Wafers at the Coronation

An article in the 4 March 1952 issue of the Suffolk Free Press includes:

Mr John Vaughan Lambert of Foxearth is making a claim in accordance to a right of a 700-year-old deed of service, he has the right to make and bake and serve wafers at the Queen’s coronation banquet, the right came into the family Lambert when they purchased Lyston Hall several centuries ago but little remains of that lovely Elizabethan mansion as it is being pulled down, the last member of the Lambert family, Mr Lambert’s grandfather left the Hall in 1913, the family are of Irish descent, the present Lord of the Manor was born in 1905, he was educated abroad and went into farming when he left school on the land his father owned, apart from Foxearth Hall he owns Lyston Place farm in all 1500 acres, he has a dairy farm at Lyston Place , he also has a flock of pedigree Suffolk sheep.

John Vaughan Campbell Lambert died in 1986. His son, John Rambaut Vaughan Campbell Lambert, who was born on 2 March 1940, would appear to have inherited that right.

Plans for the coronation period in 2023 make no mention of a banquet. There will be a Coronation Big Lunch, at which neighbours and communities are invited to share food and fun together, will take place across the country on the same date. Similar street parties were held in 1952. Did you or an ancestor attend one?