Anton Lodge No 6953 was consecrated on the 28th February 1950 after the United Grand Lodge of England granted a petition from the members of The St Hubert Lodge No 1373.
The Consecrating Ceremony was held at the Guildhall, High Street, Andover. The Consecrating Officer was W Bro Wilfred Attenborough MB, BS, PGD, Deputy Provincial Grand Master, Hampshire and Isle of Wight.
The folowing is an extract from 'An Oration' delivered at the Consecration Ceremony by W Bro the Rev W.W. Russell Chapman, Provincial Grand Chaplain.
"In founding your Lodge you have chosen 'Anton' as its name, after one of the rivers that make up the network of streams forming the Test Valley from which the most delectable trout are fished. So may you as a living tributary of the great watercourse of Fremasonry rear and foster brethren of fine quality and outstanding character, thereby perpetrating the great adventure on which you are this day embarking, and honouring the high and sacred pursuit to which you now are being consecrated. All is before you and although no one can forecast the future or read the riddles of the years to come, yet I make bold to add, that if there be within you any stirring of spiritual imagination, any surging of ethical emotion, and sense of trust to redeem and a responsibility to discharge: above all, if there be any love for the things that are true and honest, and just, and pure, and lovely, and of good report; any quickening of desire to serve your day and generation - and I dare not believe otherwise - then go forward to this your constructive and uplifting experiment in the spirit of wisdom and understanding, in the spirit of quietness and confidence, in the spirit of the fear of God and the service of mankind: and nothing shall stay you: you will be guided and you will guide, you will be led and you will lead in the further advancement of the antient and honourable Institution of Free and Accepted Masonry"
Let us hope that since our consecration we have successfully pursued and upheld these wonderful principles and tenets and may they be "transmitted pure and unpolluted, through this Lodge from generation to generation".