Patrick Comerford
The Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, the parish church of Olney in Buckinghamshire, is celebrating its 700th anniversary this year [2025]. The 14th century church, with its tall spire and its unusual setting at the end of the town, is the first thing most visitors notice as they approach Olney from Newport Pagnell and the south.
The church stands on the bank of the River Great Ouse and, with its fine spire, dominates the southern approach to the town, making the steeple a distinctive landmark in its setting beside the bridge over the river.
The church is an integral part of the world famous Olney Pancake Race, run every Shrove Tuesday, and followed by the Shriving Service. The town sign depicts the church and the pancake race, which dates back to 1445.
The church also has strong connections with John Newton, the slave trader and clergyman, who became an abolitionist and who was a curate there, and with William Cowper, the poet and abolitionist.
Saint Peter and Saint Paul is a Grade I listed church. Local traditions say an earlier church was located at a different site in Olney, and this is supported by the apparent lack of earlier architecture in the current building.
It is thought an earlier parish church stood at the north end of Olney. There is a suggestion that the earlier church was founded in 1018, and it is likely to have been on a modest scale.
The greater part of the present church was built in the 14th century between ca 1330 and 1400 in the Decorated Gothic style. The rest of the church is of the same period, with tall windows and 14th century tracery, though these windows have been restored and the glass is Victorian or modern.
The north aisle was partly rebuilt in the 16th and 17th centuries.
The church has a slightly unusual appearance because the roof of the nave is lower than the roof of the chancel, and of slate rather than tile. This is because the nave was altered in 1807, when the clerestory was demolished, internal roof carvings were removed, and the old roof timbers and lead were sold. It was said in 1825 that several carved figures and heads from the church where found throughout the buildings and gardens of the town. The south aisle was largely rebuilt in 1831.
The architect Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811-1878), who was brought up in Olney, was a son of the Revd Thomas Scott (1780-1835) and a grandson of Newton’s friend, the biblical commentator, the Revd Thomas Scott (1747-1821) of Olney. Sir George Gilbert Scott rebuilt and restored the church in 1870-1885, including the restoration of the chancel (1874), the nave (1876-1877) and the south aisle and a new east window was installed a cost of nearly £2,000.
The windows in the south and north aisles display the flowing tracery characteristic of 14th century church architecture, although they were much restored, and in some cases replaced, in the 19th century. The fine, stained glass windows in the church date from the late 19th and 20th centuries.
The five-light East Window (1870) by W Holland & Sons is in memory of Ann Ravis and depicts the Crucifixion, the Ascension, the Resurrection, the Annunciation, the Last Supper and the Nativity.
A three-light window on the south side at the west end of the chancel commemorates the abolitionist, hymnwriter and former curate John Newton (1725-1807) and was erected in 1973 by Archibald & Emily Maud Allen in memory of their daughter Evelyn Garrard Allen. It was made by James A Crombie (1913-2000) the stained glass designer and watercolourist during a brief spell when he was working for Wippell of Exeter.
The upper images show Christ and figurative representations of the abolition of slavery; the lower images show Newton in the pulpit in Olney, with depictions on either side of the life-changing storm in Lough Swilly off the coast of Co Donegal that brought about his conversion.
Half-hidden by the pulpit, a three-light window (1946) at the east end of the north nave by George Bryan Cooper-Abbs (1901-1966), chief designer of J Wippell and Co in Exeter, shows Christ in Majesty, with Saint Peter and Saint Paul, patrons of the church, on either side. Below his feet are the church, with the William Cowper and the hymnwriter John Newton on either side. Quotations from some of Cowper’s hymns also appear in the window.
The church spire, which is unusual for Buckinghamshire, is set on a tall tower and reaches a height of 56.5 metres (185 ft). The tower originally housed a peal of six bells, the oldest of which is dated 1599. The church bells were refurbished and added to a few years ago, making it one of the finest peals of ten bells in the country.
John Newton wrote the hymn ‘Amazing Grace’ while he was at Olney for a New Year’s Day service on 1 January 1773. Newton had once been the captain of several slave ships and an investor in the slave trade. Newton experienced a conversion during a severe storm in Lough Swill off the coast of Co Donegal in 1748. Many years later, he renounced the slave trade and became a prominent abolitionist.
Newtown was ordained deacon and priest in Church of England in 1764 and served in Olney until 1779, when he became the Rector of Saint Mary Woolnoth, London.
The churchyard in Olney has been closed for some years and is under the care of Milton Keynes Council. Among the graves in the south-east corner is the grave of John Newton and his wife Mary, re-interred from Saint Mary Woolnoth, London, in 1893 when the burial ground was being cleared.
Newton was a contemporary in Olney of the poet and hymn writer William Cowper (1731-1800), and together they co-wrote the Olney Hymns (1779), which included ‘Amazing Grace’.
Cowper’s poems and hymns have given the English language phrases such as ‘God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform’; ‘Variety’s the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavour’; ‘I am monarch of all I survey’; ‘Oh! for a closer walk with God’; ‘God made the country, and man made the town’; and ‘There is a pleasure in poetic pains which only poets know.’
Other figures associated with the church include the organist and composer Henry Gauntlett and the biblical commentator Thomas Scott. A plaque in the north porch in memory of Kate Hollingshead (1886-1969) outlines many of these connections.
The church marks the 700th anniversary of its founding this year, which coincides with the tercentenary of John Newton’s birth. A week of celebration is planned between Saturday 28 June and Sunday 6 July 2025, with other special services and events through the year.
A History Day on Saturday 5 July includes speakers and exhibitions. Olney Archaeological Society is presenting a talk by Professor Stephen Upex of Madingley Hall, Cambridge, on the church in the Olney landscape.
The church has a Priest-in-Charge rather than a rector because the Newport Deanery in the Diocese of Oxford is being reorganised and the parish is to become part of a new Benefice of Ouse Valley North. At the moment there is a vacancy for the Priest-in-Charge; the Revd Hugh Reid is the curate.
• The Sunday morning services at 10 am in Saint Peter and Saint Paul are: Holy Communion, Common Worship (first, third and fifth Sunday), Informal Worship (second Sunday), and Informal Communion (fourth Sunday). There is a variety of evening services at 6 pm on Sundays, including a Said Communion on the second Sunday and there is a midweek celebration of Holy Communion at 10 am on Wednesdays.
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