Whitehall 2025
School Sergeant Major Thomas Allen lays a wreath on behalf of staff and students at the foot of the Gordon Statue. Wreaths were also laid by Tom Gordon on behalf of the Gordon family and Paul Ivory for the Gordonians (Gordon's)

Whitehall
Drum Major Lucy Carter salutes The Cenotaph as the school makes its way along Whitehall (Gordon's)

Whitehall
Gordon’s School, led by their Pipes and Drums band. make their way along Whitehall to the Gordon Statue in Victoria Embankment Gardens (Gordon's)

Westminster Abbey Line Out
The Gordon’s School Pipes and Drums line up outside the main entrance to Westminster Abbey before playing (Gordon's)

St Paul's Cathedral
The Gordon Monument at St Paul’s Cathedral with Gordon’s School chaplain the Rev Graham Wright, left, and members of the Pipes and Drums Band (Gordon's)

St Paul's Cathedral Steps
Drum Major Lucy Carter facing the Pipes and Drums Band outside St Paul’s Cathedral (Gordon's)

Embankment Gardens
The Gordon’s Pipes and Drums leading 200 students from Victoria Embankment Gardens back to King Charles Street after the wreath-laying and service by the Gordon Statue (Gordon's)

Gordon Statue
Pipe Major Harry Gordon plays The Lament by the Gordon Statue in Victoria Embankment Gardens (Gordon's)

More than 200 Gordon’s School students, together with the school’s Pipes and Drums Band, marched the annual parade along Whitehall for the school’s memorial weekend.

This year marks the 140th anniversary of General Gordon’s death in Sudan and the building of Gordon’s School as the national memorial to the Victorian war hero and philanthropist.

The school is the only one in the country permitted to march along this iconic London route.

Annual remembrance events have taken place in some form since his death in 1885, but this year Whitehall was closed for both the parade and a protest, with a heavy police presence.

The students, in their ceremonial Blues uniform, marched to the Gordon Statue in Victoria Embankment Gardens for a service conducted by school chaplain, the Rev Graham Wright.

Three wreaths were laid at the statue on behalf of students and staff and Gordonians. Tom Gordon laid a wreath on behalf of the Gordon family.

Bugler Jess Fowler sounded the Last Post and the Reveille, and The Lament, Flowers of the Forest was played by Pipe Major Harry Gordon.

The Whitehall Parade on the Saturday, held in the month of General Gordon’s death, was followed the next day by the Gordon Memorial Service in Guildford Cathedral when the Bishop of Dorking the Right Rev Paul Davies delivered the Gordon Sermon.

The Whitehall Parade also marked the start of the school’s Pipes and Drums 140th commemorative tour of places associated with General Gordon. They headed from Whitehall to Westminster Abbey for a short service by the Gordon Memorial, before performing outside the main entrance.

At St Paul’s Cathedral they visited the Gordon Monument and performed on the steps outside.

Gordon’s headmaster Andrew Moss said: “Again our students represented Gordon’s School to the highest standard and showed true resilience under challenging circumstances, of which General Gordon himself would have been proud.”