House on Tripadvisor
Third annual HIM table tennis tournament
Sister Danielle and Xavier warming up on the professional tables provided by Sport England
The third annual HIM Haile Selassie I table tennis tournament took place at Fairfield House Sat 27 April. This event, which like many happenings at Fairfield is a shared Fairfield House and BEMSCA event, and started in 2022. It reflects the Emperor’s love of a game of ping pong with his family. Each year the young people of Bath Black Families educational support group join in and make the day more enjoyable.
Two-time Fairfield House table tennis champion Ian Osborne with Bemsca manager Pauline Swaby-Wallace
Ian “Mr Reliable” Osborne showed an impressive return to winning form, taking the singles title and making him a two time Fairfield House champion. The doubles competition was won by Danielle and Mathilde. Xavier took first place in an exciting under 15s tournament.
The 4th annual HIM Haile Selassie I Fairfield House Table Tennis Tournament and family day is set for the last Saturday in April 2025. Everyone is welcome. You can practice at Fairfield House Friday afternoons, over summer and autumn. See you on Saturday 26th April 2025!
Bath Preservation Trust awayday
When local institutions choose Fairfield House for awaydays and workshops it builds links with key local partners and brings in helpful resources. The Bath Preservation Trust, which itself manages four important small museums locally, held a very successful awayday in April. Their advice and support for our plans could be very valuable in months to come.
Bath Preservation Trust were happy with their awayday at Fairfield House and gave it a rave writeup.
Fairfield community on their travels: three accounts
On Fri 19 Apr Fairfield House hosted a colourful and joyous evening with three talks about trips connecting Fairfield House with the rest of the world.
Ras Haile Bongo gave a passionate account of his extraordinary trip to Ghana. Equipped only with gifts of school supplies and sanitary pads, taking no money and knowing no-one in the country he met schools and visited slavery castles in Ghana, learning deep lessons as he went.
Operations manager Ras Benji spoke of the many miracles that accompanied his recent trip to Ethiopia. This included time in Addis and Lalibela, and culminated in him being baptised into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, where the priests gave him the baptismal name Haile Selassie.
Pauline Swaby and William Heath shared lessons from a trip to Jamaica that managed to be both hilarious and life-changing. They met the surviving Howellites, spoke with the Garveyite UNIA, were invited to Bob Marley’s birthday celebrations and stayed at the Rastafari Indigenous Village.
With food provided by BEMSCA it was another evening for the community to celebrate Fairfield House’s role as Bath’s “portal to the world”.
Recitation of Psalm 27 in St Martin’s church North Stoke
The visiting Archbishops His Grace Abune Gabriel and His Grace Abune Dionasiyos (see above) were treated to a visit to nearby St Martin's in North Stoke. This is the ancient rural church to which HIM Haile Selassie I regularly walked to for worship and for theological discussions.
Their guide, the theologian and inter-faith specialist Martin Palmer, explained that the church dates back to 360AD. That meant that St Martins would itself for 700 years have been an Orthodox church, until the schism with Rome in 1054.
Martin had brought two ancient vellum manuscripts from a Somerset library for the Abunas to inspect. The Archbishops identified them as Books of Psalms written in the liturgical language Ge-ez. Nothing more is known about them.
Video: Holding ancient vellum texts, the Ethiopian Orthodox visitors recite Psalm 27 in the tiny village of North Stoke ("The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear?")
Upcoming events
Sat/Sun 18/19 May Newbridge Arts trail
Fri 7 June Black leadership event: HIM and Garvey (with Steven Golding)
Mon 17 June Hayward Gallery opening with sculptures of HIM and Garvey
Sat 20 July HIM Haile Selassie I Legacy day
Tues 23 July HIM’s birthday Rastafari celebration
Fri 18 Oct Solomon and Sheba opera at National Trust Assembly Rooms
Sat 19 Oct Freedom in the City, National Trust Assembly Rooms, Bath
w/b 21 Oct celebrating HIM’s hon doctorate at Oxford
