Today, the FHS community joins together with hundreds of voices to sing our School Anthem, “Except the Lord Build the House”, which has been part of our school’s life for over a hundred years.  It was originally written for Truro High School for Girls in 1897 to celebrate their new building programme. Armed with this fact the words of the anthem make a lot more sense when you realise that they were chosen for the building of a new school.

The headmistress of Truro, Miss Morison, came to FHS in 1909 and bought the song with her, and the rest, as they say, is history.  She speaks with fondness of hearing the anthem being practised by the FHS girls for the school birthday and the joy that the students found by singing as one team.

The anthem was composed by the organist and choirmaster of Truro Cathedral, Revd MJ Monk, using Psalm 127 as his text. You may never have heard of any of his other works as they have mostly faded into obscurity.  This particular anthem is a two-part upper voice work with catchy moments and traditional Victorian pomp.  The arcane words have led to some confusion amongst the girls. A modern translation of the text would read more like:

“Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labour in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat – for he grants sleep to those he loves.”

The anthem is an integral part of our school birthday celebrations. Its history is the school’s history and singing all together for our service is one incredibly important facet for our school community. We hope it continues to be sung with much enthusiasm this Friday, and for the next 100 years!

Below is a recording of our pupils singing “Except the Lord build the House”!