Saint Michael’s Church, Brereton: one of the last churches with work by Sir George Gilbert Scott

Saint Michael’s Church, Brereton, was designed by James Trubshaw in 1837 and redesigned by Sir George Gilbert Scott in 1878 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

In recent days, I have been visiting a number of churches in the Rugeley area that I first got to know when I was about 19 or 20. They include Saint Michael’s Church in Brereton; the old and new Saint Augustine’s Church, the ruins of the early mediaeval parish church, now known as the ‘Old Chancel’, and the early 19th century church across the street that replaced it in the 1820s; Saint Joseph and Saint Etheldreda Church, Rugeley; and Hawkesyard Hall and Spode House in Armitage, where the Dominicans once had a priory.

Brereton in the Cannock Chase district in Staffordshire, is 1½ miles south-east of Rugeley, half way between Lichfield and Stafford, and with a population of about 6,000.

Brereton was known in 1279 known as Breredon, the ‘hill where the briars grow’. It was once part of a wider mining community, with several mines, and in the 19th century the extensive collieries belonged to two local magnates, Earl Talbot and the Marquis of Anglesey. Today, all the mines are closed.

Until the mid-19th century, Brereton and Rugeley formed one parish, with Brereton as a chapelry in the parish of Rugeley. Later, Brereton formed a civil parish in its own right from 1894 until 1934, when the parish was abolished and merged with Rugeley. A new civil parish was formed in 1988 and was renamed Brereton and Ravenhill.

Saint Michael’s Church stands on an elevated site above the Main Road in Brereton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

I first visited Saint Michael’s Church, the Church of England parish church in Brereton in the early 1970s. It is a listed building and stands on an elevated site above the Main Road, surrounded by a 2.5 acre landscaped churchyard. Brereton Methodist Church, built in 1809, was the first church building in Brereton, and Saint Michael’s Church followed in 1837.

Saint Michael’s Church was built on land and using stone given by Charles Chetwynd Chetwynd-Talbot (1777-1849), 2nd Earl Talbot from 1793, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1817-1821, and father of Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot (1803-1868), later 3rd Earl Talbot and 18th Earl of Shrewsbury.

Elizabeth and Harriet Sneyd of Brereton Hall were among the principal contributors to building Saint Michael’s Church. They also built Brereton’s first school, Saint Michael’s School.

Saint Michael’s was designed in the Early English Gothic style by a local Staffordshire architect, the prolific Staffordshire architect James Trubshaw (1777-1853) of Little Haywood, father-in-law of the Lichfield architect Thomas Johnson (1794-1865). Saint Michael’s Church was opened in 1837, and Brereton became a district chapelry in 1843.

As the population of Brereton expanded, major extensions and alterations to the church were carried out later in the 19th century under the Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811-1878), the most prolific Gothic Revival architect of the 19th century. The church enlargement by Scott in 1878 was one of his last works carried out in the year he died.

These alterations were initiated by the Revd Edward Samson (1845-1921) when he was the Vicar of Brereton (1874-1894), often at his own expense. Samson, who had an artificial leg, came from a family of wealthy London barristers. He had been the curate of Rugeley (1870-1873) before becoming the Vicar of Brereton. Samson retired due to ill health and moved to Armitage Lodge, and became a church warden of Saint John’s, Armitage. When his health recovered, Sansom returned to ministry, and in 1903 he was appointed Rector of Armitage and Vicar of Pipe Ridware.

The west end of Saint Michael’s Church, seen from the churchyard (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Michael’s Church is built in grey sandstone with tile roofs, and consists of a nave with a west porch, north and south transepts towards the west end, aisles to the east of them, a chancel with a south-west vestry and a north-west steeple. The steeple has a tower that becomes octagonal towards the top and it is surmounted by a spire. The windows are lancets.

Scott extended the transepts eastwards, giving the church, in effect, north and south aisles each of three bays. He also formed the chancel by raising the floor level at the east end of the former nave and surrounding it with low stone screens. The sedilia and the treatment of the chancel window internally are part of this scheme.

The font, which has an arcaded bowl on a base of coloured marble on a marble stem with detached corner shafts, is in memory of George Augustus Selwyn (1809-1878), Bishop of Lichfield (1868-1878).

The painted wooden reredos depicting the crucifixion and angels is by Burlison & Grylls and dates from 1883. The stained glass in the church is by Ward & Hughes and Burlison & Grylls.

The upper part of the tower and spire of Saint Michael’s was remodelled in 1887 by Scott’s son, John Oldrid Scott (1841-1913), with the octagonal tower raised to accommodate a clock and four extra bells. The clock was added to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887.

The carved oak porch outside the west door was added in 1891 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The nave west doorway is dated 1837 in the tympanum, and the south-west vestry is dated 1894.

The richly detailed Gothic oak pulpit was given in 1895 by the Revd Edward Samson. The north and south walls of the chancel have sgraffito work from 1897 by Heywood Sumner, and originally continued across the east wall.

The east end of the north aisle was rearranged as the Lady Chapel in 1927-1928.

The churchyard was extended in 1876 and 1894 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The churchyard was extended in 1876 and 1894, and the roadside lychgate was added to 1884. The stone and brick walls on Main Road and the lychgate were moved back from their original positions during road widening in 1971. The church hall was built by Wood, Goldstraw & Yorath in 1977, and it is linked to the vestry by covered walkway.

Saint Michael’s churchyard remains the one significant area of landscaped green open space in Brereton.

Across the road from the church, the Revd Edward Samson built and endowed four almshouses the Edward Samson Cottage Homes, in 1902. They form a single-storey range, each house having a projecting gabled bay window.

The separate church parishes of Rugeley and Brereton officially became the Parish of Brereton and Rugeley on 1 June 2006, and the union was marked by a day of celebrations on 19 November 2006.

• The Revd Cath Leighton is the Team Rector of the Benefice of Brereton and Rugeley and Armitage with Handsacre, with six churches. Sunday services are held in Saint Michael’s Church, Brereton, at 9:45 am on the second, fourth and fifth Sundays. On the first Sunday of the month, a benefice service is held in one of the churches around the benefice.

The Revd Edward Samson built and endowed the Edward Samson Cottage Homes across the road from Saint Michael’s Church in 1902 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Martin Noell’s almshouses in Stafford, his legacy in slave-trading and bribery, and his death in the plague

Sir Martin Noell’s Almshouses on Earl Street, Stafford, built in 1660 for 12 poor residents of the townn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Close to the town centre of Stafford, Saint Mary’s Church, the courts, Victoria Park and the train station, Sir Martin Noell’s Almshouses form an impressive set of stone buildings on Earl Street. Their small scale contrasts with the large modern block of flats on the opposite corner and the even larger court building next door.

Behind the doors of the almshouses is a hidden chapel. But behind those walls too are stories of slavery and the slave trade, political intrigue and buying office and favour, pirates and debt, plague and death.

Sir Martin Noell (1614-1665) built the almshouses in 1660 for 12 poor residents of the town, and the 12 residents were also given a small pension and a coal allowance from Stafford Corporation.

Noell’s almshouses in Earl Street, also called ‘The College’ or ‘the Old Almshouses’, were built in a Tudor or Jacobean style on a U-plan with a central chapel. This is a group of single storey units with attics, with a central chapel, grouped around three sides of a quadrangle. They have a symmetrical six-window central range, with the chapel breaking forward under a shaped gable with short flanking embattled parapets.

The chapel has a pointed entrance with continuous mouldings in a square-headed architrave, flanking pilasters. A segmental pedimental feature over a drip has a raised panel supporting an architraved panel with the Noell arms, and flanking Doric columns on enriched plinths. The mediaeval stained-glass windows in the chapel are said to have come from the old chapel in Stafford Castle, and in the past the Sub-Rector of Saint Mary’s Collegiate Church held a weekly service there.

The substantial garden in front of the almshouses has shrubbery but no boundary wall, leaving a clear view of the 17th century stone building.

The almshouses have a central chapel with a pointed entrance (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Noell had specific demands about the residents who should benefit from his almshouses. He wrote that one should house an ‘ancient, impoverished minister or some other unblamable Christian qualified with the ability to read and pray daily with the poor.’ Another of the 12 properties should be for ‘a matronly woman who should have an oversight of such as at any time fall sick.’

Noell also made provision for coal and an annual pension for the six poor men and six poor women who were residents. But due to his substantial financial losses before his death, funding for the almshouses and its 12 resident had to be sourced from other benefactors.

The almshouses remained in the hands of Noell’s family until 1691. They were then conveyed to the Mayor of Stafford and four burgesses as trustees, but no ‘alms-folk’ were appointed until 1701. They were later administered by the rectors of Saint Mary’s Collegiate Church and trustees.

The whole building was completely restored around 1866. During alterations in 1925, the front wall was lowered, the old stables and outhouses were demolished, and paving from Bank Passage was taken up and re-laid there. The almshouses were extended in 1960-1962, when the number of apartments was increased from 12 to 23. Today, Sir Martin Noell’s Almshouses are a Listed Grade II* building.

The mediaeval stained-glass windows in the chapel are said to have come from the old chapel in Stafford Castle (Photograph: John Dixon)

Sir Martin Noell (also spelt Noel), the younger son of Edward Noell, a mercer, was born in Stafford in 1614 and was baptised in Saint Mary’s Church on 11 March 1614, when his surname was spelt Nowell. He was MP for Stafford (1656-1659), a London alderman and a successful merchant, entrepreneur and financier who rose to prominence during the Parliamentarian era. He was also notorious for enriching himself through piracy, the slave trade and extracting taxes, and he played a prominent role in Cromwell’s colonial plans.

Noell climbed rapidly from provincial life in Stafford to dominate the transatlantic trade in sugar and other colonial merchandise. He used his brother’s business connections in London and his own marriage to the daughter of a wealthy City draper to enter that trade. While he never travelled far from his London countinghouse, by the late 1640s he was one of the merchant-planters on Barbados, the island at the centre of England’s sugar boom.

After Charles I was executed in 1649, Noell used his contacts to secure lucrative government contracts and to profit from a variety of customs and sales taxes. He collected taxes on salt while he was an investor in salt-production, profiting from both sides of the industry. Oliver Cromwell’s son Richard Cromwell described him as ‘the great salt-master of England’.

Noell’s friend and business partner Thomas Povey said Noell was ‘considerable everywhere … a person of the most spacious interest of any merchant or citizen’ in England’. With his vast financial resources, Noell made substantial loans to Cromwell’s government for its day-to-day running costs, and the Cromwellian regime may have depended on Noell for ready cash and credit more than on any other person. Noell also acted as private money-lender to Oliver Cromwell.

A map of Hispaniola by Nicholas Comberford of Ratcliffe in 1653 … Martin Noell was involved in organising and financing Cromwell’s ‘Western Design’ against the Spanish colony of Hispaniola in 1655

Noell and Povey were involved in shaping government policies on the Caribbean colonies, particularly Barbados. Noell played a leading role in organising and financing Cromwell’s ‘Western Design’ of 1655 against the Spanish colony of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic), and it is said Noell suggested the ‘Western Design’ to Cromwell.

However, the ‘Western Design’ was a fiasco, partly because profiteering by Noell and other contractors deprived the expedition of vital supplies and equipment. Driven out of Hispaniola with heavy losses, Cromwell’s troops took Jamaica instead.

But Noell, who owned a plantation in Barbados, managed to profit from the failed expedition and was further rewarded by Cromwell with a grant of 20,000 acres in Jamaica. These gave him a major stake in the English sugar industry and the slave trade that was part and parcel of it.

Noell’s plantation in Barbados had a large number of enslaved Africans working with the sugar-canes. He euphemistically referred to them as his ‘Christian servants’. However, after his re-election as MP for Stafford in 1659, the slaves and their conditions in Barbados brought Noell into conflict with other MPs in Richard Cromwell’s Parliament.

Noell was forced to defend himself against accusations in the Commons that he had violated English ‘liberties’ as a contractor by transporting royalist prisoners to indentured servitude on Barbados. The victims of his ‘most unchristian and barbarous usage’ alleged that they been ‘bought and sold … from one planter to another … as horses and beasts’.

Noell admitted transporting prisoners to the island, but denied he had sold them into slavery or that they had been treated harshly. He claimed the labour conditions for indentured servants on Barbados were better than those of the ‘common husbandman here’. The really hard work, the ‘grinding at the [sugar]-mills and attending at the furnaces or digging in the scorching island’ was mostly undertaken by African slaves, he protested.

Noell, who was joint Postmaster General from 1657 to 1659, survived the challenges in Parliament, and he continued to prosper after the fall of the protectorate and the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. The diarist Samue Pepys was surprised to hear that Noell had been knighted on 6 October 1662, but conceded that the Noell was still ‘a very useful man’.

A year later, in 1663, Noell invested heavily in England’s largest slave-trading venture, the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa. He and Povey lobbied in the early 1660s for the establishment of a royal-sponsored West Indian company ‘for the better regulating and improving of foreign plantations’.

Noell was one of the first recorded victims of the Great Plague of London in 1665. Samuel Pepys wrote in his Diary in late September: ‘I hear for certain this night that Sir Martin Noell is this day dead of the plague in London, where he hath lain sick of it these eight days’. He was buried at Saint Olave, Old Jewry, on 30 September 1665.

A commemorative plaque and Sir Martin Noell’s coat-of-arms (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Noell’s debts at his death in 1665 amounted to over £30,000 – over £5.75 million in spending power today – including £1,747 (over £335,000 today) he owed ‘on a contract’ for slaves. Debts led to a major lawsuit by his children that was not settled until 1682.

An inventory of his mansion in St Botolph’s, Bishopsgate, indicates Noell’s taste for exotic objects. The contents of his ‘Green Chamber’ included two cabinets, one of ebony, the other an Indian cabinet set on a frame. Many of the most exotic objects were in ‘Yr Lady’s Chamber or Closet’ and included Spanish tables, ‘Jappan trunks’, five figures of wood, two ‘China jarrs’, a snake’s skin, East India flower pots, furniture decorated with ‘East India beasts and birds’, two pieces of corral and one ostrich egg.

Through his loans and dealing with the Cromwellian regime, Noell drew the state into what had previously been the private business of colonisation and trade in the Atlantic. This marked an important step in developing British bases in the Caribbean and Cromwell’s role in growing a global empire.

Despite founding and endowing the almshouses in Stafford, Noell’s most enduring legacy is his role in colonialism, slavery and the slave trade, a legacy that Britain continues to struggle to come to terms with today.

Despite founding and endowing the almshouses in Stafford, Noell’s most enduring legacy is his role in colonialism, slavery and the slave trade (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Great Hospital, Norwich, has ‘the most important set of mediaeval hospital records to survive the English Reformation’

The Great Hospital in Norwich was founded as Saint Giles’s Hospital in 1249 and is now a retirement home (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026; click on images for full-screen viewing)

Patrick Comerford

The Great Hospital is a mediaeval hospital or almshouse with a continuous presence in Norwich since the 13th century, and the Great Hospital, with Saint Helen’s Church on Bishopgate, it is one of the historical sites we visited during our recent overnight stay in Norwich. The Great Hospital stands on a 2.8 ha (7 acres) site at a bend on the River Wensum, and close to Norwich Cathedral and the Cathedral Close.

Over 1,000 hospitals of this kind were founded in medieval England, including also Saint John’s Hospital in Lichfield. Yet very few of these hospitals survived the upheavals of the English Reformations. Indeed, only the Great Hospital in Norwich, also known as Saint Giles’s Hospital, now a retirement home for the elderly, has retained both its mediaeval fabric and a major archive.

The archive is said to have no rival anywhere in Britain, and it has been described as the ‘fullest and by far the most important set of British mediaeval hospital records to survive the English Reformation.’ It has a lengthy record of continuous care and most of the extensive mediaeval buildings in the hospital grounds are still in use to this day.

The original beneficiaries of the hospital were aged priests, poor scholars and sick and hungry paupers (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Great Hospital in Norwich was founded in 1249 by Bishop Walter de Suffield. It was originally known as Saint Giles’s Hospital, and the first Master was Hamon de Calthorpe, who was appointed in 1256.

The original beneficiaries of the new hospital were aged priests, poor scholars and sick and hungry paupers. At the time, priests were unmarried, so they had no families to support them in their old age. The poor scholars – boys chosen on merit from local song schools – were to receive a daily meal during term times, and this was to continue until the boy had achieved a good grasp of Latin. With this help, bright but poor boys were given the chance to train as choristers or even to enter the priesthood.

Thirty beds at the west end of the church were allocated for the sick poor, and 13 paupers were to be fed at the hospital gates each day. As well as the Master of Saint Giles’s, the foundation had four chaplains, a deacon and a sub-deacon.

The hospital was modelled on the Rule of Saint Augustine, which discouraged excessive liturgical ritual so more time could be devoted to charitable works. Nevertheless, the master and the chaplains were bound to sing three Masses a day, including one for Bishop Suffield’s soul, as well as a weekly mass in honour of Saint Giles.

The chancel ceiling in the hospital was lavishly decorated in the late 14th century with 252 panels, each depicting a black eagle. The ceiling was thought to have been painted in honour of Anne of Bohemia, who visited Norwich in 1383 with her husband, King Richard II, and it now forms the ceiling of Eagle Ward which has been preserved.

The internal appearance of the church was radically altered in the 16th century when the east and west ends were partitioned off and divided horizontally to provide two wards at either end. The central area of the church was retained and used for worship as it still is today, being both the chapel of the Great Hospital and the Parish Church of Saint Helen.

The central area of the meidiaeval church is both the chapel of the Great Hospital and the Parish Church of Saint Helen (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Since the mid 19th century, living accommodation has been constantly improved to meet residents’ needs. Five cottages were built in 1849; a sick ward followed in 1889; a further 12 cottages in 1906; and another 17 dwellings in 1937. The 17 cottages built in 1937, now called Suffield Court, were later changed to single-person dwellings.

Substantial changes were initiated by Jack Davies Shaw, Master from 1965 to 1980, when the Great Hospital was modernised, ensuring it was a model community for the elderly going into the 21st century.

The old sick ward was replaced in 1972 by Elaine Herbert House, where an improved form of nursing care was provided. The lodge was finally demolished in 1975. Prior Court opened in 1980 and has 18 single and six double flats designed to accommodate people who need regular support. Saint Helen’s House was converted into eight residential flats in 1986. A new group of cottages were built behind Suffield Court in 1999.

Plans were made to demolish the 12 cottages built in 1906 and replace them with a new two-storey block with 18 flats, Holme Terrace, and six additional flats were added to Prior Court. Saint Helen’s House is currently used as the nursing home, but is not part of the Great Hospital as it was originally a residence separate from the Hospital.

The Great Hospital has one of the smallest monastic cloisters in England; a fine mediaeval refectory; Saint Helen’s House, with excellent examples of Georgian decorated ceilings said to be the work of Angelica Kauffman; an 18th century swan pit; and a large Victorian hall.

In all, the Great Hospital has nine listed buildings: Birkbeck Hall; the Cloisters and West Wall of the former Chapter House; the former Chaplain’s House; the former Master’s House; part of the former Master’s House; the Refectory and part of the former Master’s House; the Lodge; the East Wards; and the White Cottages.

The hospital has had 64 Masters. The first female Master was Dorothy North in 2000-2007, and Gina Dormer is the current Master. The charity nurtures a vibrant and peaceful community of over 60s, supporting the residents to live independently.

The Great Hospital is included in the ‘Norwich 12’, one of the finest collections of individually outstanding heritage buildings in the UK, spanning the Norman, mediaeval, Georgian, Victorian and modern eras.

The Great Hospital encompasses nine listed buildings (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Further reading:

Carole Rawcliffe, Medicine for the Soul: The life, death and resurrection of an English Medieval Hospital, St Giles, Norwich, c1249-1550 (1999)

Elaine Phillips, A Short History of the Great Hospital, Norwich (1999)

Thame was once the home of William Butler Yeats and has a large number of old timber framed buildings

William Butler Yeats once lived at Cuttle Brook House in Thame, where his son Senator Michael was born in 1921 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I caught the bus to Thame from Aylesbury recently, mainly because I wanted to see Saint Mary’s Church, which I had glimpsed from the bus before, an impressive sight looking across Church Meadow and the grounds of Thame Cricket Club.

But I had also heard of its connections with the poet William Butler Yeats and a peculiar link with Evelyn Waugh, and on previous bus journeys I had noticed a larger number of timber framed pubs and other buildings, many dating back to the 15th century, including the old almshouses.

Thame is a market town in south Oxfordshire, about 21 km (13 miles) east of Oxford and 16 km (10 miles) south-west of Aylesbury It takes its name from the River Thame o the north side of the town, marking the county boundary of Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. The town has population of about 12,000.

The Tithe Barn was once the Court Barn belonging to the now demolished Manorial Court House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Thame dates from the Anglo-Saxon era and appears in the Domesday Book as belonging to the Bishop of Lincoln.

Thame Abbey was founded by the Cistercians in 1138, the parish church of Saint Mary the Virgin dates from the 13th century, and the nearby Prebendal House was there by 1234.

The Tithe Barn in front of the church gate is a long low building where a brick base supports a timber frame with herring-bone brick filling and was used for the storage of the church dues or tithes. It was called the Court Barn in the 15th century and belonged to the now demolished Court House, where the manorial court was held.

The Bird Cage dates from the 14th century and was first built as the Market House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Bird Cage pub on the High Street is a picturesque double-jettied pub that dates from the 14th century. It was built originally as the Market House with an open lower storey. It sits at the centre of the old market place and would have dominated the view from the western entrance to the town. It has been as an inn since the 16th century.

The Six Bells, despite its mock-Tudor exterior, has a 15th century timber-frame structure. It faces the former almshouses and Church Road leading up to Saint Mary’s Church.

The Thatch pub, also on High Street, dates from ca 1550 and is made up from a charming group of cottages. It was developed into a tea room many years ago, and became a popular restaurant and hotel, yet managed to preserve its 16th century origins. It became more popular in 2007 as the prize in the television programme ‘The Restaurant’.

The almshouses were founded by Richard Quatremain in 1447 and re-founded by John Williams in 1559 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

In Tudor times, a prominent local magnate and courtier, John Williams, 1st Baron Williams of Thame, became the lord of the Manor of Thame, and the long-time links with the Bishops of Lincoln and Lincoln Cathedral came to an end. His tomb dominates the chancel of Saint Mary’s Church.

Williams re-founded the almshouses on Church Road, originally a foundation of Richard Quatremain in 1447, when he founded the chantry or guild of Saint Christopher.

Williams re-founded the almshouses in 1559 for five poor men and one poor woman. They are now privately owned and have turned their backs to Church Road. Opposite the almshouses is an attractive row of 18th century cottages.

Williams died in 1559, and his will established the local grammar school, built in 1569-1571 next to the almshouses. The school moved to Oxford Road in 1880 and in 1971 it became a comprehensive school, now known as Lord Williams’s School.

The Grammar School was endowed by John Williams and built in 1569-1571 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

During the English Civil War in the 1640s, Thame was occupied in turn by Royalists and by the Parliamentarians.

The Old Nag’s Head, a High Street pub with a timber frame west elevation dating from the 15th century, was known as the King’s Head until, during the Civil War, a supporter of Charles I was hanged from the sign by Parliamentary soldiers.

After the Battle of Chalgrove Field in 1643, Colonel John Hampden, who had attended the grammar school, died of his wounds at the house of Ezekiel Browne, later to become the Greyhound Inn.

A royalist was hanged by Parliamentarians at the the King’s Head, now the Old Nag’s Head (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The bare-knuckle prize-fighter James Figg was born in Thame in 1684 and had his early prize fights in the former Greyhound Inn on High Street. He had become the world’s first boxing champion by 1719, winning many fights in his booth at Marylebone Fields, London. The Greyhound Inn was renamed the James Figg in his honour in the 21st century.

Many of the buildings in the boat-shaped High Street were re-faced in the 18th century with modern façades built of locally produced salt glazed bricks. Lancastrian Cottage at No 22 Upper High Street is a reminder of what lies behind many of the grand façades in the town.

When John Wesley preached in Thame in the late 18th century, the congregation was so large that the floor of the building gave way, and the crowd fell to the lower floor.

The Town Hall was built in 1888 and is the third on the site (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

There has been a Market Hall on the site of Thame Town Hall since 1509, and the present Town Hall is the third building on this site. It was built in 1888, funded by public subscriptions to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1887.

The Victorian bandstand behind the former almshouses is a legacy of a grand ballroom from the 19th century.

The War Memorial in the Memorial Gardens was unveiled by the former Prime Minister David Lloyd George in 1921.

The Six Bells, faces the former almshouses, has its Tudor exterior, but has a 15th century timber-frame structure (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Irish poet and playwright William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) lived for a short time at Cuttle Brook House, 42 High Street, a good example of an 18th century town house. The poet returned to Ireland, became an Irish senator in 1922, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. His son, the late Senator Michael Yeats (1921-1973), was born in Cuttle Brook House on 22 August 1921.

Another resident of Thame with literary association from that time was the writer John Fothergill (1876-1957), who owned and managed the Spread Eagle Hotel in 1922-1931. Evelyn Waugh, who was a regular visitor, described Fothergill as ‘Oxford's only civilising influence’ and named the Spread Eagle in Brideshead Revisited.

A small hoard of late mediaeval coins and rings found near the Prebendal House and beside the River Thame in 1940, including an ornate ecclesiastical ring with a small reliquary and a cross with two horizontal sections, similar to the Cross of Lorraine. Thame Town Council has incorporated the cross into the town emblem.

The Greyhound Inn on High Street has been renamed after James Figg (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees and his wife Dwina Murphy-Gibb lived in Prebendal House in Thame until he died in 2012. His brother Andy Gibb also lived in Prebendal House before he died in 1988.

The Robin Gibb Gallery opened in Thame Museum in 2022. The museum was originally built as the town’s county court house in 1861, and it was bought by Thame Town Council in 2005 to house Thame Museum.

Thame has featured many times as a location in episodes of the Midsomer Murders television drama series as the fictional town of Causton. The Tuesday market still takes place in the High Street, as do the annual fairs, rooted in medieval tradition.
I also visited Saint Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church and some of the other church buildings in Thame – but more about these in the days to come, hopefully.

The Main Street in Thame, a market town on the boundary of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Thomas’s Hospital, a mediaeval almshouse in York rebuilt in 1862 and now in apartments

The 19th century buildings of Saint Thomas’s Hospital, York, founded in the late 14th century and rebuilt on Nunnery Lane in 1862 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

The former Moat House Hotel in York on the corner formed by Nunnery Lane and Victoria Bar and beside and Nunnery Lane Car Park is an attractive building that looks older than it is, with an interesting past.

In recent years, the building has been converted into apartments. But a plaque high on the central bay, above the main door hints at the interesting past of the building: ‘St. Thomas’s Hospital re-built AD 1862.’

Mediaeval York had 50 or more hospitals and almshouses. Saint Leonard’s Hospital was once the largest in England – 232 people were housed there in 1399 – and was run by Augustine canons. The hospital was a place for the sick to be healed, an almshouse for the elderly, a refuge for pilgrims, a hostel for travellers and a home for orphans. Parts of Saint Leonard’s, including the vaulted undercroft and ruined chapel above can still be seen.

The other mediaeval hospitals in York included Saint Catherine’s on what is now The Mount, founded outside the city walls as a leper hospital in the early 14th century.

When we are staying in York, I regularly walk past the former Saint Thomas’s Hospital on Nunnery Lane on my way into the city centre. I had already written about other almshouses in York, including Anne Middleton’s Hospital on Skeldergate, Dorothy Wilson’s Hospital on Walmgate, and Sir Joseph Terry Cottages. Now the plaque on the wall of the rebuilt Saint Thomas’s Hospital made me curious about where and when it had been built originally.

Saint Thomas’s Hospital was built in the late 14th century, outside Micklegate Bar, York (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Nunnery Lane leads off Blossom Street which since the Roman period has been the principal route into York from London and the south. The Micklegate Bar leading into the city dates from the 12th century and a horse and cattle market was held outside Micklegate Bar in the mediaeval period in what is now Blossom Street.

The original Saint Thomas’s almshouse or hospital was founded before 1391 as Saint Thomas the Martyr outside Micklegate Bar. It was for the maintenance of poor persons of either sex dwelling in the neighbourhood of ‘Mykyllythbar’, and for hospitality by day and night of all poor travellers and sick poor passing through York. The 15th century seal showed a figure of Saint Thomas Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury, seated in a canopied niche, blessing and holding his crozier.

Saint Thomas’s Hospital was transferred to the Guild of Corpus Christi in 1478, when it was agreed that from then on it would be known as ‘the Hospital of Corpus Christi and of Saint Thomas of Canterbury, and that the Master and Brethren kept seven alms beds.

From then until the dissolution of the guild, the history of the hospital is essentially that of the guild. The master, wardens and brothers of Saint Thomas’s stipulated that they should have the use of their beds and bedrooms there during their own lives and that the brethren of the guild were to ‘fund seven alms beds conveniently clothed, for the ease, refreshing, and harbouring of poor indigent travelling people coming unto the said hospital.’

Saint Thomas’s was one of six or seven mediaeval hospitals or almshouses in York to survive by 1500, while 11 had become extinct or converted to other uses before the Reformation.

The guild kept 10 poor persons in 1546, allowing them 6s 8d each a year, and also maintained eight beds for poor strangers. Following the dissolution of the monasteries and religious houses, the Guild of Corpus Christi was dissolved the following year 1547, but Saint Thomas’s Hospital held on to its estates for almost another 30 years.

After consulting the brethren of the hospital, and showing how difficult it was to maintain the house and its poor residents, the master suggested in 1551-1552 that they should seek the support of the lord mayor and aldermen of the city.

The mayor and aldermen were admitted as brothers of the hospital in 1552, the lord mayor was elected master and two of the aldermen became wardens. For the next 25 years, the lord mayor for the year, and one of the aldermen, with ‘a spiritual man’, continued to fill these offices. Since then, the charity has been in the hands of the corporation.

The almshouses in York that survivved the Tudor Reformations included Saint Thomas’s, Saint Anthony’s, Saint Catherine’s and Trinity Hospital, also known as the Hospital of Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, at Fossgate. They continued to be run under the auspices of the corporation in the Elizabethan period.

The lord mayor and wardens surveyed Saint Thomas’s, Saint Anthony’s and Trinity Hospitals, as well as Saint John’s Hall in February 1574. A scheme was set up in May 1574 to settle some poor people in the three hospitals and to use them for disbursing charity to other poor people living at home. These people were mainly aged, disabled, or widows, including some widows with children.

When John Marshe and other citizens of London were granted some of the possessions of the former Guild of Corpus Christi in 1576, they were resisted by the master and wardens. William Marshe and William Plummer handed over the property in 1583 to the recorder and town clerk of York, as trustees for the mayor and city of York, for ‘the maintenance and relief of the poor.’

Illustrations show Saint Thomas’s Hospital with Tudor and Gothic windows and two gable ends (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The original hospital stood by the Micklegate on Blossom Street, beside what is now the Puch Bowl. It is shown there on Speed’s map in 1610, on Chassereau’s map of York in 1750 and by Jeffreys in 1776, when it is labelled ‘Thomas’s Hospital’. It is illustrated in 1782 in The Antiquities of Great Britain, among views of monasteries, castles and churches, and was also painted by Moses Griffith in 1785 and again in 1787.

The hospital had been partially rebuilt by 1810, when an anonymous watercolour shows it as a two-storey building with two pitched roof end gables, one with an entrance, fronting Blossom Street and with a a mixture of Gothic and Tudor window.

William Hargrove’s History and Description of the Ancient City of York in 1818, shows it is with a women walking through the Blossom Street entrance followed by a horse and cart, suggesting the Blossom Street frontage had become an inn while the Nunnery Lane frontage continued as the hospital.

A report in 1820 described it as ‘a house in good repair, containing six apartments on the ground floor and the same number above for the habitation of 12 poor women, who are widows … There is a small garden adjoining’. From 1837, it was administered by the York Charity Trustees.

The hospital is seen in a watercolour by Henry Barlow Carter in 1840 and in a coloured lithograph by William Monkhouse in 1845, where the new three-storey Punch Bowl is shown towering over the old, two-storey hospital building.

However, by 1860, the conditions in the hospital were reported to be ‘low, damp, the lower rooms especially, ill-ventilated and dark, with brick floors’, and Saint Thomas' Hospital was demolished around 1862-1863.

The site of the old hospital on the corner of Nunnery Lane has been incorporated into the premises of the Punch Bowl (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The demolition of the old hospital allowed the widening of the junction of Blossom Street and Nunnery Lane. A narrow row of shops were built to replace the hospital building, with a one-bay rounded corner and with four bays facing Nunnery Lane. Since then, this replacement building has been incorporated into the premises of the Punch Bowl.

Meanwhile, a new hospital or almshouses was built further east along Nunnery Lane, close to the newly opened Victoria Bar and opposite the Victoria Vaults. It offered accommodation to 12 women, and there were 11 residents in 1906, sharing stipends totalling £80.

Saint Thomas’s Hospital closed ca 1972 and the building was converted into the Moat Hotel. More recently the building was converted into apartments, but it remains a significant building on Nunnery Lane, close to the Victoria Bar and its original site on the corner of Blossom Gate, close to the ancient Micklegate.

A plaque high above the main door of the building says: ‘St. Thomas’s Hospital re-built AD 1862.’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)