31 January 2023

Did Dirty Dick ever meet
Miss Havisham in a pub in
Bishopsgate with Sir Robert Peel?

Dirty Dick’s pub on Bishopsgate has existed for over 200 years (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

I have often walked out of Liverpool Street station in London, heading towards the East End, to be greeted by Dirty Dicks and Sir Robert Peel.

Well, not personally, but by the buildings that continue to display their names – a pub and a former pub.

Charlotte and I were in London the week before last for an ordinand in the Diocese in Europe who is currently placed in Budapest and who is following a course based in Cambridge.

We decided to have a pub lunch and ended up in Dirty Dicks, a pub on Bishopsgate, just across from Liverpool Street Station, and that claims to date back to 1745.

The pub is just a stone’s throw from Shoreditch, Spitalfields Market and Brick Lane , and is a well-known meeting place for people working in the City. Bright electric scarlet letters spell out the name of Dirty Dicks – without an apostrophe. But, if like me, you have wondered who was Dirty Dick, my questions were answered over lunch.

Nathaniel Bentley (1735-1809), commonly known as Dirty Dick, was an 18th and 19th century merchant who owned a warehouse and hardware shop in Leadenhall Street in London. He may have inspired the character of Miss Havisham in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations after he refused to wash following the death of his fiancée on their wedding day.

Bentley had been quite a dandy in his youth, earning the nickname the Beau of Leadenhall Street. He was blissfully happy to be getting married to the woman he truly loved, and he put much effort into planning their wedding reception. He laid the tables with blue and white, her favourite colours, along with flowers, wine, cutlery, and their wedding cake.

On the day of their wedding, shortly before heading to the church, Nathaniel put on his morning suit. Little did he know, he would never take it off. There was a knock at the door. His fiancée had died that very morning.

Nathaniel broke down. He locked the door of the reception room and would not allow anyone to enter, much less clear anything away. He refused to take off his suit, or to wash himself – ever again.

He lived in squalor for the rest of his life. ‘It’s of no use,’ he said. ‘If I wash my hands, they will be dirty again tomorrow.’

Nathaniel grieved this way for the rest of his life. His house, shop and warehouse became so filthy that he became a celebrity of dirt. Any letters addressed to ‘The dirty Warehouse, London’ were delivered to him. He stopped trading in 1804. He died at Haddington in 1809, still heart-broken, grief-stricken and dressed in the sad, flimsy rags that were once the morning suit he was to be married in. He was buried in Saint Peter’s churchyard in Aubourn, Lincoln.

‘Welcome to Dirty Dick’s, Home of the Infamous Legend’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Bentley’s warehouse was later demolished. But the pub he once owned on the east side of Bishopsgate, that was later known as the Old Jerusalem. Dirty Dicks is a recreation of Bentley’s former warehouse and shop. Successive owners capitalised on the legend, and by the end of the 19th century the owners were producing commemorative booklets and promotional material to advertise the pub.

One report in 1866 described the pub: ‘A small public house or rather a tap of a wholesale wine and spirit business … a warehouse or barn without floorboards – a low ceiling, with cobweb festoons dangling from the black rafters – a pewter bar battered and dirty, floating with beer – numberless gas pipes tied anyhow along the struts and posts to conduct the spirits from the barrels to the taps – sample phials and labelled bottles of wine and spirits on shelves – everything covered with virgin dust and cobwebs.’

The contents, including cobwebs and the mummified remains of cats and rats from the original warehouse, were originally part of the cellar bar. They have since been tidied away into a glass display case.

The pub had to undergo a degree of deep cleansing to comply with health and safety regulations in the 1980s, almost 200 years after Dirty Dick died.

A few doors away, at No 178 Bishopsgate, the Sir Robert Peel is former pub and a building that has also seen interesting times.

I wondered whether earlier proprietors of the former pub had any connections with Tamworth. But it seems to have taken its name from Sir Robert Peel from Tamworth, who was twice Prime Minister. He established the Metropolitan Police in 1829, two years after the death of ‘Dirty Dick’. The city of London police force was formed 10 years later.

Bishopsgate police station is close by at No 182, and there has been a station house or police station in Bishopsgate since about 1737. The pub dates back to the Georgian period. It may have been rebuilt ca 1900 and had a major refacing about 1930, when the windows were replaced and the tiled front added.

The ground floor front suffered the standard anonymising of the second half of the 20th century, but the picturesque tiling on the upper floors remains. The pub has since closed and the ground floor is now closed convenience shop.

But Sir Robert Peel still casts his eyes across Bishopsgate from the floors above.

Sir Robert Peel continues to gaze across Bishopsgate although the pub has been closed for many years (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Praying through poetry and
with USPG: 31 January 2023

The Tapestry in Eyam Museum recalling the brave and sacrificial story of the plague in 1665/1666

Patrick Comerford

Christmas is not a season of 12 days, despite the popular Christmas song. Christmas is a 40-day season that lasts from Christmas Day (25 December) to Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation on Thursday next (2 February).

Throughout the 40 days of this Christmas Season, I am reflecting in these ways:

1, Reflecting on a seasonal or appropriate poem;

2, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’

Over the past few days, I have been reflecting on poems written in Lichfield and Tamworth, which I returned to last week. My choice of poem this morning is ‘Eyam,’ written in Lichfield by Anna Seward (1742-1809), the poet known as the ‘Swan of Lichfield’.

Anna Seward (1742-1809) by Tilly Kettle … she was part of a literary and intellectual circle in Lichfield

The Coronavirus or Covid-19 –pandemic has been to the experiences in the past created by swine fever, SARS, fear of the HIV virus, ‘Mad Cow’ disease, Ebola, a fictitious virus like YK2 … or, further back in the past, ‘Spanish ’Flu’ or even the plague.

When the pandemic has run its course, even those who have not caught Covid-19 are going to continue how we were isolated and how major events were cancelled to stop it spreading.

Many years ago, decades before the Covid-19 pandemic, I visited Eyam, the ‘Plague Village’ in Derbyshire. Eyam still tells a memorable tale from the 17th century of self-sacrifice and bravery that remains an outstanding and unique story of redemptive self-sacrifice. It is a story that I am often reminded of in Lichfield when I hear the stories of Anna Seward and her poetry.

Eyam is a village in the Derbyshire Dales and in the Peak District. The village is noted for an outbreak of the plague in 1665, when the villagers chose to isolate themselves rather than let the infection spread.

Eyam was also badly affected by the Great Plague of 1665, although the plague is usually associated with London. The sacrifice made by the villagers of Eyam is said to have saved many places throughout the Midlands and northern England.

At the time of the plague, Eyam had a population of about 350. The most important person in the village was the Rector, the Revd William Mompesson (1639-1709), who moved to Eyam with his wife Catherine and their children in 1664.

In summer 1665, the village tailor received a flea-infested bundle of cloth from his supplier in London. This parcel contained the fleas that caused the plague. Within a week, the tailor’s assistant, George Vicars, had died from the plague. More began dying in the household soon after; by the end of September, five more villagers had died; 23 died in October.

As the plague spread, the villagers turned to their rector and his predecessor, the Revd Thomas Stanley. When some villagers wanted to flee to Sheffield, Mompesson feared they would bring the plague with them and persuaded them to cut themselves off from the outside would.

From May 1666, precautionary measures were introduced to slow the spread of the plague. Families buried their own dead and church services were moved to the natural amphitheatre at Cucklett Delph, allowing villagers to separate themselves and reduce the risk of infection.

The villagers voluntarily quarantined themselves although this would mean certain death for many of them. The village was supplied with food by people living outside who left supplies at the ‘plague stones’ marking the boundary that separated Eyam from the outside world.

The villagers left money in a water trough filled with vinegar to sterilise the coins. In this way, the people of Eyam were not left to starve to death, and the people who supplied the village with food did not come into contact with the plague.

Eyam continued to suffer from the plague throughout 1666. William Mompesson had to bury his own family in the churchyard. When his wife died in August 1666, he decided to hold services outdoors to reduce the chances of people catching the disease.

By November 1666, the plague had come to an end. In all, 260 out of 350 villagers had died in Eyam. But their selfless sacrifice saved many thousands of lives in the north of England.

Mompesson survived. He wrote at the end of the ordeal: ‘Now, blessed be God, all our fears are over for none have died of the plague since the eleventh of October and the pest-houses have long been empty.’

The plague ran its course over 14 months, but when it came to an end it had killed most of the villagers. The parish records provide the names of 273 people who were victims. Only 83 villagers survived out of a population of over 350.

Those who survived did so randomly and there is no explanation for their survival. Many of the survivors had close contact with those who died yet never caught the disease. Elizabeth Hancock buried six children and her husband within eight days, but was never infected herself. The village gravedigger Marshall Howe survived even though he handled many of the infected bodies.

Mompesson eventually remarried, moved parish, became a Prebendary of Southwell, and turned down the offer of becoming Dean of Lincoln before he died in 1709.

Every Plague Sunday, a wreath is laid on Catherine Mompesson’s grave in the churchyard. Plague Sunday has been marked in Eyam since the bicentenary of the plague in 1866. It now takes place in Cucklett Delph on the last Sunday in August, at the same time as Wakes Week and the Well Dressing ceremonies.

The Jacobean-style Eyam Hall was built by the Wright family in 1671, soon after the plague, and local mining helped Eyam to recover in population and to prosper economically. Today, many of the village houses and cottages are marked with plaques listing the names and ages of residents who died as victims of the plague, and the story of the plague village is told in Eyam Museum, and there is a plague window in the parish church.

Canon Thomas Seward (1708-1790) was Rector of Eyam for half a century from 1740 until his death in 1790, and his daughter, the poet Anna Seward, was born in Eyam in 1747. While he was still Rector of Eyam, he moved with his family 90 km south to the Bishop’s Palace in the Cathedral Close in Lichfield in 1754, and became Prebendary of Pipa Parva in Lichfield Cathedral.

Although she was born in Eyam, Anna Seward became known as the ‘Swan of Lichfield.’ In her Journal and in her correspondence, she recalled the stories of the plague in Eyam she had heard in her childhood. She returned from Lichfield to Eyam, in 1788 and her poem ‘Eyam’ is filled with nostalgia for her birthplace, tearfully recalling the story of the plague.
Eyam Hall, built shortly after the plague (Photograph: Dave Pape/Wikipedia)

Eyam, by Anna Seward:

For one short week I leave, with anxious heart,
Source of my filial cares, the Full of Days,
Lur’d by the promise of Harmonic Art
To breathe her Handel’s soul-exalting lays.
Pensive I trace the Derwent’s amber wave,
Foaming through umbrag’d banks, or view it lave
The soft, romantic vallies, high o’er-peer’d
By hills and rocks, in savage grandeur rear’d.
Not two short miles from thee, can I refrain
Thy haunts, my native Eyam, long unseen? –
Thou and thy lov’d inhabitants, again
Shall meet my transient gaze. – Thy rocky screen,
Thy airy cliffs I mount; and seek thy shade,
Thy roofs, that brow the steep, romantic glade;
But, while on me the eyes of Friendship glow,
Swell my pain’d sighs, my tears spontaneous flow.

In scenes paternal, not beheld through years,
Nor view’d, till now, but by a Father’s side,
Well might the tender, tributary tears,
From keen regrets of duteous fondness glide!
Its pastor, to this human-flock no more
Shall the long flight of future days restore!
Distant he droops, – and that once gladdening eye
Now languid gleams, ’en when his friends are nigh.

Through this known walk, where weedy gravel lies,
Rough, and unsightly; – by the long, coarse grass
Of the once smooth, and vivid green, with sighs
To the deserted Rectory I pass; –
Stray through the darken’d chambers’ naked bound,
Where childhood’s earliest, liveliest bliss I found;
How chang’d, since erst, the lightsome walls beneath,
The social joys did their warm comforts breathe!

Ere yet I go, who may return no more,
That sacred pile, ’mid yonder shadowy trees,
Let me revisit! – Ancient, massy door,
Thou gratest hoarse! – my vital spirits freeze,
Passing the vacant pulpit, to the space
Where humble rails the decent altar grace,
And where my infant sister’s ashes sleep,
Whose loss I left the childish sport to weep.
The gloves, suspended by the garland’s side,
White as its snowy flowers, with ribbons tied; –
Dear Village, long these wreaths funereal spread,
Simple memorials of thy early dead!

But O! thou bland, and silent pulpit! – thou,
That with a Father’s precepts, just, and bland,
Did’st win my ear, as reason’s strength’ning glow
Show’d their full value, now thou seem’st to stand
Before my sad, suffus’d, and trembling gaze,
The dreariest relic of departed days.
Of eloquence paternal, nervous, clear,
Dim Apparition thou – and bitter is my tear!

The Plague Cottage in Eyam (Photograph: Mickie Collins/Wikipedia)

USPG Prayer Diary:

The theme in the USPG Prayer Diary this week is the ‘Opening Our Hearts.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by James Roberts, Christian Programme Manager at the Council of Christians and Jews, who reflected on Holocaust Memorial Day last Friday and World Interfaith Harmony Week.

The USPG Prayer Diary today invites us to pray in these words:

Let us pray for the healing of relationships between Christians and Jews. May the Christian Church acknowledge its history of Jewish persecution and repent.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

Canon William Mompesson … the Vicar of Eyam, the ‘Plague Village’ in Derbyshire

30 January 2023

Sampling the largest public
art collection in Milton Keynes
during a visit to hospital

‘Family’ by Jon Buck at the entrance to Milton Keynes University Hospital (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

I was in Milton Keynes University Hospital again at the weekend for a check-up over 10 months after I was admitted to hospital with a stroke – 10 months and 10 days since 18 March 2022 to be precise.

This time, I was in the hospital for a follow-up to a procedure some months ago for some lesions on the skin of the head, probably caused by too much exposure to direct sunlight. I suppose I can blame myself for not wearing a hat over almost four decades during those many, lengthy summer holidays in Greece.

Once again, I have been impressed by the quality and standard of attention and care that I receive in every hospital I have attended over the past year. A neighbour was telling me yesterday that when she arrived at A&E one day recently, she was told there was a nine-hour waiting list. But this is not the fault of the NHS or the staff – this is due to the combined failure of the government to invest properly in the NHS and to the consequences of Brexit that has prevented the NHS from recruiting the best available to fill vacancies.

Being a patient and arriving early at the hospital, I had a little time to appreciate one of the many sculptures on the hospital campus. Arts for Health Milton Keynes is a project using arts and creativity to improve health and wellbeing.

The project organises exhibitions and workshops at the hospital, has developed an art trail app, and has inspired creative courtyards. This explains why Milton Keynes University Hospital has the largest public art collection in Milton Keynes, with over 450 artworks from local, national and international artists.

The collection ranges from sculptures, paintings and drawings to site-specific installations and commissions, and includes sculptures from nationally and internationally renowned artists such as Peter Randall-Page, Jon Buck and Glynn Williams.

Jon Buck has been working as a sculptor since graduating in the 1970s and has completed many public commissions. His two sculptures in Milton Keynes University Hospital are ‘Equilibrium’, a 165cm high bronze work, and ‘Family’, a 170 cm high bronze.

‘Family’ is one of two sculptures by Jon Buck in Milton Keynes University Hospital (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Jon Buck has exhibited regularly from 1980 on, mostly in Europe and America, and he has contributed to some of the recent significant sculpture exhibitions in Britain. He was born in 1951 and grew up just south of Bristol at the mouth of the river Avon. His was the first generation to break with the family tradition of becoming Bristol Channel Pilots. From an early age, he was determined to go his own way and his deep fascination with the natural world led to his first employment at Bristol Zoo.

Studying animals and birds at close quarters gave him the opportunity to indulge in his passion for drawing. Gradually, though, he became disillusioned with the unethical nature of the work and after initially enrolling on a science degree he transferred to a Fine Art course at Cardiff in 1975.

After his first degree at Nottingham, Jon Buck took a Master’s degree at Manchester and then received a Fellowship at Cheltenham School of Art. At this point, he began showing with the Nicholas Treadwell gallery based in London. In the early 1980s, he became part of a disparate group of artists for whose work Treadwell coined the term ‘Superhumanism’.

He received a grant from Southern Arts in 1984 to become Artist in Residence for the Borough of Thamesdown in a regeneration area of Swindon. This placement gave him the opportunity to make his first large-scale work and to take on the challenge of making art for a public place.

Until then, all his sculptures were cast in resin and glass fibre. The Swindon experience showed him how inadequate these materials were for art in an external environment. This led to Jon Buck adopting bronze as his preferred media and into developing a close collaboration with his casting foundry, Pangolin Editions. This relationship has been central to his attempt to use traditional processes to make contemporary images.

Jon Buck has continued to work in both the public and private realms and for over 20 years he was Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Southampton Solent University and a visiting lecturer at other art colleges and institutions.

Central to his work has always been his interest in humanity’s connection to the natural world. In art, he has always believed in some sort of visual ‘lingua franca’ and has been fascinated with art outside the western tradition, particularly African sculpture. In addition, the art of prehistory, outsider art and the drawings of children have all affected his way of thinking about making art.

He has worked on a number of occasions as artist consultant with Camlin Lonsdale Landscape Architects, in conjunction with planners and other artists, most notably on the Caerphilly Town Centre Enhancement Scheme in 1995.

He was the artist chosen to be part of a team for the enhancement and refurbishment of Deal Pier in 1998. This involved a major public consultation scheme and collaboration with planners and landscape architects from Kent County Council. The resulting work won the 1999 Rouse Kent Award for Public Art.

Jon Buck was invited to deliver a sculpture workshop at Makerere University, Kampala, in 2004 on behalf of the Ruwenzori Sculpture Foundation. He returned to Uganda in 2007 and 2009 to undertake further design research into tribal and clan totems for the Foundation and to oversee the translation of his designs into a series of bronze casts.

Milton Keynes University Hospital actively promotes the arts (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Praying through poetry and
with USPG: 30 January 2023

‘The radiant Orb unveils, / In all his pride of light’ (Anna Seward) … early morning on Stowe Pool to the east of Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Christmas is not a season of 12 days, despite the popular Christmas song. Christmas is a 40-day season that lasts from Christmas Day (25 December) to Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation on Thursday next (2 February).

Throughout the 40 days of this Christmas Season, I am reflecting in these ways:

1, Reflecting on a seasonal or appropriate poem;

2, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’

The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today commemorates Charles king and martyr (1649). As a young prince, Charles I was a guest of the Comberford family at the Moat House on Lichfield Street, Tamworth, in 1619, while his father stayed at Tamworth Castle.

Anna Seward (1742-1809) by Tilly Kettle … she was part of a literary and intellectual circle in Lichfield

I was back in Tamworth last week, visiting the Moat House and some places associated with the Comberford family, and in recent mornings my reflections have drawn on poems about Tamworth by Mal Dewhirst, ‘Our Town’ and ‘We are Tamworth.’

I thought it only fair, therefore, to reflect on a poem from Lichfield this morning, and my choice of poem is ‘Sonnet 52’, by Anna Seward (1742-1809), a Romantic poet, often called the ‘Swan of Lichfield’.

Anna Seward was the elder of two surviving daughters of Canon Thomas Seward (1708-1790), a prebendary of Lichfield Cathedral and Salisbury Cathedral, and his wife Elizabeth (Hunter). Elizabeth later had three further children, who all died in infancy, and two stillbirths. Anna Seward mourned their loss in her poem Eyam (1788).

Anna Seward was born on 12 December 1742 in Eyam in the Peak District of Derbyshire, where her father was Rector. Anna and her younger sister Sarah spent almost all their lives in the Peak District and in Lichfield.

When Thomas Seward was appointed a Canon Residentiary of Lichfield Cathedral in 1749, he moved to Lichfield with his family. They moved into the Bishop’s Palace in the Cathedral Close in 1754. Sarah (Sally) died suddenly of typhus at the age of 19 in 1764.

Anna Seward was part of a literary and cultural circle in Lichfield that included Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Erasmus Darwin, Thomas Day, Maria Edgeworth, the poet Sir Brooke Boothby whose family once owned the Moat House, and the Levett family. She was also involved in the Lunar Society in Birmingham, which included Josiah Wedgwood and Richard Lovell Edgeworth.

Anna Seward cared for her father in the last 10 years of his life, after he suffered a stroke. When he died in 1790, he left her financially independent with an income of £400 per annum. She continued to live at the Bishop's Palace until she died on 25 March 1809.

My choice of poem this morning, ‘Sonnet 52’ by Anna Seward, is appropriate reading early on a Monday morning and at the beginning of the week.


The former Bishop’s Palace in Lichfield … home of the poet Anna Seward, the ‘Swan of Lichfield’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Sonnet 52, by Anna Seward:

Yes, thou shalt smile again! – Time always heals,
In Youth, the wounds of sorrow. – O! survey
Yon now subsided Deep, thro’ night a prey
To warring winds, and to their furious peals
Surging tumultuous. – Yet, as in dismay,
The settling billows tremble – Morning steals
Grey on the rocks; and soon, to pour the day
From the streak’d east, the radiant Orb unveils,
In all his pride of light. – Thus shall the glow
Of beauty, health, and hope, by soft degrees
Spread o’er thy breast; – disperse these storms of woe:
Wake with soft Pleasure’s sense, the wish to please,
Till from those eyes the wonted lustres flow,
Bright as the Sun, on calm, and crystal Seas.

‘Yes, thou shalt smile again! – Time always heals’ (Anna Seward) … the Friary Clock Tower in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

USPG Prayer Diary:

The theme in the USPG Prayer Diary this week is the ‘Opening Our Hearts.’ This theme was introduced yesterday by James Roberts, Christian Programme Manager at the Council of Christians and Jews, who reflected on Holocaust Memorial Day last Friday and World Interfaith Harmony Week.

The USPG Prayer Diary today invites us to pray in these words:

Let us pray for our Jewish brothers and sisters at this time of remembrance. May their pain and loss never be forgotten, and the Holocaust be a perpetual reminder of where prejudice and discrimination ends.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

The statue of King Charles I outside Lichfield Cathedral … he is commemorated with a Lesser Festival in the Church of England on 30 January (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

29 January 2023

All Saints Church, Milton Keynes
Village, is one of the largest
and most attractive mediaeval
churches in Buckinghamshire

All Saints’ Church in Milton Keynes Village … one of the largest and most attractive mediaeval churches in Buckinghamshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

All Saints’ Church in Milton Keynes Village – or Middleton, as it is sometimes called – is one of the largest and most attractive mediaeval churches Buckinghamshire, in a forgotten corner hidden in the midst of modern Milton Keynes.

Charlotte and I visited the church last week after celebrating my birthday at lunch in the Swan Inn in Milton Keynes Village, the mediaeval village that has given its name to the new city.

In John Betjeman’s Guide to English Parish Churches (1958), Clive Rouse describes All Saints’ Church as ‘Text book 14th century.’ This attractive church, with its roofs and north tower, is said to be one of the best examples in this area of the Decorated period of architecture.

Little is known of the first church built in Milton Keynes, but it may have been stood at the Saxon burial ground discovered in 1992 close to the old Rectory. On All Saints’ Day 1995, 100 Saxon bodies were reburied in the churchyard at All Saint Saints’ Church.

On All Saints’ Day 1995, 100 Saxon bodies were reburied at All Saint Saints’ Churchyard (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

All Saints’ Church was mainly built ca 1330, although the chancel arch remains from an earlier building on the site and dates from ca 1200. All Saints’ Church consists of a chancel, north chapel, north tower and south porch. It is built of stone rubble, faced both internally and externally, and the roofs are covered with tiles.

The layout of the church is unusual, with a chancel offset from the centre-line of the nave so that a chapel could be accommodated on the north side of the church. The tower is also in an unusual position on the north side of the nave.

The earliest-known church on the present site, on the opposite side of Willen Road from the Old Rectory, dates from ca 1200. Most of the glebe land owned by the church was on the east side of the road, beside to the Rectory.

The church was first mentioned in 1221, when Luke de Kaynes presented Ralph de Kaynes to the rectory. This earlier church may have had a north aisle with an arcade of pillars, and when the church was rebuilt it may have been decided to incorporate the aisle into the nave. The only remains of the original structure are the east wall of the nave, the fine chancel arch, and a lancet reset in the south wall of the nave.

The present church dates from an extensive rebuilding ca 1330 by Philip de Aylesbury, then lord of the manor. The nave was widened towards the north and probably lengthened, the chancel enlarged, and the chapel, tower, and porch added.

The three-stage tower of All Saints’ Church is in an unusual position on the north side of the nave (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

An extensive restoration was carried out in 1864 by George Edmund Street, the Oxford Diocesan Architect, with a grant from the Incorporated Society for Buildings and Churches. Street also restored Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, at this time. He was sensitive to the decorated period features of the church, and eliminated some of the later alterations to bring it more into line with his ideas of how it would have been ca 1330.

Street’s major changes included the steeply-pitched tile nave roof. The interior was extensively remodelled, the plaster was stripped from the walls, a new floor of contemporary tiles was laid, with wood under the nave seating.

Two of the windows and the straight parapets, which are carried round the church, have been substantially renewed, but otherwise the mediaeval stonework is well-preserved, and the church, with its fine traceried windows, elaborate south doorway and openwork porch, is one of the finest examples of 14th-century architecture in Buckinghamshire.

The east window in the chancel is of three trefoiled lights, with reticulated tracery in a pointed head. On the south are two fine traceried windows, each with two cinquefoil lights, while near the west end of the wall is a two-light low-side window, both lights of which are rebated internally for shutters.

Immediately to the east of the low-side window is a small moulded doorway with a pointed head. A piscina, credence niche, and two sedilia, enclosed in a square head with shields in the spandrels, and divided from each other by circular shafts, form one composition of three bays below the east window on this side. The sedilia are trefoiled and have their seats on different levels. The piscina and credence, which are formed by the subdivision of the east bay by a central shaft, are cinquefoil in shape, and their shafts are carried down below the sills to the level of the seat of the adjacent sedile.

The north side of the chapel, including one of two small low-side openings doors (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

On the north side, opening to the chapel, is an arcade of two pointed arches, supported by a circular pillar and filleted responds with moulded capitals and bases. The capitals of the responds were originally enriched by carvings on each side, but these have been cut away. To the east of the arcade is a plain locker recess. The chancel arch, which dates from ca 1200, is acutely pointed, and springs from engaged shafts with moulded bases and water-leaf capitals.

The north chapel was probably founded for a chantry by Philip Aylesbury, who died in 1349, or his grandson John who succeeded him. It was endowed by the Chaworth and Stafford families in the reign of Henry VI, for Masses to be said for the souls of their ancestors in the Aylesbury family. After the Tudor Reformation, the north chapel was converted into a school during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

The chapel is lighted from the east by a window of three cinquefoil lights with flowing tracery in an ogee head, and from the north by three windows, two of which are of two cinquefoil lights with graceful tracery in their heads; the remaining window, at the west end of the wall, is a single light.

The two small low-side openings doors near each other in the north wall are most unusual. Between these openings is a moulded doorway with a pointed head.

The nave has three windows in the south wall, two in the north wall, and one in the west wall, all of three lights with tracery in pointed heads. All of these date from the 14th century, with the exception of the west window, where only the jambs are original.

To the west of the two windows on the north is a doorway similar to that in the chapel, and at the east end of the north wall is a pointed arch, opening to the ground stage of the tower, with moulded responds, the capitals of which are embellished with ball-flower and dog-tooth ornament.

The south porch at All Saints’ Church in Milton Keynes Village (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

The south doorway is a particularly rich and well-preserved example of 14th-century work. It has an acutely pointed head with continuous mouldings, the inner part of which develops into a large trefoil with sub-cusping. The label is enriched with a running ball-flower ornament and terminates in carved stops. The bases of the jambs have been restored.

The three-stage tower has buttresses and an embattled parapet, and a ring of five bells.

Some memorials on the chancel floor were lost when the floor was retiled, many other furnishings were changed, including the pulpit and font, and quotations from the scriptures were placed on boards over all the windows and archways, although these have since been removed.

A new porch was added outside the north door of the nave in 2019 to house two toilets. This modern addition closely matches the style of the church in its exterior design.

In a field to the west of the church are the remains of a moat and traces of fishponds, probably the site of the ancient manor house and its ponds known as the Pondwykes in 1418. The school at the north end of the village was built in 1859.

The west end of All Saints’ Church in Milton Keynes Village (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

The advowson descended with the manor, but on the death of Hugh Aylesbury in 1423 the Chaworth and Stafford families divided the advowson between them, each taking alternate turns to present or nominate the rector.

The Stafford family’s interest descended with the manor, and the Chaworth family’s interest descended with the Manor of Drayton Beauchamp until ca 1543, when it was held by the Revd Thomas Dynham and his cousin the Revd Thomas Babington.

The Revd Francis Babington, who was the Rector of Milton Keynes in 1559-1565, appears to have been a son of Humphrey Babington (1489-1544) and his wife Eleanor Beaumont; she was a co-heir with her sisters Dorothy who married Humphrey Comberford and Jane who married William Babington of Teremore.

Francis Babington was also Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Oxford University and Master of Balliol College, Oxford (1559-1560), but he was forced to flee overseas because of his Catholic sympathies and died in exile ca 1569.

The Revd Louis Atterbury (1631-1693) was the Rector of Milton Keynes during the Civil War and Commonwealth period, and remained in office after the Restoration (1657-1693). He drowned in Broughton Brook on the night of 7 December 1693 in suspicious circumstances while he was returning from a meeting in London with his lawyers to discuss a land dispute with the Finches, Lords of the Manor.

Lewis Atterbury’s son, Francis Atterbury (1663-1732), was born in the rectory in Milton Keynes and later became Dean of Westminster and Bishop of Rochester. Bishop Atterbury was arrested in 1722 during the so-called ‘Atterbury Plot’ by Jacobites. He protested his innocence, and may have been the victim of his High Church sympathies. He died in exile in Paris, but was brought back and buried in Westminster Abbey.

The Queen Anne-style Old Rectory in Milton Keynes Village built in 1696-1711 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

The Queen Anne-style Old Rectory is a red brick house built in 1696-1711 by the antiquarian, the Revd Dr William Wotton, who was the Rector of Milton Keynes in 1693-1726. The previous rectory was an stone house built around a courtyard.

The Old Rectory is a Grade 2 listed building and remains the largest house in the village. The last rector to live there was the Revd John Franklin Cheyne. It was bought from the Oxford Diocese in the early 1960s, when the gardens were remodelled.

The Old Rectory was eventually acquired by the Milton Keynes Development Corporation and split into four separate apartments that were later sold on. The stone-built garden wall facing Willen Road probably dates from the time of the earlier stone built Rectory and also has Grade 2 listing.

All Saints Church in Milton Keynes Village, along with Saint Mary’s Church, Wavendon, Church Without Walls, Broughton, and Christ the King Church, Kent’s Hill, form the Walton Churches Partnership (WCP), an ecumenical parish created in 1985 in a partnership between the Church of England, the United Reformed Church, the Baptist Church, the Roman Catholic Church and the Methodist Church. There are also two redundant church buildings in the area: Saint Michael’s Church, Walton Hall, and Saint Lawrence’s Church, Broughton.

The Rector is the Revd Matt Trendall, and Sunday services in All Saints are at 11:15.

The village school in Milton Keynes Village was built in 1859 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Praying through poetry and
with USPG: 29 January 2023

The Moat House, the former Comberford home on Lichfield Street, depicted on the welcome sign at Tamworth Railway Station (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

Today is the Fourth Sunday of Epiphany, although some parishes may decide to bring forward the celebration of the Feast of the Presentation from next Thursday to this morning.

Later this morning, I plan to be at the Parish Eucharist in the Church of Saint Mary and Saint Giles in Stony Stratford. But before the day begins I am taking some time in prayer and reflection at the beginning of the day.

Christmas is not a season of 12 days, despite the popular Christmas song. Christmas is a 40-day season that lasts from Christmas Day (25 December) to Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation on Thursday next (2 February).

Throughout the 40 days of this Christmas Season, I am reflecting in these ways:

1, Reflecting on a seasonal or appropriate poem;

2, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’

‘Our town has underused churches and underappreciated ancient monuments’ … Saint Editha’s Church and the town seen from Tamworth Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I was back in Tamworth last week, visiting some places associated with the Comberford family. So, my choice of poem this morning is another poem about Tamworth by Mal Dewhirst, ‘Our Town.’

Mal Dewhirst, who died in 2021, became Staffordshire’s first poet laureate in 2012. He lived in Tamworth and Tamworth inspired a number of his poems.

He was a writer and film maker, and his plays have been performed across the Midlands, including ‘The Fell Walker’ in Tamworth and ‘At the Crossroads’ at the Garrick in Lichfield, which was commissioned by the Lichfield Mysteries.

Mal was a poet-in-residence in a town market and an archaeological dig, his work has been published in many magazines and journals, and he appeared on BBC Radio and Radio Wildfire. He was also responsible for the Polesworth Poets Trail.

Mal was a regular reader on the Midlands poetry scene and was part of the Coventry Cork Literature exchange in 2011, performing readings in Cork City and Limerick. As a film director, his film Double Booked was shown at the Corona Fastnet Short Film Festival in Ireland in 2014.

He hoped to bring ground-breaking writing to new audiences, always seeking to redefine boundaries, and wanted to develop and improvise new work as collaborations with other artists and performers in unexpected places as a melding of ideas, skills and talents.

Tamworth Castle, on a mound above the town (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Our Town, by Mal Dewhirst:

Our town is being defined
by the corporate; coffee shop, pseudo design brand clothing stores, token music shop and two branches of a major pharmacy,
mixed in with charity shops for our hearts, the aged, the hospice and cancer.
It has an out of town retail park
with two supermarkets, a pet store, two electrical shops and a DIY store,
all mingled among a disruptive road network.

I know what you’re thinking,
Our town sounds just like your town.
It has several co-ops, a flower shop, a row of; banks and building societies,
travel agents and estate agents, solicitors and accountants,
they all group together, power in numbers,
creating quarters, where they know each others secrets.
Then there is the local council office, the tourist information centre,
pubs and restaurants, cafes and Kebab shops,
cheep booze emporiums,
where Chateauneuf-du-Pape is not even an aspiration.
Market stalls on xdays and ydays,
for the purveyors of:
fleeces and fruit, trainers and towels,
books and batteries, rugs and rollers,
cheese and chutney,
Our town sounds just like your town

Our town has a Non-league football team,
whose fans chant about coming from our town,
how nobody likes us but we don’t care,
just like they do in your town.
We have a leisure centre, with swimming pool and gym,
all franchised out to entrepreneurs from the Dragons den.
Our town has underused churches and underappreciated ancient monuments,
it has some green open spaces with swings and a slide
and some artworks, that just appeared as if dropped by aliens.
There is a carnival in the summer,
where lorries squeeze through open backed streets
and the sea cadets, girl guides and boy scouts
hold on for dear life, whilst the spectators thrown coins at them.
The carnival, when they crown a local girl as queen
who smiles for the camera and hopes that there is more to fame than this.

Our town has the battle of the bands in the autumn,
when young testosterone filled teenagers
thrash guitars and grunt about being misunderstood.

Our town has a bonfire and fireworks in the park,
except now it’s only fireworks
because the fire destroys the grass.
Our town sounds just like your town

Our town was badly re-planned in the sixties and has a local newspaper
that keeps reminding us, by printing pictures from the past.

Our town’s car parks are free after seven pm
but demands payment for a minimum of two hours at all other times.

Our town has its Assembly rooms where fading sixties bands strut their Zimmer tunes,
and the local dance groups hold their annual shows,
followed by the X factor rejects, grabbing their last gigs
before disappearing into Wikipedia.

Our town has its taxi ranks where A2B vie for business with Ourtown Taxi’s,
there is a bus garage that is in the narrowest most inappropriate part of town,
the multiplex Cinema surround sounds an American Diner.
Pedestrianised streets where
there are sometimes fights at weekends,
tears and bruises, over indulgent consequences.
Fading hotels, who have offers for weddings
where suits feel uncomfortable
upon their wearers
and women wear large bright hats.
Our town sounds just like your town.

Our town has bred several footballers, rock musicians and the odd writer,
all of whom no longer live here,
and never mention that they ever lived here,
We do have many other worthies, who were named after the roads,
where boy racers now avoid the awkward speed bumps
as they tear up the worthy tarmac.

Our town has its own crest,
is tripleted with several foreign towns,
one in Germany, as an act of reconciliation,
another in France, although I did not realise Agincourt still ran so deep,
and the obvious one, the one with same name, in a former British colony.
Our town used to produce things,
was known for producing certain things;
now either people don’t want our things,
or they can be made cheaper in Eastern Europe or China,
our town has lost its industry
has become overspill for the city
has more incomers who commute to work,
than those who are born and bred and speak with a local accent,
use local sayings; know everyone and who they are related too.

OK, In our town there is a familiar feeling
that our town is just like your town.

© Mal Dewhirst

‘Our town has its own crest’ … the Tamworth Arms on Lichfield Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

USPG Prayer Diary:

The theme in the USPG Prayer Diary this week is the ‘Opening Our Hearts.’ This theme is introduced this morning by James Roberts, Christian Programme Manager at the Council of Christians and Jews, who reflects on Holocaust Memorial Day and World Interfaith Harmony Week.

Holocaust Memorial Day, which we commemorated on Friday, and World Interfaith Harmony Week, which begins on Wednesday, require us to open our hearts, both to the memory of the past and towards a more tolerant and loving future.

Holocaust Memorial Day is when we remember all the victims of Nazi persecution, including the six million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust, and all subsequent genocides. In order to authentically witness to the memory of the Holocaust, we need to open our hearts to the pain of the past. We need to inform ourselves of this shameful history, and to hold the memory of the victims in our minds. We may even look inwards and ask ourselves how we might do more to stand up for those who are persecuted, abused, or rejected in our world today.

To look forward towards a better future, towards a world where genocide will be no more, we must also open our hearts to the other — to our neighbours, to people who are different from us. In interfaith harmony week, we think especially of people of other faiths.

To open our hearts to the memory of the past, and to our neighbours, is to actively and prayerfully strive towards harmony between all people, so that we may grow one step closer to a world united in love.

The USPG Prayer Diary today invites us to pray in these words:

Lightness our darkness, O Lord,
and reveal the unspeakable
lest we forget the victims of our inhumanity.
Turn our hearts to repentance and our actions to justice.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued Tomorrow

‘Our town has … underappreciated ancient monuments’ … the Comberford monument in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

28 January 2023

The real Milton Keynes,
the economist, the poet and
the mediaeval village at
the heart of Milton Keynes

The Swan Inn in Milton Keynes Village … almost as old as the village that gives its name to Milton Keynes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

Until I moved to this area almost last year, I accepted the popular assumption that Milton Keynes was given its name to honour the poet John Milton and the economist John Maynard Keynes.

I was soon dissuaded of this popular belief, and quickly learned that the name of the new city comes from one of the historic villages that already existed in this part of north Buckinghamshire, Milton Keynes Village.

Charlotte and I celebrated my birthday earlier this week in Milton Keynes Village, where we had lunch at the Swan Inn, a thatched country pub and restaurant that claims to date back to the 13th century.

This could be chocolate-box-cover England or picture-postcard England. The village has many pretty houses and cottages that are half-timbered with thatched roofs. Certainly, the Swan Inn was known in the village of Milton Keynes since 1550, and the present building dates largely from the 16th and 17th centuries. The dates point to the antiquity of Milton Keynes, and provide clues to its centuries-long history.

Milton Keynes Village is at the heart of Middleton, a district of Milton Keynes, and part of the historic civil parish of Milton Keynes, which predates the foundation of the new city in 1967. The village was originally known as Middeltone in the 11th century, and was later known as Middelton Kaynes or Caynes in the 13th century, Milton Keynes in the 15th century, and Milton alias Middelton Gaynes in the 17th century.

Many of the houses and cottages in Milton Keynes Village are half-timbered with thatched roofs (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Before the Conquest, Queen Edith held this manor, which in 1086 was held of the king by Godric Cratel. The de Cahaines family held the manor from 1166 to the late 13th century, as well as other manors that they gave their name to, including Ashton Keynes, Wiltshire, Somerford Keynes, Gloucestershire, and Horsted Keynes, West Sussex.

The Keynes suffix was added in the 12th century when members of the de Cahaignes or Keynes family were the lords of the manor. The village became known as Middleton Keynes, eventually shortening to Milton Keynes, although ‘Mydilton Keynes’ and ‘Milton Keynes’ appear on the same record in 1452.

This name Middleton means the middle of three settlements or farmsteads; the two other settlements were Bro(c)tone (Broughton) and Waltone (Walton).

The Middleton part of the name was gradually shortened to Milton, although some documents used the form Middleton until the 19th century.

There is no record of Milton for almost a century after Domesday, but it appears to have been held by the Bereville family, whose line ended in a daughter and heir Mabel, who married Hugh de Kaynes (Chahaines, Caaignes, Kahaignes) ca 1166. He owned land in other parts of Buckinghamshire and in neighbouring Bedfordshire and Berkshire.

Hugh de Kaynes died at the beginning of the 13th century, and Mabel de Bereville died ca 1221. Their son Luke de Kaynes was the lord of Milton in 1234. When he died ca 1259, he was succeeded by his son John de Kaynes, who died ca 1283.

Abbot’s Cottage … the Abbey of St Albans acquired land in Milton in the early 14th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

The Abbey of St Albans acquired land in Milton in the early 14th century, and the abbey continued to acquire property in the area until the Reformation.

Milton Manor passed to Philip Aylesbury who married Margaret de Kaynes, and who was holding the manor in 1302 and 1316. The Staffords obtained the whole of Milton and Broughton in the early 15th century when Humphrey Stafford married Eleanor Aylesbury. He was slain in Jack Cade’s Rebellion in 1450, and was succeeded by his son Humphrey. A later Humphrey Stafford was executed as a traitor 1486. Milton Keynes was then granted to Sir Edward Poyning, who gave his name to ‘Poyning’s Law’ in Ireland.

When Poyning died in 1521, Milton Keynes was restored to Humphrey Stafford, and Milton Keynes remained in the hands of the Stafford family for almost a century.

William Stafford inherited the estate in 1643, but by then the estate had been mortgaged by his father to Sir Lewis Watson, afterwards Lord Rockingham of Rockingham, and Henry Stafford sold the manor in 1677 to Daniel Finch, who later succeeded as 2nd Earl of Nottingham, and then as 7th Earl of Winchilsea.

When George Finch, 9th Earl of Winchilsea, died unmarried in 1826, the manor passed to his illegitimate son George Finch of Burley-on-the-Hill, near Oakham in Rutland. The Finches lived in a Palladian house in Rutland and never lived permanently in the village of Milton Keynes, although they held on to the estate until just before World War II. Their control of the village made it a ‘closed’ community that changed little for many centuries. The only other land holder in the village was the church, and the rectors were appointed by the lords of the manor.

When Wilfred Finch died, the estate was sold in 1939. It was bought by William Mitchell, who sold it to the Society of Merchant Venturers of Bristol at the end of World War II. The society held several estate villages in the area, and for a time its estate office was at Sunnyside, a house on Willen Road.

The Society of Merchant Venturers of Bristol sold Milton Keynes village and estate when the new city was being planned in the 1960s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

When the new city of Milton Keynes was planned in the 1960s,the society was sold the estate to the Milton Keynes Development Corporation. Those searching for a name lighted on the ancient village of Milton Keynes, which was within the designated area and appeared to have attractive associations with the poet John Milton and the economist John Maynard Keynes.

John ‘Jock’ Middleton Campbell, Lord Campbell of Eskan, was the first chairman of the Milton Keynes Development Corporation. He would recall the decision on a name for the town had been given to Dick Crossman, a minister in Harold Wilson’s cabinet.

Crossman’s wife Ann had worked at Bletchley Park during World War II. He was looking at a map of the area where the town was going to be built and spotted the village’s name, before remarking: ‘Milton the poet, Keynes the economic one. “Planning with economic sense and idealism, a very good name for it”.’

The Milton Keynes Development Corporation re-used the name Middleton for the ‘grid square’ in which the village sits. The original core village of the district, along Walton Road and Broughton Road, has retained its Milton Keynes road signs and has several rural village houses and the thatched Swan Inn. It is now known as Milton Keynes Village.

After lunch, we strolled around the village, visiting All Saints’ Church, the old rectory built at the turn of the 17th and 18th century, and the village school, built in 1859.

As dusk enfolded Milton Keynes, we returned to the Swan Inn. The inn lost its thatch in a fire in 1970, but was fully restored. Sadly, fire visited the Swan again on the afternoon of 7 December 2011, but not all the building was affected, and the Swan reopened partly on 23 December and reopened fully on 23 November 2012. The staff called us a taxi, and we were back in Stony Stratford late in the evening.

The story of All Saints’ Church is for telling another day.

Dick Crossman, a minister in Harold Wilson’s cabinet, is said to have elected the name of Milton Keynes Village for the new city (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Praying through poetry and
with USPG: 28 January 2023

Tamworth Castle and the Moat House, the former Comberford home on Lichfield Street, decorate the welcome sign at Tamworth Railway Station (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

Christmas is not a season of 12 days, despite the popular Christmas song. Christmas is a 40-day season that lasts from Christmas Day (25 December) to Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation on Thursday next (2 February).

Throughout the 40 days of this Christmas Season, I am reflecting in these ways:

1, Reflecting on a seasonal or appropriate poem;

2, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’

I interrupted that pattern to mark the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which came to an end on Wednesday.

I have an appointment in Milton Keynes University Hospital later this morning. But, before the day gets busy, I am taking some time for prayer and reflection.

Inside Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

I was back in Tamworth earlier this week, visiting some places associated with the Comberford family. So, my choice of poem this morning is Mal Dewhirst’s ‘We are Tamworth,’ a poem commissioned for ‘This is Tamworth’ at Birmingham Symphony Hall on 3 July 2014.

Mal Dewhirst, who died in 2021, became Staffordshire’s first poet laureate in 2012. He lived in Tamworth and Tamworth inspired a number of his poems.

He was a writer and film maker, and his plays have been performed across the Midlands, including ‘The Fell Walker’ in Tamworth and ‘At the Crossroads’ at the Garrick in Lichfield, which was commissioned by the Lichfield Mysteries.

Mal was a poet-in-residence in a town market and an archaeological dig, his work has been published in many magazines and journals, and he appeared on BBC Radio and Radio Wildfire. He was also responsible for the Polesworth Poets Trail.

Mal was a regular reader on the Midlands poetry scene and was part of the Coventry Cork Literature exchange in 2011, performing readings in Cork City and Limerick. As a film director, his film Double Booked was shown at the Corona Fastnet Short Film Festival in Ireland in 2014.

He hoped to bring ground-breaking writing to new audiences, always seeking to redefine boundaries, and wanted to develop and improvise new work as collaborations with other artists and performers in unexpected places as a melding of ideas, skills and talents.

Sir Robert Peel’s statue outside the Town Hall in Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

We are Tamworth, by Mal Dewhirst:

We are Tamworth
We are Tamworth
We are Tamworth
From the Lamb
from Stonydelph, Wincote, Belgrave, Amington, Two Gates, Lakeside, Riverside, Coton Green, Gillway, Perrycrofts. The Leys, Leyfields, Glascote and its Heath, Bolehall, Dosthill, Kettlebrook, Bitterscote, Castle and town and all our blessed lands.
We are Tamworth.

Where Tame meets Anker,
bringing Birmingham and Black Country tales
to mix with the Anker's Warwickshire words,
all the ripple and flow from here, to the Trent, to the Humber, to the Sea.

Rivers spilling full lap through meadowlands:
where Offa palaced in the castled grounds
of Sandybacks and Plastic Pigs,

Aetheflaeda proclaimed
build me a bridge, a Lady Bridge,
then guard it so that only I might cross.
Build me a mound, a castled mound,
where I might live and watch for dust.

This is Tamworth.
Where Saxon and Viking built their border,
we gave camp to the knights of Bosworth field,
where Roundhead met Cavalier on the Tame bridges
and we gave tea to soldiers as they passed on to the Somme,
always trying to bring some comfort to conflict.

This is Tamworth
where Enigma Heroes learned to swim,
ski’s ride summers of man-made frosts,
Rawlett, preached his legacy of learning,
where Guy built a town hall and gave Alms
then took them away when he didn’t get the vote
and Policeman Peel built his weaving mills,
warp and weft, webbing and tape,
building his new manifesto.

This is Tamworth where the Beatles and the Stones played,
in their constant touring, egg and chip days.
Tamworth, where the original Teardrop Exploded,
and Wolfsbane gave us a massive noise injection,
where every year we see the Assembly Rooms
host the next Battle of the Bands,
which is not when young testosterone filled teenagers
thrash guitars and grunt about being misunderstood.
It is when, just maybe, our Beatles and Rolling Stones might be heard.

Ventura Park and Ankerside, the retail lands
of designer brands and coffee shops,
supermarkets, house and homes,
enclosed by roads that circle and twist and never want to let you leave.

Market on Tuesdays and Saturdays,
for the purveyors of:
fleeces and fruit, cakes and clothes, trainers and towels,
books and batteries, rugs and rollers,
cheese and chutney, shoes and socks, games and gifts.

Town has several co-ops, flower shops, a row of: banks and building societies,
travel agents and estate agents, solicitors and accountants,
they all group together, power in numbers,
creating quarters, where they know each others secrets.
All watched over by the Philosophers of Upstairs, Downstairs, Sidewalk Cafe.

This is Tamworth
Our housing estates that are built on themes; of counties, of plants,
cars, poets, space travel and stately homes – and we don’t waste
people’s time in naming our roads, don’t see the point of adding road or
street or close – makes it so much easier to write an envelope.
And have you noticed that many of our famous people were named after the streets.

Famous people: Marmion, Ferrers, Robert Peel. Thomas Guy, John Rawlett, William McGregor, Colin Grazier, Tom Williams back to Ethelflaeda and Offa, and onward to Julian Cope, Blayze Bailey, Phil Bates, Mark Albrighton. Miss Pym and her suffragettes –
All worthies who have a staked a claim in Tamworth.

Along with the miners of Glascote and Amington, the car workers of Reliant, the spinners and weavers, the potters and warehouse crews. The choirs and bands all hammering the sound of Tamworth.

This is created in Tamworth, along with the crafts and cakes, the paintings and
sculpted forms that bring all the welcomes into the light of valued art.

This is Tamworth
Where the Herald reports our community woes and triumphs
then reminds of how the town used to look.
Tamworth, home where the Tamworth Two were trying to return,
and the Lambs raise goals to the songs of the shed choir.
Tamworth where the town hall is like an orange, it has Peel on the outside,
where the Olympic torch chose to catch its breath,
and jousters, fireworks, skateboarders,
families all strut their thought in the castle grounds.

Tamworth with our French and German twins
Sharing culture and song
Poetry and peace
Bringing markets to share cheese and meat and finest wine.

Tamworth where we race for life.
bring help to heroes
and support those in need.

This Tamworth where our dialect is spoken with a distinction, alright me duck.
These are our words that tell of a proud heritage built on toil
and a strength that sees one Tamworth, perfectly placed
to create our piece of theatre in the world
and remember who we are and where we are from
we can shed a tear and raise a smile
as we share our town with all those who choose to come.

Because we are Tamworth
Super Tamworth
We are Tamworth
from our land.

© Mal Dewhirst 2014

Aetheflaeda ‘enclosed by roads that circle and twist and never want to let you leave’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

USPG Prayer Diary:

The theme in the USPG Prayer Diary this week is the ‘Myanmar Education Programme.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection from a report from the Church of the Province of Myanmar.

The USPG Prayer Diary today invites us to pray in these words:

Let us give thanks for the Myanmar Education Programme. May its work amongst the rural communities of its dioceses resource and empower them.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued Tomorrow

The former Peel School at 17 Lichfield Street, Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)