Bricket Wood coven

Gardner founded the coven in the village of Bricket Wood around 1946 after moving to London from Highcliffe on the Sth Coast near the New Forest with his wife Donna. Gardner claimed to have been initiated into the New Forest coven, where he learned the mysteries and practices of the witchcraft religion. Gardner, fearing that the "Old Religion", as he called it, would die out, decided to form a new coven near to his new home, where he could initiate more people into the craft and keep it alive.

Gardner acted as the coven's High Priest, with Dafo acting as High Priestess. She had also been a member of the New Forest coven. Dafo remained a member of the coven until she left it by late 1952, annoyed at Gardner for seeking publicity.[2]

Gardner gained several members to the coven, all of whom were either members of the Fiveacres naturist club or were already witches,[3] although Donna, Gardner's wife, never got involved, having no interest in witchcraft. They held their meetings on the grounds of the local wooded Fiveacres nudist club, which Gardner had purchased a small plot at in 1945. He was himself not interested in running the club, and as such appointed an administrator to take on the job.[4]

Gardner re-assembled what he called "The Witches' Cottage" on a plot of land which he owned in the club grounds. The small cottage was decorated with magical sigils on the inside. He had purchased this building from a friend, the Freemason John S.M. Ward, who was a pioneer of the restoration of historical buildings.[5] It was within this 16th-century cottage that Ward had found near to Ledbury, Herefordshire that the coven assembled to perform their rituals.

Doreen Valiente, whom Gardner had initiated into the craft at Midsummer 1953 at the home of Dafo in the New Forest, joined the coven, and rose to become High Priestess.

In 1956, Jack Bracelin was initiated into the coven.[6] He became a favourite of Gardner, who gave him the job of running the Fiveacres club after sacking the previous administrator, who "had deliberately run the club at a loss by setting unrealistically high requirements for membership, hoping thereby to persuade Gerald to eventually sell him the club at a low price".[7] The sacked administrator had felt scorned, and convinced the president of the Central Council of British Naturism, Ernest Stanley, that the club was a cover for witchcraft, and that they should not be allowed membership to the CCOBN. Hoping to help Jack and Gardner's club out, the coven performed a ritual, and the situation was resolved.[8]

In the mid-1950s, Gardner began to encourage more publicity, something which annoyed many coven members. In 1957, Valiente and several other coven members confronted Gardner over this, claiming that they should have a set of rules to regulate such a thing. Gardner, in response, brought about the Wiccan Laws (not to be confused with the Wiccan Rede), which offended Valiente, and in 1957 she and many of the group's older members left to form their own coven.

The split-off coven asked if they could continue to use the Witches' Cottage for their rituals, but in a letter Gardner replied that:

There is an ancient lore dating back to the Burning Times that for security reasons no witch coven may meet less than 25 miles from another witch coven's meeting place.[9]

Gardner was left with a much younger coven, composed of Dayonis, her then partner Jack Bracelin, Fred Lamond, a hospital anaesthetist, and a new initiate.[10]

With Valiente gone, Dayonis took over as the high priestess of the coven in January 1958.[11] With Dayonis in charge, Gardner asked her to immediately initiate anyone who asked into the craft, in contrast with his former belief that prospective candidates should wait for a year and a day before initiation. One such of these new fast-tracked initiates was Fred Lamond, who was initiated only four months after meeting the coven for the first time.[12] Gardner also insisted on the initiation of Eleanor Bone, despite the fact that the coven members felt that they "simply couldn't circle with her" because of differences in exuberance. Within a month, Gardner had brought about her 2nd and 3rd initiations, and set her up as the High Priestess of a new coven, independent of the Bricket Wood one.[13]

In spring 1958, whilst Gardner was away from the coven staying at his museum on the Isle of Man, the other members decided that they did not want to continue using only binding and scourging to raise energies, and so they tried to do so by the circle dance method, which most found to be more effective than Gardner's preferred methods.[14] At the same time, the group decided that they wanted to celebrate the solstices and the equinoxes as well as the cross-quarter days (the coven at the time called them Halloween, Candlemass, Beltane and Lammas). Gardner gave his written permission for this, and it was adopted by other practitioners of the craft, such as Doreen Valiente.[15] This was the beginning of the belief in the Wiccan Wheel of the Year.

Dayonis moved to Canada in October 1959, and Lois Bourne became the coven's high priestess.[16]

1960s After Gerald Gardner’s death in 1964, Jack Bracelin took over the group as High Priest. He had been acting as High Priest for some time during Gerald’s many absences. At the same time, he inherited the Five Acres club from Gerald. However, shortly after this he had a crisis of faith and left the coven and abandoned the Craft; Lois Bourne left the coven a few months after Gerald’s death and was succeeded as High Priestess by June Cox. Zachary Cox, June’s then husband, succeeded Jack Bracelin as High Priest. Zach went on to serve as the coven High Priest for over 50 years.

1970s Onwards When June left the coven, she was succeeded as High Priestess by Jean Morton Williams – who had a highly successful working partnership with Zachary and they ran the coven together until Jean’s death in 2015.

In 1972 the group stopped using the Witches Cottage exclusively and started to have some of their meetings at Jean and Zach’s Crouch End home in North London. In 1975 they stopped working at Bricket Wood completely.

Under Jean and Zach, at their large Victorian Crouch End house, the coven thrived until Jean’s death in 2015 and Zach, due to his advanced years and ill health, then took an honorary role in the coven until his own death in 2019. Jean and Zach had a significant influence on many people who are key members of today’s Wiccan community.

2015 Onwards Jean was succeeded in 2016 as coven High Priestess by Ruth, the Coven Maiden who had lived and worked with Jean and Zach for over 30 years. Zach was succeeded as High Priest by Jon in 2017, who had also known them for 30 years. The coven still meets regularly in North London where it has a dedicated Temple.

In 2019 in response to attempts to misappropriate its name, the Coven protected it by registering it with Companies House as a non-profit making Company and created a Facebook page and website www.bricketwoodcoven.co.uk, to make it easier for academics, researchers, and authors to access accurate and accredited information about its history.