Sophie Dahl hosts Place2Be’s longest-running fundraiser, a candlelit carol concert for children’s mental health in Sedding’s Arts and Crafts church.
Sophie Dahl hosts Place2Be’s Carol Concert, the children’s mental health charity’s largest and longest-running fundraiser, at Holy Trinity Sloane Square in Chelsea on Thursday 3 December 2026. Jamie Cullum returns with the Prince of Wales Primary School Choir.
Place2Be has worked in British schools for 30 years, providing counselling for pupils and support for their families and teachers. The Princess of Wales has been its Royal Patron since 2013 and helped it launch the first Children’s Mental Health Week in 2015.
Last year’s concert raised £100,000, which the charity puts at 6,250 counselling sessions for children and young people.
The 5th Earl Cadogan and his wife Beatrix commissioned the church from John Dando Sedding, a founder of the Arts and Crafts movement, in 1888. Its east window, designed by Burne-Jones, is the largest Morris & Company ever made.
When the church faced demolition after the war, a campaign by the Victorian Society and Sir John Betjeman saved it.
Dahl, a Place2Be ambassador, is also the concert’s artistic director, and Penny Sainsbury chairs its committee. In 2025, Dominic West, Paloma Faith and Laura Dockrill read, and the mezzo-soprano Laura Wright sang.