‘Chaos’ is among the sculptures by Willi Soukop in the Church of Christ the Cornerstone in Milton Keynes

Willi Soukop’s ‘Chaos’ in the lobby of the Church of Christ the Cornerstone in Milton Keynes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

We were in the Church of Christ the Cornerstone in central Milton Keynes on a recent Sunday for Choral Evensong, when I noticed two large papier-mâché relief sculptures by the Viennese-born British artist Willi Soukop.

The first work, Chaos, is a monumental papier-mâché relief sculpture by Willi Soukop, showing the turmoil of life in contrast with the serenity of the serenity of the three figures in the second work.

In the second work over the entrance to the chapel, Soukop depicts three dramatic figures at the foot of the Cross of Christ: his mother the Virgin Mary, Saint Mary Magdalene and Saint John the Evangelist or the Beloved Disciple. These three powerful, expressive and slightly haunting yet serene figures may also represent mourning or desperation, and they capture Soukop’s characteristic expressive, modern style.

Both works are made in papier-mâché, which Soukop used extensively throughout his career. He also worked in wood, metal and stone in the production of many pieces that portrayed compassionate and tender religious themes. These works are on view inside the lobby of the church and are on loan from the artist’s son, Michael Soukop. Willi Soukop also sculpted the wooden Madonna and Christ Child in the chapel at the Church of Christ the Cornerstone.

Because of the unique architectural layout of the church, the lobby and entrance areas are spacious and airy and are open to the public frequently. As a result, the lobby and entrance serve as a non-traditional community art space for surprising, contemporary displays in the heart of Milton Keynes.

The three figures at the foot of the Cross of Christ by Willi Soukop depict the Virgin Mary, Saint Mary Magdalene and Saint John the Evangelist (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The sculptor Willi Soukop (1907-1995) was a Royal Academician, and an early teacher of Dame Elisabeth Frink (1930-1993). Through his long career he pursued a very individual vision and he refused to identify with any ‘-ism’ in art. He was born Wilhelm Josef Soukop in Vienna on 5 January 1907 to an Austrian mother and a Czech father. His father, who had been wounded in World War I, died by suicide in 1919, leaving his wife to cope with Willi and two other children.

He began studying drawing at night and became an apprentice engraver. To supplement the pittance he earned as an apprentice, he worked nights carving umbrella handles and ivory boxes for a local trader. In time he could afford to study sculpture at the Academy of Fine Art in Vienna under Josef Müllner.

Soukop was invited to Devon to escape the political and economic misery of Vienna and came to Dartington near Totnes in 1934. There he worked in a studio at Dartington Hall, where Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst had created a centre for the arts. European exiles there included the Jooss Ballet from Germany, Michael Chekhov and his drama school, and Bernard Leach and his son David, the potter.

The artist and gallery-owner Eardley Knollys of Storran Gallery gave Soukop his first one-man show in 1938.

Soukop was classified as an alien during World War II, and was first interned at Aintree racecourse, then sent to Canada, where he was held for nine months. On his release, he returned to Dartington and in 1945 he married Simone Michelle Moser (1916-1993), who had gone with him to Canada. The French dancer, teacher and choreographer became one of the finest performers and teachers of the Leeder system of modern dance in Britain.

Soukop became Art Master at Blundell’s School, where he set up the sculpture department. He also set up sculpture departments at Bryanston School, Dorset, and Downs School, Worcestershire, and taught at Bromley, Guildford and Chelsea Schools of Art.

His students at Guildford included Dame Elisabeth Frink, who followed him to Chelsea. Her work can be seen throughout Milton Keynes and includes the Black Horse, outside Lloyds Bank at the corner of Lloyds Court, near the corner of Secklow Gate and Silbury Boulevard.

Soukop was appointed to the additional position of Master of Sculpture at the Royal Academy Schools in 1969 and he became a member of the faculty of the British School in Rome. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1935 and was elected a full member (RA) in 1969.

He received many commissions, both for portrait busts and larger pieces for public buildings. He exhibited widely, including ‘Sculpture in the Open Air’, Battersea Park (1949, 1950), many Arts Council exhibitions, Biennales and an exhibition in the Yehudi Menuhin School and University College Swansea.

His sculpture was commissioned for many public spaces, including the Elmington Estate in Camberwell, Loughborough University and the University of Hull, and his well-known Donkey sculpture, first executed at Dartington, was recast for Pittmans Field, Harlow, Essex. His work is in UK public collections including Abbot Hall, the Ben Uri Collection, the Red House, Aldeburgh, the Royal Academy of Arts, Tate, and the University of South Wales Art collection.

‘My life was never planned, it just happened,’ Willi Soukop once said.

Simone died in in London on 27 June 1993, leaving a son and a daughter; Willi died in Glasgow on 8 February 1995.

The two pieces displayed in the lobby of the Church of Christ the Cornerstone in Milton Keynes are there by courtesy of Dr Michael Soukop and his wife who generously allowed the works to remain after a visit to the city in 1996. At the time they were looking for a permanent home for the collection that remained after Willi Soukop’s death.

The Church of Christ the Cornerstone is the first ecumenical city-centre church in Britain and is a shared space for five denominations: Anglican, Baptist, Catholic, Methodist and United Reformed. Chaos and the Three Figures at the Foot of the Cross can be seen in the public lobby, usually open seven days a week, Monday to Saturdays from 8 am to 8 pm, with varying hours on Sundays. The chapel, with Soukop’s wooden Madonna and Christ Child, is open daily for private prayer and meditation.

The wooden Madonna and Christ Child was sculpted by Willi Soukop (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Praying with the ‘in-between’ people caught in these ‘in-between’ times of uncertainty and unrest

The Ascension depicted in a window in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

In this week, we find ourselves in an ‘in-between’ time, between the Ascension and Pentecost, between the Son ascending to the Father and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit.

But this is also an ‘in-between’ time, with uncertainty at the top of government, and with uncertainty on the streets, with open expressions of hatred and racism and threats of violence.

In a poem he posted on his Facebook page this morning, the priest poet Jon Swales of Leeds prayed:

Christ, show us a unity
not crafted in statements,
not shouted in streets,
but broken in bread,
poured in wine,
birthed at your table.

In preparing the intercessions for the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, this morning(Easter VII, 17 May 2026), I adapted a well-known prayer by Bishop Thomas Ken (1637-1711) that seems so appropriate at this time of marches, tension and the deliberate hijacking of Christian symbols and language:

O God, make the door of this house
wide enough to receive all who need human love and fellowship,
and a heavenly Father’s care;
and narrow enough to shut out all envy, pride and hate.
Make its threshold smooth enough to be no stumbling block to children,
nor to straying feet,
but rugged enough to turn back the tempter’s power:
make it a gateway to thine eternal kingdom.

His prayer was inscribed on the door of Saint Stephen’s Church, Walbrook, in London, which I have visited a number of times, and it is found inside the doors of many churches in the Church of England. The prayer is found in many sources, including the King’s Chapel Prayer Book at King’s Chapel, one of the oldest churches in Boston, and The Oxford Book of Prayer, edited by George Appleton.

Bishop Thomas Ken is one of the founding figures in Anglican hymnody. He had an often-fraught relationship with the Church of England and was one of the Non-Juring bishops at the time of the Williamite Revolution.

Thomas Ken was born in 1637 at Little Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. His father was Thomas Ken of Furnival’s Inn; his mother was the daughter of the poet John Chalkhill; and his step-sister Anne married Izaak Walton, author of The Compleat Angler and biographer of some of the key Caroline divines and poets, including George Herbert and John Donne.

Ken was educated at Winchester College, Hart Hall, Oxford, and New College, Oxford. He was ordained in 1662, and was the rector of parishes in Essex, the Isle of Wight and Hampshire, before returning to Winchester in 1672 as a prebendary of the cathedral, chaplain to the bishop and a fellow of Winchester College. There he prepared manuals on prayer and wrote many of his hymns, including ‘Awake, my soul, and with the sun,’ ‘Glory to thee, my God, this night’ and ‘Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.’

Ken visited to Rome with Izaak Walton in 1674, and the journey seems to have confirmed him in his commitment to Anglicanism.

King Charles II appointed Ken chaplain to Princess Mary, wife of William of Orange, in 1679. However, he incurred William’s displeasure at the court in The Hague, and when he returned to England in 1680 he was appointed one of the king’s chaplains.

When Charles II visited Winchester with his court in 1683, Ken refused to provide lodgings for Nell Gwynne, the king’s mistress. Later that year, he accompanied Lord Dartmouth to Tangier as chaplain to the fleet.

When the fleet returned, Charles II appointed Ken as Bishop of Bath and Wells. He was consecrated at Lambeth on 25 January 1685, and one of his first duties was to attend the king on his deathbed. That year he also published The Practice of Divine Love.

When James II issued the Declaration of Indulgence in 1688, Ken was one of the seven bishops who refused to publish it. Ken and the other his six bishops were sent to the Tower of London on charges of high misdemeanour, but were acquitted at their trial.

When the Williamite Revolution followed, however, Ken believed his sworn allegiance to James II prevented him from taking an oath of loyalty to William of Orange. He became one the Non-Jurors, and in 1691 he was replaced as Bishop of Bath and Wells by the Dean of Peterborough, Richard Kidder.

For the next 20 years, he lived in retirement as a guest of Lord Weymouth at Longleat in Wiltshire. There he wrote many of his famous hymns, including ‘Awake my soul.’

Queen Anne failed to persuade him to return to Bath and Wells when Bishop Kidder died in 1703, but he persuaded George Hooper to accept the vacant see. At Hooper’s request, Queen Anne granted Ken a pension of £200. He died at Longleat on 19 March 1711.

One of Ken’s last sayings was, ‘I am dying in the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Faith professed by the whole Church before the disunion of East and West; and, more particularly, in the Communion of the Church of England, as it stands distinguished from both Papal and Protestant innovation, and adheres to the Doctrine of the Cross.’

At dawn on 20 March 1711, while his friends sang ‘Awake, my soul,’ he was buried below the East Window of Saint John’s Church in Frome, Somerset, the nearest parish in the Diocese of Bath and Wells.

Thomas Ken is remembered in the Church of England with on 8 June and in the Episcopal Church on 20 March. He is also commemorated with a statue in a niche on the West Front of Salisbury Cathedral.

‘O God, make the door of this house wide enough to receive all’ … Bishop Thomas Ken’s prayer was inscribed on the doors of Saint Stephen’s Walbrook (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mar Thoma Church to open new Indian church in former Central Methodist Church on Aldergate in Tamworth

The Central Methodist Church on Aldergate, Tamworth, closed in 2022 and has been acquired by the Mar Thoma Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

The former Methodist church in the centre of Tamworth, the Central Methodist Church in Aldergate, closed four years ago, after its last service on Sunday 22 May 2022. When it went for sale at auction a year later (18 May 2023), many fears among local people in Tamworth about the future for the building. The Victorian chapel, with a Gothic-style street frontage, had a guide price of over £150,000.

But now it appears that the church has been saved is going to continue in use as a church having been acquired by the Mar Thoma Church. Hermon Mar Thoma Church is based in Birmingham and its liturgy and services are in the tradition of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar.

The Mar Thoma Church is in formal ‘full communion’ with the Anglican Communion, including the Church of England, the Church of Ireland and the Episcopal Church in the US, with mutual recognition of each other's sacraments and full interchangeably of clergy.

In many places, Mar Thoma parishes have the endorsement of local Anglican bishops, and the theology of the Mar Thoma Church is close to Anglican traditions while maintaining Eastern liturgical heritage. It uses a reformed variant of the West Syriac Rite Divine Liturgy of Saint James, translated into Malayalam.

The Mar Thoma Church sees itself as continuation of the Saint Thomas Christians, a community traditionally believed to have been founded in the first century by Saint Thomas the Apostle, who is known as Mar Thoma n Syriac. The church describes itself as ‘Apostolic in origin, Universal in nature, Biblical in faith, Evangelical in principle, Ecumenical in outlook, Oriental in worship, Democratic in function, and Episcopal in character’.

Hermon Mar Thoma Church, Midlands, is a parish of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar, and held its first services in 1996. The church grew with the arrival of a new group of Diaspora Indians in the UK in 2002, including doctors, nurses, teachers and other professionals. A Midlands prayer group was formed in 2004 and it became a congregation in 2006 and later given the status of a parish church.

Hermon Mar Thoma Church was formed in May 2007. The present vicar is the Revd Saju Chacko, and there are five area prayer groups: Birmingham and Solihull; Coventry, Warwick and Nuneaton; Walsall, Wolverhampton and Stafford; Leicester; Nottingham, Derby and Burton on Trent.

Hermon Mar Thoma Church … a sign outside the former Central Methodist Church in Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The former Central Methodist Church on the west side of Aldergate, between St John’s Street and Lichfield Street, was one of 184 lots at Bond Wolfe’s auction on 18 May 2023. Ian Tudor of Bond Wolfe said at the time of the sale: ‘This former church … has been an important focal point for Tamworth for more than 130 years.’ He said the property was ‘suitable for a wide variety of alternative uses, subject to planning permission.’

The last service was held at the Central Methodist Church in Aldergate, Tamworth, on Sunday 22 May 2022, and the church building, which started life in Tamworth in 1886, closed. A decision has been taken to refocus the congregation on the 1960s building of Saint Andrew's Methodist Church in Thackeray Drive, Leyfields, now known as New Life Methodist Church.

The decision to close the church has left the town centre in Tamworth without a Methodist congregation or building for the first time since Methodism began in the 18th century.

The Methodist Church in Aldergate dated from a split that divided Tamworth’s Methodists in the mid-19th century. A new group was formed calling itself the Wesleyan Reformers and later the Free Methodists. When they left the Bolebridge Street Chapel, they met in a room nearby before acquiring a room in Aldergate that was known as ‘The Hut.’

By the late 19th century, the Free Methodists realised that the Hut did not meet the needs of a growing congregation. They bought a plot of land in Aldergate for £250. The memorial stones were laid at Easter 1886, and the building was completed late that summer, with a spire. The Gothic-style building cost £2,250 and opened for worship on 29 September 1886.

The Free Methodists became part of the United Methodists in 1907. In 1933, the United, Wesleyan and Primitive Methodist Churches became one Methodist Church, but it was many years before this became a reality in Tamworth. Meanwhile, the original spire was removed in the 1950s.

When they were joined by the Victoria Street Methodists in 1972, the new congregation in Aldergate became known as the Central Methodist Church.

But the premises in Aldergate were inadequate for the needs of the new congregation. It was impossible to extend laterally so it was decided to extend vertically, and a large part of the cost was met by grants from the Joseph Rank Benevolent Trust.

The church reopened on 16 September 1978. The front of the building was originally single storey. A mezzanine floor was added in the 1970s resulting in two storeys, while at the rear the original two-storey section was once used as school rooms. At the time of sale, the accommodation included a lobby, a vestry, a lower school room, a meeting room, two kitchens and toilets on the ground floor, a landing, the main worship room and an upper school room on the first floor.

The Central Methodist Church on Aldergate had an organ by Nicholson and Lord of Walsall (1903) that was Grade II* listed in its own right due to its quality. There were many fine monuments, memorials and features, some of which had been moved there from the Bolebridge Street Methodist Church and the Wesleyan Temple in Victoria Road when they closed.

With its spacious rooms, the church had welcomed many community groups for hold meetings and activities over 136 years. The Tamworth and District Civic Society (TDCS) was memorably re-launched there in 2015.

The former Wesleyan Temple, later Victoria Street Methodist Church, has been converted into apartments as Victoria Mews (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John Wesley (1703-1791), the founding Methodist, first visited Tamworth in 1743. Following disturbances in the Black Country, Wesley rode over to Tamworth to take legal advice from a Counsellor Littleton who lived there. However, the first visit of Methodist preachers to Tamworth was not recorded until 1771.

The early Methodists in Tamworth first met in the home of Samuel and Ann Watton and later in a room in Bolebridge Street. In 1787, John Wesley met the first Sir Robert Peel, who gave the Methodists a site for a permanchapel in Bolebridge Street. He told them: ‘My lads, do not build your chapel too large. People would like to go to a little chapel well filled better than a large one half full.’

The new chapel was opened on 15 July 1794. But it was clearly not built ‘too large,’ for by 1815 it was proving to be too small. In 1816, a new and larger chapel that could seat a congregation of 300 was built at a cost of £1,000.

But just as the first Wesleyan chapel in Bolebridge Street had proved too small, the second one also became inadequate, and in the 1870s it was decided to build a new one.

In 1877, Thomas Argyle, a Methodist solicitor, donated a plot of land for a new chapel on the corner of Victoria Road and Back Lane, now Mill Lane. The foundation stones for what would become the Wesleyan Temple were laid on 21 May 1877 and ‘topping out’ ceremony was held on 28 November 1877. The Wesleyan Temple, which opened on 9 April 1878, had an inspiring façade and could seat 650 people.

The Sunday School continued to use Bolebridge Street Chapel until new schoolrooms were built in 1898. The old chapel was sold to Woodcocks’ Printers, who used it for many years. Later, in the 1960s, the congregation at Victoria Road was joined by families from the Bolebridge Street Mission when it closed.

However, serious defects were detected at Victoria Road Methodist Church, as it became known, and the costs of remedying them were beyond the resources of the church. In early 1972, a decision was taken to close the church on Victoria Road and to amalgamate with the Methodist Church in Aldergate. The magnificent Victorian edifice of the church was preserved and at first accommodated squash courts. The inside was stripped out in 1974 and it has since been converted into residential apartments, although the façade remains part of the architectural legacy of Tamworth’s church history.

Today, there are also Methodist Churches at Glascote and Hopwas, and the ecumenical church at Saint Martin’s-in the-Delph at Stonydelph is shared between the Church of England and Methodists.

The name ‘Methodist Free Church’ and the date ‘1886’ can still be seen on the former Central Methodist Church on Aldergate in Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

An exhibition in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth, displays a world-class collection of Pre-Raphaelite windows

The East Window in Saint George’s Chapel by Sir Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris is a highlight of the Stained Glass Exhibition in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

I went to see the Stained Glass Exhibition in Saint Editha’s Church while I was in Tamworth last week. The special month-long exhibition is running throughout May and showcases the world-class stained glass collection in the church, including works by Pre-Raphaelite artists such as William Morris, Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Ford Madox Brown and Henry Holiday, along with paintings, original designs, sketches and archive materials that have never been seen before.

Saint Editha’s has a particularly fine collection of Pre-Raphaelite works, and much of it was manufactured by William Morris and Co and by William Wailes. The church also has windows by Henry Hughes, Florece Camm, Gerald ER Smith, AK Nicholson and two important modern works: the great west window designed by Alan Younger and George Pace, and the Aethelfled window in the south chancel, made by Robert Paddock in 2018.

The Great West Window by Alan Younger was installed in 1975 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Visitors to the exhibition are invited to begin their tour admiring the Great West Window, ‘Revelation of the Holy City,’ by Alan Younger (1933-2004), one of the most important stained-glass artists in post-war Britain. The window was installed in 1975 and dedicated by Princess Margaret.

The three windows in the North Aisle are war memorial windows, two by Henry Holiday dating from World War I and one by Gerald ER Smith and AK Nicholson from World War II.

Henry Holiday was drawn to the Pre-Raphaelite movement at an early stage in his career and succeeded Burne-Jones as the chief designer at the studios of James Powell & Sons in Birmingham. His windows in the north aisle are in memory of the dead of World War I and the Revd Maurice Peel, Vicar of Tamworth in 1915-1917.

Smith and Nicholson, who made the World War II in the north aisle, were influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement.

The window by Henry Hughes in the Comberford Chapel, above the Comberford family memorial (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The window by Henry Hughes (1822-1883) in the Comberford Chapel (1871), above the Comberford family memorial, is in memory of a former Vicar of Tamworth, the Revd Francis Blik (1796-1842) and his wife Anne, and of Robert Watkin Lloyd and his wife Anne.

Another Vicar of Tamworth, Canon EH Rogers, is commemorated in Florence Camm’s window in Saint George’s Chapel. She also made the window in memory of Esther Dean in Saint George’s Chapel.

Between these two windows by Florence Camm, above the memorial to William Allport of Comberford Hall, is a Pre-Raphaelite window by Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris depicting Samuel, Ruth, Naomi and David, and in memory of Emma Pipe Cook.

There are two further windows by Morris and Burne-Jones in Saint George’s Chapel. The window at the east end of north wall of in memory of the Revd Brooke Lambert (1834-1901), a slum priest in the Anglo-Catholic tradition who had worked in Whitechapel and Greenwich and was strongly influenced by FD Maurice. He was the Vicar of Tamworth in 1872-1878 and he and his curate, the Revd William MacGregor, who later became Vicar of Tamworth, were enthusiastic campaigners for social reform. Lambert also became the proprietor of the Tamworth Herald, and Lambert and MacGregor were responsible for many of the 19th century restorations of Saint Editha’s.

The striking figures in this window were designed by Sir Edward Burne-Jones and the glazing is the work of Morris & Co. The figures represent (from left) Saint Martin, Saint Lambert, Saint Nicholas and Saint George.

Four New Testament scenes in the window by Florence Camm in Saint George’s Chapel in memory of Canon EH Rogers (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The East Window in Saint George’s Chapel is an artistic treasure in memory of John Peel (1804-1872), Liberal MP for Tamworth in 1863-1868 and again in 1871-1872. In the tracery are six panels known as the ‘Angles of Creation’ by Burne-Jones. This window was made in the 1874 in the workshops of William Morris and connects the story of the six days of Creation with the story of the redemption of humanity. The smaller lights surrounding these are filled with depictions of angels who are playing musical instruments, making melody in honour of the Creation, the Incarnation and the Redemption.

The Incarnation is shown in a painting of the Annunciation at the top of the arch which, through the Creation of Humanity, links with the impressive panel in the centre of the window, depicting the story of Saint Christopher, representing the Redemption of humanity. On either side are two rows of three images of Old Testament prophets and New Testament saints: (top left) Noah, Enoch and Saint John the Baptist; (bottom left) Abraham, Moses and Saint Peter; (top right) Saint John the Evangelist, Samuel and David; (bottom right) Saint Paul, Elijah and Saint Barnabas.

The inscription in a scroll beneath the feet of Saint Christopher reads: ‘To the glory of God and in memory of John Peel sometime representative of this borough in parliament. Born Feb 4 1804. Died April 2 1872.’

The great East Window dates from 1870 and was designed by William Wailes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The great East Window in the chancel, above the high altar and the reredos, dates from 1870, and was designed by William Wailes (1808-1881), the proprietor of one of the largest and most prolific stained glass workshops in England. It is a tribute to the Revd James Ogilvy Millar (1828-1890), who was the Vicar of Tamworth in 1865-1869 and, who was instrumental in the restoration of the church.

Ford Madox Brown (1821-1893) also designed the three Marmion windows high up in the clerestory on the south side of the chancel telling the story of Saint Editha. These windows were made at the studios of William Morris.

The first of three window tells the story of the marriage of Editha of Mercia and Sigtrygg of Northumbria. The second window shows Saint Editha and her nuns witnessing a vision of the Virgin Mary. The third window tells the story of the Marmion family of Tamworth Castle and a vision of Saint Editha.

William Wailes also designed the three lower clerestory windows on the south side of the chancel. They commemorate, from left: Bishop Richard Rawle of Trinidad, former Vicar of Tamworth (1869-1872), showing Melchisedec, King of Salem, meeting Abraham; the middle window, in memory of Waldyve Henry Willington (1831-1850) of Tamworth, who died of fever in Saint John’s College, Cambridge, showing Abraham offering his son Isaac in sacrifice; and Joseph Gray of Maids Moreton, Buckinghamshire, who died in 1846 and is buried in the north porch of the church. This third window depicts Moses, has an inscription ‘As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.’

The Æthelflæd window by Robert Paddock is a tribute to Norman and Mavis Biggs (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Æthelflæd window portrays the warrior queen in front of a fortified burh, surrounded by English oak leaves, within a solid oak frame in an internal opening in the chancel. The hand-made glass was produced by Robert Paddock of the Art of Glass Ltd of Hatton, Warwickshire. The window is back-lit so that its rich colours change in appearance during the course of the day, and it is particularly striking in the evening.

The window is a tribute by their children to Norman and Mavis Biggs who both died in January 2017. For over half a century, they were involved in promoting, protecting and celebrating Tamworth’s heritage and history.

The window was blessed and dedicated by Bishop Michael Ipgrave of Lichfield, and a plaque was unveiled by Prince Edward in 2018 as part of service organised by the Tamworth and District Civic Society to mark the 1100th anniversary of the death of Æthelflæd.

The window by William Wailes in the Saint Nicholas Chapel in the South Transeptm behind the Lady Chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The window in the Saint Nicholas Chapel or South Transept is easy to overlook, behind the Lady Chapel and half hidden by the organ. This window, also by William Wailes, depicts three Resurrection themes beautifully illustrated in glowing colours: the Supper at Emmaus (left), the Resurrection (centre) and the Miraculous Draught of Fishes (right).

This window is in memory of John Harding of Bonehill, who died on 9 July 1844, aged 82, and his wife, Margaret, who died on 14 November 1833, aged 66, who are buried with six of their children in a vault underneath the North Porch.

The three windows in the South Aisle have stained glass made by Powell & Son of London and designed by Henry Holiday. The colouring and drawing of the Biblical subjects in these windows are particularly fine.

The Biblical figures in the first window in the south aisle are Daniel (‘Bless ye the Lord’), Esther (‘What wilt thou Queen Esther?’) and Ezra (‘By the rivers of Babylon we wept’). The second window depicts David (‘The Battle is the Lord’s’, I Samuel 17: 17), Rizpah (‘She suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day nor the beasts of the field by night’, II Samuel 21: 10) and Solomon (‘Blessed be the Lord which delighted in thee’, I Kings 10: 9). The third window depicts Samson (‘Let me die with the Philistines’), Ruth (’Whose damsel is this?’) and Samuel (‘Anoint him for this is he’).

The exhibition also includes paintings, original design sketches and archive materials, many of which have never seen before. Several artefacts on display are on loan from the Tamworth Castle Collection.

Some of the artefacts in the North Aisle include an original watercolour of the Saint Christopher window, attributed to Henry Holiday; original paintings of the three north aisle windows; design sketches; and a collection of other local stained glass, both sacred and secular.

The exhibition opened on 2 May and continues until 31 May. It is open daily from 10 am to 2 pm, with special guided tours and a ‘Behind-the-Scenes’ event, and is accompanied by a new windows guidebook.

The exhibition in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth, continues until 31 May (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The lost chapel in Hopwas, stories of early Methodists and of the former ‘Hopwas Congregation’ of Catholics

The site of Saint John’s Chapel, Hopwas … now green space and a disused burial ground on Hints Lane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

When I was visiting Saint Chad’s Church in Hopwas in recent days, I noticed the old font in the churchyard, on the south side of the church. The font is a surviving reminder of Saint John’s Chapel, a chapel-of-ease on Hints Lane that was replaced when Saint Chad’s was built in 1879-1881, along with the bell that still tolls in Saint Chad’s Church.

I decided a few days ago to go in search of the site of Saint John’s Chapel, and found the old churchyard on Hints Lane, less than half a mile west of the Tame Otter.

This is a very small cemetery off a quiet road. A few of the gravestones are very worn, only a few of them can be read and there is no sign to describe the former churchyard. The small rectangular plot of land is surrounded by a low wall, with just a small metal gate.

Saint John’s Chapel was built as a chapel-of-ease for Tamworth parish in 1836. There are no signs to indicate that a church once stood on the site, although some of the legible gravestones indicate it continued to be used as a burial ground until the early decades of the 20th century.

The font from Saint John’s Chapel is on the south side of Saint Chad’s Church, in the churchyard (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

When the Revd William MacGregor (1848-1937) was appointed Vicar of Tamworth in 1878, he gave Saint Editha’s Church a major facelift, had its bells recast, and built two churches, at Glascote and at Hopwas. He believed that Saint John’s chapel, built over 40 years earlier was too small to cater for the growing population of Hopwas. But when he sought land to build a new church, he was opposed by Sir Robert Peel who argued that the population was not large enough.

Nonetheless, MacGregor managed to secure a site for his planned church from the Revd TK Levett of Packington Hall in 1878, with additional land donated by Herbert Dean. The church was designed by John Douglas and consecrated in 1881.

The original chapel structure may have survived a little longer after the font and bell were moved up the hill to the new Saint Chad’s, for the Tamworth Herald reported on 16 April 1898 that the holy table from Saint John’s was made use of in the new workhouse chapel in Tamworth.

All that remains of Saint John’s today may be a handful of stones in among the graves in the former churchyard in the centre of the village. Even the tree planted to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s 90th birthday has wilted and seems to have died.

Hopwas Methodist Church on Hints Lane was built in 1888 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Two other traditions, the Methodists and the Roman Catholics, have also had a long presence in Hopwas, alongside the Church of England.

Francis Wilson (1835-1917) introduced Methodism to Hopwas three months after he moved to the village in 1866. When his cottage on School Lane became too small for the growing congregation, a new chapel was built in 1888 on Hints Lane on the other side of the village, a little further west along Hints Lane. Hopwas Methodist Church has been in the heart of the village ever since.

Hopwas Methodist Church is part of the Tamworth and Lichfield Methodist Circuit, a collection of six churches in Tamworth, Lichfield, Alrewas, Hopwas, Shenstone and Stonydelph. The Revd Joanna Thornton is the Superintendent Minister, and Sunday services in Hopwas are at 10:45 am. On a fifth Sunday in the month, a joint service alternates between Hopwas Methodist Church and Saint Chad’s Church.

Hopwas Methodists met for oover 20 years in the home of Francis Wilson, from 1866 to 1888 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

In the past, Hopwas also had an interesting Roman Catholic presence. Local tradition says that Catholics in the area attended Mass in the chapel in Comberford Hall until the Comberford family moved away in 1671, although that date ought perhaps to be as late as 1718, when Catherine Comberford died.

The Catholics in the area were then served by visiting priests from Pipe Hall, the home of the Weld family, who were descended from the Comberfords through the Heveningham family, and from Oscott College. The Revd Dr John Kirk of Holy Cross, Lichfield, took charge of what was called the ‘Hopwas Congregation’ in 1801, and the congregation met in houses until 1815.

However, I have yet to identify those houses. It would be interesting if there is any continuity in that Catholic tradition between the houses used by the congregation in those years and the two houses in Hopwas still owned by Catherine Comberford when she died in 1718.

The ‘Hopwas Congregation’ of Catholics met in houses in Hopwas from 1801 until 1815 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Birch family gave a small plot of land at Coton in 1815, and Father Kirk built a small chapel. The chapel opened on 15 August 1815, when the preacher was the recently-ordained Dr Henry Weedall (1788-1859), later President of Saint Mary’s College, Oscott.

For 50 years from 1826, the Revd James Kelly was in charge of the Tamworth mission. A new church and presbytery were built in 1829-1830 ‘entirely through his exertions’, although other accounts suggest that the energetic Father Kirk also remained involved, and that the new church in Tamworth was partly endowed by John Talbot (1791-1852), 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, who lived at Alton Towers, who commissioned AWN Pugin to build many churches in Staffordshire, and who was once ‘the most prominent British Catholic of day’.

In the 1820s, Kirk also built Holy Cross Church on Upper Saint John Street, Lichfield, which was later enlarged and rebuilt in 1832 by the Lichfield-born architect Joseph Potter (1756-1842).

A piece of land in central Tamworth was acquired from Sir Robert Peel, and Kirk’s Lichfield friend Potter was commissioned to design a neoclassical church with an attached presbytery, although it is possible that the church was designed by Joseph Potter jnr.

The foundation stone was laid on Good Friday, 17 April 1829, and the church was opened on the feast of Saint John the Baptist, 24 June 1830, by Bishop Thomas Walsh (1777-1849), Vicar Apostolic for the Midland District, when a choir from Oscott College sang.

Saint John’s Church, Tamworth, was remodelled and extended and given a distinctly post-war character in 1954-1956, and its brick exterior makes it look like a 20th century church. Its story has developed quite separately from the ‘Hopwas Congregation’ that met in houses in Hopwas from 1801 to 1815, or its distant predecessor in Comberford Hall a century or more earlier.

Comberford Hall … local tradition says a Catholic congregation met in the private chapel of the Comberford family before moving to Hopwas (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Chad’s Church, Hopwas: ‘an ingenious and entertaining’ church built by a Vicar of Tamworth

Saint Chad’s Church in Hopwas, Staffordshire, was designed by John Douglas (1830-1911) and built in 1879-1881 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

My 10-mile walk through the countryside in south Staffordshire last week, starting at the Moat House in Tamworth, brought me to Wigginton and Saint Leonard’s Church, along Comberford Lane and Wigginton Lane to Comberford and the banks of the River Tame, and then along Coton Lane to Hopwas.

Before returning to Tamworth, I stopped to see Hopwas and Hopwas Hayes Wood, climbed up the hill to Saint Chad’s Church, walked along the canal towpaths beside the Tame Otter and the Red Lion, and had a late lunch in the Tame Otter.

Saint Chad’s Church, tucked under the woods, was built in 1879-1881 to replace the earlier Saint John’s Chapel, built as a chapel-of-ease for Tamworth parish in 1836. Saint John’s churchyard can still be seen on the right-hand or west side of Hints Lane, walking up from the Tame Otter, just beyond Hopwas Methodist Church.

Saint Chad’s Church, Hopwas, was built on the initiative of the Revd William MacGregor (1848-1937), Vicar of Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Revd William MacGregor (1848-1937) who was, without doubt, Tamworth’s ultimate ‘champion of the poor’ and the very embodiment of the Victorian ‘slum priest’. He was a curate in Hopwas, outside Tamworth, in 1872-1876, and then Vicar of Saint Matthias’, Liverpool, in 1877-1878. But he returned to Tamworth and the Diocese of Lichfield when he was appointed Vicar of Tamworth in 1878 at the age of 30.

When he was the Vicar of Tamworth (1878-1887), MacGregor gave Saint Editha’s Church a major facelift, had its bells recast, and built two churches, at Glascote and at Hopwas. Saint John’s was too small to cater for the growing population of Hopwas, but when he sought land to build a new church, he was opposed by Sir Robert Peel who argued that the population was not large enough. However, the Revd TK Levett of Packington Hall gave an acre of land as a site for a new church in 1878, and Herbert Dean later gave additional land to ensure the church had an open setting.

The foundation stone was laid in 1879 and Saint Chad’s was consecrated on 23 April 1881 by William Dalrymple Maclagan (1826-1910), Bishop of Lichfield (1878-1891) and later Archbishop of York (1891-1908).

The foundation stone was laid in 1879 and Saint Chad’s was consecrated in 1881 by Bishop William Dalrymple Maclagan of Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

This brick and timber-framed ‘chocolate-box’, Arts and Crafts church on Hopwas Hill is in the shadow of Hopwas Hayes Wood. It has been praised by the architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner as ‘an ingenious and entertaining building’. It was designed by the architect John Douglas (1830-1911) of Chester and is now a Grade II listed building.

The architect John Douglas (1830-1911) of Chester also designed many of the interior fittings, including the choir stalls, pulpit, pews and sanctuary rail. As an architect, Douglas designed over 500 buildings in Cheshire, North Wales, and north-west England, particularly on the Eaton Hall estate.

Douglas designed 500 or more buildings, built at least 40 new churches or chapels, restored, altered or renovated many more churches, and designed fittings and furniture for the interiors of his churches. His other works include houses, farms, shops, banks, offices, hotels, a hospital, drinking fountains, clocks, schools, public baths, a library, a bridge, an obelisk, cheese factories, and public conveniences. Most of his work was in Cheshire and North Wales, although there are some in Lancashire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Scotland.

Inside Saint Chad’s Church, Hopwas, facing east towards the High Altar, choir and chancel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

His architectural styles were eclectic. He worked during the period of the Gothic Revival, and much of his works incorporates elements of the English Gothic style. The firm where he trained was at the forefront of the Gothic Revival and both Edmund Sharpe and EG Paley were influenced by the Cambridge Camden Society and by AWN Pugin. Douglas’s first church, Saint John the Evangelist at Over, Winsford, was entirely English Gothic in style.

He was also influenced by European architectural styles and he included French, German and Dutch elements. However, he is probably best remembered for incorporating vernacular elements in his buildings, in particular half-timbering, influenced by the black-and-white revival in Chester. One of his characteristic features is his inclusion of dormer windows rising through the eaves and surmounted by hipped roofs. Other elements include tile-hanging, pargeting and the use of decorative brick in diapering and the design of tall chimney stacks, and his use of joinery and highly detailed wood carving.

Douglas attracted commissions from wealthy landowners and industrialists, especially the Grosvenor family of Eaton Hall. Most of his works have survived, particularly his churches. Chester has a number of his structures, the most admired of which are his half-timbered black-and-white buildings and the Eastgate Clock. The highest concentration of his work is found in the Eaton Hall estate and the surrounding villages of Eccleston, Aldford and Pulford.

Inside Saint Chad’s Church, Hopwas, facing west from the High Altar, choir and chancel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

John Douglas was born in Sandiway, Cheshire, on 11 April 1830, the second of four children and the only son of John Douglas, a builder, joiner, surveyor and timber merchant from Northampton, and his wife Mary (née Swindley) from Aldford on the Eaton estate in Cheshire. John Douglas senior was a builder and joiner, and also described himself as an architect, surveyor and a timber merchant.

He gained experience in his father’s building yard and workshop before being articled in the 1840s to EG Paley of Sharpe and Paley, architects in Lancaster. He was Paley’s chief assistant until he established his own office at No 6 Abbey Square, Chester, in 1855-1860.

Douglas married Elizabeth Edmunds from Bangor-is-y-Coed, Flintshire, in 1860 in Saint Dunawd’s Church, the village church he later restored, and they were the parents of five children.

He designed four churches and chapels, eight parsonages and large houses for the Duke of Westminster, as well as 15 schools, around 50 farms, about 300 cottages, lodges and smithies, two factories, two inns and about 12 commercial buildings on the Eaton Hall estate, as well as a church and buildings on the Halkyn estate in Flintshire. He also had commissions from the Earl of Sefton, the Earl of Ellesmere, the Marquess of Cholmondeley, Lord Kenyon, and the Gladstone family, including WE Gladstone, and from soap makers such as the Johnsons and WH Lever, the creator of Port Sunlight.

John Douglas designed many of the interior fittings, including the choir stalls, pulpit, pews and sanctuary rail (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

By the time Douglas moved to Chester, the black-and-white revival using half-timbering was well under way, and Douglas came to incorporate this style in his buildings in Chester and elsewhere. Part of his earliest work for the Grosvenor family, the entrance lodge to Grosvenor Park, used half-timbering in its upper storey, the first known use by Douglas of black-and-white.

One of Douglas's most important secular buildings is St Deiniol’s Library, at Hawarden, Flintshire, designed for WE Gladstone and his family. His work in the centre of Chester includes 38 Bridge Street (1897), a timber-framed shop that incorporates a section of Chester Rows and has heavily decorated carving. The architectural historian Edward Hubbard says that ‘in this work, the city’s half-timber revival reached its very apogee’.

Douglas died on 23 May 1911 at Walmoor Hill, the large house he built for himself at Dee Banks, and he was buried at Overleigh Old Cemetery, Chester. Pevsner describes him as ‘the best Cheshire architect’.

he East Window (1890) is probably by Heaton, Butler & Bayne (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

A notice in the church porch reads:

Enter this door
as if the floor within were gold
and every wall of jewels,
all of wealth untold,
as if a choir
in robes were signing here.
Nor shout – nor rush
but hush for
God is here.

Saint Chad’s Church, which Douglas designed in Hopwas, was built by J Deakins. Pevsner says that in its design it is ‘certainly an ingenious and entertaining building’. All the timber is oak. The exterior design resembles a chalet, well suited to the woodland background. The lower walls are reddish pink brick and at the chancel continue up to form a low saddle backed tower topped with an octagonal turret of oak shingles surmounted with a wrought iron cross and weather vane.

Saint Chad’s is built in red brick with timber framing in its upper parts, and has a roof of plain tiles. The church is crowned by an octagonal flèche. Its plan consists of a five-bay nave and a single-bay chancel between which is the flèche, with a vestry to the south and an annex with the organ to the north.

The octagonal stone font at the west end of Saint Chad’s Church, Hopwas (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The interior consists mainly of buff coloured brick and dark oak. The chancel has a five-light east window with Perpendicular tracery and a square head. The East window by Heaton, Butler & Bayne (1890) depicts the Crucifixion in the centre with the Nativity and Baptism of Christ to the left, and the women at the empty tomb and the road to Emmaus to the right.

The fittings include an octagonal stone font, a carved oak pulpit with stone base and steps, open cusped arches, a wooden altar rail with traceried panels, an oak lectern and oak pews with poppyheads.

The original organ appears to have been pneumatically controlled with the manual on the south side and the pipes installed on the north side. Small pipes were laid in a duct under the floor enabling the keys being pressed to direct wind to the pipes. A small archway in the west side of the organ chamber may have been the access point for the ‘bellows boy’ to provide wind for the organ.

The present organ manual is sunk down 2 ft in front of the priest’s stall with the music coming from the pipes on the north wall behind the choir stalls. The organ was built by the organ builders Hill, Norman & Beard in 1940. It was installed by Herbert Dean in memory of his first wife Esther and was dedicated on 20 May 1940. The organ is being restored after an infestation of wood worm, with the entire organ stripped down, restored and rebuilt.

The organ was built by Hill, Norman & Beard in 1940 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The war memorial in the churchyard is at the east end of the church. The Celtic cross in Peterhead granite is 3.7 m (12 ft) high with interlace carving, carved wreaths and the names of people who died in World War I and World War II.

As for the Revd William MacGregor, the priest who initiated the building Saint of Chad’s, his initiative in starting the Co-op in Tamworth enraged many business owners in Tamworth. He was abused in the street, damned in letters sent to him, to the Tamworth Herald and to the bishop, and some parishioners stopped going to church in protest.

He resigned as Vicar of Tamworth in 1887 but continued to live in Tamworth, faithful to his beliefs and morals, held in esteem by ordinary working men and women. He sat on Warwickshire County Council (1888-1917) and was chair of the Tamworth Herald (1906-1928). He was 89 when he died on 26 February 1937 at Bolehall Manor; it seems fitting that he was buried at Saint Chad’s Church, Hopwas.

The war memorial in the churchyard at the east end of the church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

A poster on the noticeboard says:

In happy moments, praise God.
In difficult moments, seek God.
In quiet moments, trust God.
In every moment, thank God.

• Saint Chad’s Church, Hopwas, is part of a benefice that includes Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth, Saint Francis, Leyfields, and Saint Andrew’s, Kettlebrook, and the Revd Andrew Lythall is the vicar. The Eucharist is celebrated most Sundays at 10:30 am, but occasionally this is replaced with ‘Prayer & Praise’. On a fifth Sunday in the month, a joint service alternates between Saint Chad’s Church and Hopwas Methodist Church.

Sir Niklaus Pevsner describes Saint Chad’s Church, Hopwas, as ‘an ingenious and entertaining building’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Leonard’s Church, Wigginton, and its links with mediaeval prebendaries in Tamworth

The lychgate at the entrance to Saint Leonard’s Church in Wigginton, Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

My 10-mile ramble through the countryside in south-east Staffordshire the other day began by setting out from Tamworth for the small village of Wigginton, three miles north of Tamworth, before hiking on to Comberford, Coton and Hopwas, and then returning to Tamworth.

Wigginton takes its name comes from the Old English meaning ‘Wicga’s Farm’. The village has a school, a pub, a war memorial and a Grade II listed church, Saint Leonard’s Church.

The Parish of Wigginton includes Saint Leonard’s Church in Wigginton and Saint James’s Spital Chapel on Wigginton Road in Tamworth. The Spital Chapel is tucked away behind houses between Ashby Road and Wigginton Road, Tamworth. The chapel was not open when I arrived at its gates on Thursday morning, but normally there are services there on the first and third Sundays at 9 am.

I had been interested for many years in visiting Wigginton because of its many associations with the Comberford family over the centuries. But for some inexplicable reasons I had never visited either Wigginton or Saint Leonard’s Church until now.

Saint Leonard’s Church in Wigginton … Wigginton was part of Tamworth parish until the parish of Wigginton with Comberford and Syerscote was formed in 1856 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

As a parish in the Diocese of Lichfield, Wigginton Parish includes Spital Chapel and in the past also included Saint Mary and Saint George Church, Comberford, which closed in recent years. In local government divisions in Staffordshire, the civil parish of Wigginton and Hopwas is part of the area of Lichfield District Council and includes the villages of Wigginton, Comberford and Hopwas – all of which I visited in that one day during that 10-mile hike.

Saint Leonard, who died in 559, was one of the most venerated saints in the late Middle Ages, and his cult spread rapidly in the 12th century. His intercession was credited with miracles for the release of prisoners, women in labour and the diseases of cattle. His feast day is 6 November.

In Church life, mediaeval Wigginton had its own chapel, but the parish church was Saint Editha’s Collegiate Church in Tamworth, where the college of canons included the Prebendaries of Wigginton and Comberford. Tamworth was one of a handful of royal free churches or peculiars that were ecclesiastical islands within yet outside the Diocese of Lichfield.

The north-east side of Saint Leonard’s Church, Wigginton, with the vestry and chancel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Prebendaries of Wigginton and Comberford can be traced for a period of more than 250 years, from 1290 until the chapter was dissolved in 1548 with the dissolution of the chantries and monastic foundations at the Tudor Reformation. Throughout most of those 2½ centuries, the dean and canons were usually crown nominees. But, for a brief time, the appointment of the Dean and many of the prebendaries, including the Prebendary of Wigginton and Comberford, was claimed by the Marmion family of Tamworth and, as their heirs, by the Butler family.

A priest in the Butler family, Thomas le Botiller, became Prebendary of Wigginton and Comberford on 5 May 1341, but his appointment had royal ratification seven months later on 10 December 1341. From 1290 until 1548, we can identify the Prebendaries of Wigginton and Comberford, and they include a professor of theology, a Proctor of the University of Oxford, two Deans of York, a Dean of Salisbury, a Dean of Hereford, a Bishop of Salisbury, a Bishop of Exeter, a Bishop of Limerick, two Lords Privy Seal, a Lord Chancellor, and a number of royal chaplains.

After 1350, this Prebend is usually named simply as Wigginton rather than Wigginton and Comberford. Humfrey Horton, who was presented on 1 August 1538, was the last Prebendary of Wigginton and Comberford. and Simon Symonds was the last dean of the Collegiate Church of Saint Editha, Tamworth (1538-1548).

Inside Saint Leonard’s Church, Wigginton, facing east (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Inside Saint Leonard’s Church, Wigginton, facing west from the chancel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Wigginton, with Comberford and Syerscote were formed into an ecclesiastical parish in the Diocese of Lichfield on 14 March 1856. Saint Leonard’s Church had been built on the ruins of a previous chapel and incorporating parts of the earlier chapel and was completed in 1777. The north aisle was added in 1830, and the chancel and vestry were added in 1861-1862 and were designed by the architect and surveyor Nicholas Joyce of Greengate Street, Stafford.

Joyce also designed the Assembly Rooms in Tamworth in an ‘Italianate’ style. They were commissioned by Tamworth Borough Council to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887.

Joyce’s other works in Staffordshire include an extension at the east end of Saint Luke's Church, Cannock, where he added two additional bays in 1878-1882 to the nave and aisles on dates in the 12th century church; Saint James the Great Church, Salt, built in 1840-1842 by Bertram Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, and designed by the local architect Thomas Trubshaw, where Joyce added new pews, pulpit and floors; and a butchers’ market in Stafford.

There were further additions to Saint Leonard’s Church in 1901, so that the church today consists of a nave, a west porch, a north aisle, a chancel, a north-east vestry and a bell tower. The chancel is in stone and random rubble, the three-bay nave and the north aisle are in red brick on a sandstone plinth, and the roof is slated with coped verges.

The oldest part of the church is the chancel, rebuilt in 1777 on the ruins of the previous chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The oldest part of the church is the chancel which was rebuilt in 1777 on the ruins of the previous chapel and probably incorporates parts of that earlier chapel. The two-bay chancel has clasping buttresses and a sill string that continues as a hood mould over a central pointed door on the south side. The pointed three-light east window has a Geometric tracery and hood mould with foliated stops. The east window (1893) shows the Crucifixion in the centre, with the Nativity and Baptism to the left and right.

There are two windows by the Victorian glass designer Charles Eamer Kempe (1837-1907) on the south side of the chancel. The window to the west (1897) depicting Saint Luke and Saint John, is in memory of the Revd Dr Usher Williamson Purcell, has two lights with plate tracery; the smaller window to the east is a single light depicts the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child. Williamson, who was Irish-born and had qualified as a meidcal doctor at Glasgow Universitym was the Vicar of Wigginton for 32 years from 1865.

CE Kempe is best known in the late Victorian period for his stained-glass windows, and some of his work in this corner of Staffordshire can also be seen in Lichfield Cathedral, the chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield, Christ Church, Leomansley, and Saint John’s Church, Wall.

The Cambridge Church Historian Owen Chadwick (1916-2015), has said Kempe’s work represents ‘the Victorian zenith’ of church decoration and stained glass windows. His studios produced over 4,000 windows and designs for altars and altar frontals, furniture and furnishings, lychgates and memorials that helped to define a later 19th century Anglican style.

The south chancel windows by Charles Eamer Kempe in Saint Leonard’s Church, Wigginton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The chancel of Saint Leonard’s has an arch braced collar roof. The pointed and chamfered chancel arch has an inner chamfered order springing from short corbelled half-columns with stiff leaf decoration.

To the north-east of the chancel, the L-shaped vestry has pointed two-light windows with plate tracery on the north and east sides.

The nave and aisle have tall small-pane windows with semi-circular arches springing from imposts. The north aisle has a circular west window with a moulded stone surround. The west door at the west end of the north aisle has a moulded stone surround and cyma recta moulded cornice hood.

The nave has a plain plaster ceiling. At the west end of the nave is a 19th century gabled west porch with a pointed doorway, flanked by two circular oculus windows with moulded stone frames, and there is a Diocletian window above the porch. The square bell turret has a pyramidal hipped roof.

The short corbelled half-columns in the chancel arch have stiff leaf decoration (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Two massive Tuscan columns inside support the west turret and there are two cast iron columns between the nave and the north aisle. The north gallery is also supported on cast iron columns.

The fittings in the church include two pairs of boards on the south wall with the words of the Lord’s Prayer on one pair and the Ten Commandments on the other; a wooden Gothic style pulpit, a brass altar rail with decorative brackets, and wainscotting in the sanctuary from ca 1935.

The font dates from the mid to late 19th century, and is a stone font with an octagonal base, ribbed and banded decoration, and a wooden font cover from ca 1938. There is a full set of 20th century pews.

The church was completely redecorated in 2016 and can seat up to 100 people comfortably. The parish centre beside the church is available for hire.

The north gallery is supported on cast iron columns (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Revd Debra Dyson is the Vicar of Wigginton. The old vicarage is beside the church and the present vicarage is on Comberford Lane.

Outside the church, the lychgate was erected by family and friends in memory of Charles Edward Mercer, organist and choirmaster of Saint Leonard’s for 50 years (1926-1976).

But more about Wigginton village and its links with the Comberford family tomorrow, hopefully.

The sower and the seed … a window in the north gallery (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

• There is a Sung Eucharist in Saint Leonard’s Church, Wigginton, on the second, third, fourth and fifth Sunday at 10:30, and a ‘Sacred Space’ service at 5 pm. The Morning Service at 10:30 on the first Sunday is Common Worship Morning Prayer, and an informal Communion is celebrated every first Sunday at 5 pm.

The Old Vicarage beside Saint Leonard’s Church … the Irish-born Revd Dr Usher Williamson Purcell was the Vicar of Wigginton for 32 years from 1865 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)