Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 96, Tuesday 11 August 2026

‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven’ (Matthew 18: 3) … a stained-glass window in the Comberford Chapel in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Tenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity X).

In the calendar in Common Worship, the Church of England today remembers Saint Clare of Assisi (1193-1253), founder of the Minoresses (Poor Clares), and Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890), Priest, Tractarian and newly-proclaimed Doctor of the Church. As this day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

The Preaching of the Kingdom of God … an icon in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 18: 1-5, 10, 12-14 (NRSVA):

1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ 2 He called a child, whom he put among them, 3 and said, ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

10 ‘Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones; for, I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven.

12 ‘What do you think? If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? 13 And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. 14 So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.’

‘Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven’ (Matthew 18: 4) … a stained-glass window in the Chapel in Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

All of us are disturbed in recent years months abobyut the terrors that are being rained down on children in the world today, in the war in the Gaza Strip, the war in Ukraine, the US bombing of Iran, and among the children who are part of the plight of refugees and migrants in small boats on the seas.

I say ‘children’ and not ‘innocent children,’ because there is no such being as a guilty child – there are only innocent children.

And the suffering and plight of children is all the more distressing when is caused by the calculations of adults who dismiss this suffering as merely the collateral damage brought about by war or because these children are dismissed as foreigners or outsiders.

For Christians, this distress must always be acute, must always demand our compassion, must always call for our response.

Surely it should never matter what label is placed on these children – whether the suffering Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip are Christians or Muslims; whether the children kidnapped from a kibbutz in Israel are from secular or religious Jewish families; whether the 120 children bombed to death in a school in Minab in southern Iran come from families that support or oppose the regime; whether the children on boats in the English Channel are from Africa, Asia or the Middle East; whether the refugee children Charlotte and I visited across Europe on behalf of USPG three years ago are Ukrainian or Russian.

The disciples ask Christ in today’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Matthew 18: 1-5, 10, 12-14): ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ He responds by calling a child, puts the child among them, and tells them: ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.’

We are not told whether this child is a boy or girl, Jew or Samaritan, Greek or Roman, a street urchin or the child of one of the Disciples.

Indeed, in all likelihood, the Disciples never noticed, for at that time a child was of no economic value and a burden on families until the child could earn his or her own way, or become the equivalent of a pension scheme for parents.

But Christ tells us: ‘Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones; for, I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven … it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.’

The Kingdom of Heaven is like little things. The Gospels remind us time and again that the Kingdom of Heaven is like small things:

• Sowing a seed;

• Giving a nest to the birds of the air;

• Mixing yeast;

• Turning small amounts of flour into generous portions of bread;

• Finding hidden treasure;

• Rushing out in joy;

• Selling all that I have because something I have found is worth more – much, much more, again and again;

• Searching for pearls;

• Finding just one pearl;

• Casting a net into the sea;

• Catching an abundance of fish;

• Drawing that abundance of fish ashore, realising there is too much there for my personal needs, and sharing it;

• Writing about it so that others can enjoy the benefit and rewards of treasures new and old.

And this morning we are told that Kingdom of God is like a little child – imagine a child playing on a beach in Gaza, falsely feeling secure in a school or hospital in Ukraine, Russia or Iran, maimed and injured in a mother’s arms at home, dying in a Gaza hospital, kidnapped at a music festival in Israel or in her parent’s home in a kibbutz, caught in terror in the midst of a far-right riot on our city streets, starving and despised in a refugee camp or in the war the world ignores in Sudan, sea-sick in a crowded small boat in the English Channel, cowering in a cramped hotel room as rioters try to set the hotel alight.

In the face of these images I find myself thinking of the prophets, like Ezekiel who was called to speak ‘words of lamentation and mourning and woe’ and compelled to ‘go to the house of Israel and speak [God’s] very words to them’ (see Ezekiel 2: 8 to 3: 4).

But I have hope too, for I hear Christ’s words today: ‘in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven … it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.’

‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me’ (Matthew 18: 5) … a stained-glass window in Saint Mary’s Church, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 11 August 2026):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week (9-15 August 2026, pp 28-29), is ‘Mission to the Mangyans’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by the Revd Jewel B Tumaliuan, Programme Director, Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI).

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 11 August 2026) invites us to pray:

Heavenly Father, we give thanks for lay leaders like Nanay Norma Abnay, serving with dedication and care. Grant strength, wisdom, and joy in leadership, as communities gather in faith and unity.

The Collect of the Day:

God of peace,
who in the poverty of the blessed Clare
gave us a clear light to shine in the darkness of this world:
give us grace so to follow in her footsteps
that we may, at the last, rejoice with her in your eternal glory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Merciful God,
who gave such grace to your servant Clare
that she served you with singleness of heart
and loved you above all things:
help us, whose communion with you
has been renewed in this sacrament,
to forsake all that holds us back from following Christ
and to grow into his likeness from glory to glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

‘So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost’ (Matthew 18: 14) … a stained-glass window in Saint Michael’s Church, St Albans (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Holy Trinity Church, Oxford, the church on Blackfriars Road lost in 1950s slum clearances

Blackfriars Road, Oxford … Holy Trinity Church was built in 1845 and demolished in 1957 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

As I made my way from the Grandpont area of south Oxford, crossing the River Thames and Gasworks Pipe Bridge to search for the site of the former Greyfriars at Westgate, I could not but notice the ecclesiastical tone to many of the street names between the river and Westgate Oxford: Friars Wharf, Preachers Lane, Blackfriars Road, Trinity Street …

This southern part of Saint Ebbe’s parish was once known as the Friars, recalling the Greyfriars or Franciscans and Blackfriars or Dominicans who settled in Saint Ebbe’s in the early decades of the 13th century.

The two friaries were abolished in the 1530s at the dissolution of the monastic houses during the Tudor Reformation, and most of their buildings were demolished. But their memory lived on in the local placenames such as Greyfriars, Friars Wharf, Preachers Lane, Trinity Street and Blackfriars Road.

That part of Saint Ebbe’s parish changed dramatically in the early decades of the 19th century when the gasworks opened on the north bank of the River Thames in 1818. As the population of Saint Ebbe’s increased, a schoolroom was licensed for services in 1842 and a new parish – Holy Trinity – was formed from the southern part of Saint Ebbe’s parish, with a stipend of £150 provided for the incumbent.

Holy Trinity, Blackfriars Road, Oxford ca 1910 … opened in 1845 and closed in 1954 (Photograph © Oxfordshire History Centre, Oxfordshire County Council)

The new parish church, Holy Trinity Church, was designed in Early English style by the Oxford-based architect Henry Jones Underwood (1804-1852). It was built on the corner of Blackfriars Road and Trinity Street in 1844-1845 and opened in 1845.

Around the same time, a similarly-named Holy Trinity Church was being built in the village of Headington Quarry, Oxford, in 1848-1849. That church was designed by the architect George Gilbert Scott and later became known for its associations with CS Lewis.

Henry Jones Underwood, the architect of Holy Trinity Church, Blackfriars Road, was a brother of the architects Charles Underwood and George Allen Underwood, and spent most of his career in Oxford. He trained in London as a pupil of Henry Hake Seward and then joined the office of Sir Robert Smirke.

Underwood moved to Oxford in 1830 to work on alterations to the Bodleian Library. Much of his subsequent work involved designing churches and educational buildings as the city and the university expanded and the Oxford Movement increased in influence. He designed the library of the Oxford Botanic Garden (1835), and Saint Paul’s Church, Walton Street (1836), the first new parish to be created in Oxford and the first new church to be built in Oxford since the Reformation. Both were built in the Greek Revival style, but Underwood is best known for his work in the Gothic Revival style.

Underwood also designed Saint Mary and Saint Nicholas Church in Littlemore for John Henry Newman in 1835, and it became a model for his other churches. The church was originally built as a chapel of ease to the parish of the University Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, Oxford. Littlemore became its own parish in 1847 and in time the church became a centre of Anglo-Catholicism.

Underwood’s other works in Oxford included Saint John the Baptist Church, Summertown (1831, demolished 1924); buildings for Exeter College on Turl Street and Broad Street (1833-1834); rebuilding Cardinal Wolsey’s Almshouses to make a grander entrance for Pembroke College (1834); and the north aisle of Saint Thomas’s Church (1846). Underwood died by suicide in 1852 at the White Hart Hotel, Bath, and JC Buckler completed his extension to Oxford Prison, now the Malmaison Hotel.

A legacy photograph of the interior of Holy Trinity Church, Blackfriars Road (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Holy Trinity parish was in one of the poorest quarters of Oxford and the church was built from cheap materials. There were two services each Sunday in 1854 and a monthly Communion service. The parish was a densely populated and very poor area to the south of the city centre. Great poverty, many beer shops, Sunday work in the colleges, ‘unbelieving masters’, and people tainted with ‘Calvinism and infidelity’ were blamed for what were regarded at the time as small church attendance figures.

By 1869, there were four Sunday services, with Holy Communion every Sunday and on holy days, and daily Morning and Evening Prayer. At the request of the churchwardens and ‘principal parishioners’ a surpliced choir had been introduced, all indicating the influence of the Tractarian movement and early Anglo-Catholicism.

Daily Morning Prayer was abandoned in 1872, but the number of Easter communicants rose steadily from 135 in 1872 to 199 in 1884. The patronage of Holy Trinity belonged alternately to the Crown and the Bishop of Oxford until 1881, when the Revd Edward Penrose Hathaway (1818-1897) bought the advowson and vested it in the Oxford Churches Trust.

Hathaway was a former barrister and ‘an austere old-fashioned evangelical’ who founded the Oxford Churches Trust in 1864 to appoint evangelical clergy to local parishes and to counter the increasing influence of the Tractarian movement and early Anglo-Catholicism. Through his zeal, he played a central role in establishing a strong evangelical tradition at several Oxford churches, including Saint Ebbe’s, Saint Aldate’s, Saint Clement’s, Holy Trinity, and Saint Peter-le-Bailey, and his trust appointed him the Rector of Saint Ebbe’s from 1868 to 1874.

Hathaway paid £1,000 for the advowson of Holy Trinity in 1881 and this was used to increase the stipend. A further augmentation was made in 1890 to meet the gift of a house for the living. The net income of the benefice in 1898 was £228.

Attendance figures at Holy Trinity remained steady or even increased until World War I, when most of the adult parishioners were either in the army or employed in war work. During World War I, 90 men from the parish died in the war and they were later commemorated on the Holy Trinity War Memorial.

The Oxford Churches Trust, founded by Hathaway in 1864, exchanged the advowson of Holy Trinity with Simeon’s Trustees in 1914 for that of Saint Matthew’s, Grandpont, and Simeon’s Trustees remained patrons of Holy Trinity until Holy Trinity was united with Saint Aldate’s in 1956.

Photographs of Holy Trinity Church, inside and outside, ‘appear to be rarer than rocking horse droppings’

Some of the poorer houses in the area were cleared in the 1930s, but a major redevelopment plan was delayed by World War II.

By 1951, the fabric of Holy Trinity Church was in poor condition. Meanwhile, the population of the area was declining as slum clearance programmes gathered pace. Holy Trinity Church was closed in 1954 and the parish of Holy Trinity was united with Saint Ebbe’s in 1956. The building was deemed unsafe, and with encroaching urban clearance the church was demolished in 1957.

The 1914-1918 war memorial was removed from the church during demolition. It was later discovered in the 1980s resting against a wall in the rear garden of the former Holy Trinity Rectory. The memorial was eventually moved to Saint Aldate’s Parish Centre in Pembroke Street, and was later stored in a wooden case at Saint Ebbe’s Church. The memorial has since been removed from its rotten mounting and is said to be in a poor condition, covered in patina or crust.

Eventually, over 900 properties in the area were demolished, the last – 84 Blackfriars Road – in 1978. Many streets were wiped from the map or renamed. The records of Holy Trinity Church were deposited with the Bodleian Library in 1975 by the then Rector of Saint Aldate’s, and were transferred to Oxfordshire Archives in the 1980s. Further records were deposited in 2019.

No trace remains today of what was perhaps one of the shortest-lived churches in Oxford. One site says photographs of Holy Trinity Church, inside and outside, ‘appear to be rarer than rocking horse droppings’. The name of the church survives in the full name of Saint Ebbe’s Parish, which is formally Saint Ebbe with Holy Trinity and Saint Peter le Bailey, while the names of Friars Wharf, Preachers Lane – once known as Gas Street – Blackfriars Road and Trinity Street are reminders of the ecclesiastical communities that were once part of life the area.

Preachers Lane … a reminder of the ecclesiastical presence in the area in the past (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Etheldreda’s Church, a hidden church close to Hatton Garden, was once the chapel of the Bishops of Ely

Saint Etheldreda’s Church on Ely Place, once the chapel of the Bishops of Ely, is one of the oldest churches in England in use by the Catholic Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

On previous visits to the Holborn area in London, I have visited Hatton Garden and Ye Olde Mitre, which is one of the oldest, most hidden and discrete pubs in London. I found it down a narrow alleyway off Hatton Garden that is easy to walk by without noticing, yet it has a fascinating history.

Ye Olde Mitre was originally built in 1546 for the servants of nearby Ely Palace, although it was rebuilt in 1773. It is known for a cherry tree that Elizabeth I and Sir Christopher Hatton – who gave his name to Hatton Garden – are said to have danced around. A stone bishop’s mitre on one wall may be from either the old palace or the gatehouse.

But each time I visited Hatton Garden and Ye Olde Mitre in the past, I had neglected to continue on down the narrow alley to Ely Place. When I did so on my most recent visit to Holborn, I was rewarded not only with finding myself on Ely Place but also with a visit to Saint Etheldreda’s Church, once the chapel of the Bishops of Ely, who had their London residence at Ely Palace or Ely House. Today, it is one of the oldest churches in England in use by the Catholic Church.

Ye Olde Mitre in a hidden alley between Hatton Garden and Ely Place, is a reminder of the presence of the Bishops of Ely (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Ely Place is a gated cul-de-sac of terraced houses near Holborn Circus in the London Borough of Camden. The street is just a minute’s walk from the bustle of Holborn and the busy diamond and jewellery shops of Hatton Garden. The street is a quiet enclave and is privately managed by its own body of commissioners and beadles.

Ely Place sits on the site of Ely Palace or Ely House, the London residence of the Bishops of Ely from 1290 and 1772. The bishop’s palace and surrounding land was later sold and redeveloped into Ely Place, and only the bishop’s mediaeval chapel was preserved, which today is Saint Etheldreda’s Church.

John de Kirkby bought the land in this part of Holborn in 1280. He became Bishop of Ely in 1286 and he left the estate to the Diocese of Ely when he died in 1290. The mediaeval Bishops of Ely often held high offices of state requiring them to live in London and Ely Palace was their official residence.

The cloister steps leading to the upper chapel in Saint Etheldreda’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Shakespeare refers to Ely Palace or its grounds in two plays, Richard II and Richard III. John of Gaunt moved to the palace in 1381 after the Savoy Palace was destroyed during the Peasants’ Revolt. In King Richard II, this where he delivers the speech in which he refers to England as ‘this royal throne of Kings, this sceptre’d isle’.

Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon attended a feast given in 1531 by the Bishop of Ely, Nicholas West, which is said to have lasted for five days. The sumptuous feast is rumoured to have been one of the first public signs of trouble in their marriage as Henry VIII and Queen Catherine dined in separate rooms.

James Butler (1496-1546), 9th Earl of Ormond, was visiting London with his household on 17 October 1546, when they were invited to dine at Ely Palace as guests of the Bishop of Ely. Butler, who had served in the household of Cardinal Wolsey in his youth, had crossed Sir Anthony St Leger, the Lord Deputy of Ireland, and was poisoned along with his steward, James Whyte, and 16 of his household, probably on St Leger’s instructions.

John Lesley, Bishop of Ross, was acting on behalf of Mary Queen of Scots when he was held at Ely House under house arrest from 14 May until 17 August 1571.

The crypt or lower chapel in Saint Etheldreda’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The estate was granted to Sir Christopher Hatton in 1577 and a new lease gave Hatton control of the freehold. He gave his name to Hatton Garden which now occupies part of the site.

The estate was sold to the Crown in 1772, and the cul-de-sac that is now Ely Place was built by Robert Taylor. Edmund Keene, Bishop of Ely, commissioned a new Ely House, built by Taylor on Dover Street, Mayfair.

Ely Place retained its anomalous status into 1920s, supposedly remaining under the jurisdiction of Ely in Cambridgeshire and not part of London. Beadles guarded the entrance and closed the gates to all strangers. Even the police had to ask permission to enter, and beadles’ voices could be heard calling out throughout the night.

Saint Etheldreda’s Church is dedicated to Æthelthryth or Etheldreda, the Anglo-Saxon saint who founded the monastery at Ely in 673 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Etheldreda’s Church was the chapel of Ely Palace or Ely House, the London residence of the Bishops of Ely. It is dedicated to Æthelthryth or Etheldreda, the Anglo-Saxon saint who founded the monastery at Ely in 673. The building dates from between 1250 and 1290 and is one of only two surviving in London from the reign of Edward I.

After the Tudor Reformations, the Bishops of Ely continued to oversee the chapel. Richard Cox, Bishop of Ely, leased part of the house and lands surrounding the chapel to Sir Christopher Hatton, a favourite of Elizabeth I, in 1576. Hatton borrowed extensively from the crown to pay for the refurbishment and upkeep of the property, and while he was the tenant the crypt was used as a tavern.

In the early 17th century, the chapel briefly became a haven for English Catholics when the upper church was granted to the Spanish ambassador, Diego Sarmiento de Acuña (1567-1626), Count of Gondomar, in 1620 to use as his private chapel. It was regarded as Spanish soil and so Catholics were allowed to use the church. But in the midst a diplomatic dispute between England and Spain, Gondomar was recalled to Spain two years later and his successor was not given use of the chapel.

Inside Saint Etheldreda’s Church, restored by Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811-1878) to its 13th century designs (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

In an incident known as the ‘Fatal Vespers’, 95 people were killed on 26 October 1623 when the upper floor of Hunsdon House, the residence of the French ambassador in Blackfriars, collapsed when 300 people were gathered to hear a clandestine Catholic sermon; 19 of the victims were buried in the crypt of Saint Etheldreda’s.

Matthew Wren (1585-1667), Bishop of Ely (1638-1646, 1660-1667) and uncle of the architect Sir Christopher Wren, worshipped at Saint Etheldreda’s before he was imprisoned in 1641. The palace and the church were requisitioned by Parliament in 1642 for use as a prison and hospital during the English Civil War. During the Cromwellian era (1649-1660), most of the palace was demolished and the gardens were destroyed.

Legislation in 1772 allowed the Bishops of Ely to sell the property to the Crown. The site, including the chapel, was sold on to Charles Cole, a surveyor and architect. He demolished all the buildings on the site apart from the chapel and built Ely Place. The chapel was extensively refurbished in the Georgian style and was reopened in 1786. It was taken over in 1836 by the National Society for the Education of the Poor, which hoped to convert the Irish Catholic immigrants then moving into the area, but the church closed again a short time later.

The East Window by JE ‘Eddie’ Nuttgens is generally regarded as his finest work (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Revd Alexander D’Arblay of Camden Town Chapel, a son of the novelist and diarist Fanny Burney, reopened Ely Chapel as a place of Anglican worship in 1836, but died within a year on 19 January 1837. The church was leased in 1843 to Welsh Anglicans, who held services there in the Welsh language.

When the chapel was put up for sale by auction in 1874, it was bought by Father William Lockhart, a former Anglican and a priest in the Rosminian order. The Institute of Charity or Rosminians had worked in Nottingham and Leicester and later in North London, and Cardinal Henry Manning wanted them to work in the slum areas of Holborn.

Lockhart, who was the Rector of the North London Mission, was chosen for the task. He had been a friend in Oxford of Cardinal John Henry Newman, and it is said that Lockhart’s decision had finally convinced Newman that he too should become a Roman Catholic.

Lockhart learned in December 1873 that Saint Etheldreda’s was about to be sold at auction. He faced competition from the Welsh Episcopalians, who had the backing of a Welsh steel magnate. But at the sale, the Welsh made a mistake: they thought Lockhart’s agent was theirs, they stopped bidding, and Saint Etheldreda’s was sold to the Rosminians for £5,400.

John Francis Bentley, the architect of Westminster Cathedral, designed the choir screen (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Under Lockhart’s direction, the crypt and upper church were restored by the prolific Gothic Revival architect Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811-1878) to their original 13th century designs. John Francis Bentley (1839-1902), the architect of Westminster Cathedral, designed a choir screen incorporating a confessional, an organ and a choir gallery; his other works include Holy Rood Church, Watford. The royal coat of arms, added during the reign of Charles I, was moved to the cloister. A relic donated by the Duke of Norfolk was said to be a piece of Saint Etheldreda’s hand, and is kept in a jewel cask to the right of the high altar.

The restoration was completed in 1878, the year Scott died, and a Catholic Mass was celebrated in Saint Ethelreda’s for the first time in over 200 years. The upper church was reopened on the Feast of Saint Etheldreda, 23 June 1879.

Saint Etheldreda’s includes a chapel or upper church, and a crypt or undercroft, and is used for Masses, Baptisms, weddings and funerals. Because Saint Etheldreda was traditionally invoked for help with throat infections, the Blessing of the Throats is held annually in the chapel.

The Royal Commission on Historical Monuments scheduled the chapel as an ancient monument in 1925. But during the Blitz, the church was hit in May 1941 by a bomb that tore a hole in the roof and destroyed the Victorian stained glass windows. It took seven years to repair the structural damage.

The West Window by Charles Blakeman (1964) depicts Catholic martyrs during the Reformation era (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The interior of Saint Etheldreda’s is said to have the largest expanse of stained glass in London. The east window by JE ‘Eddie’ Nuttgens, generally regarded as his finest work, one of the few in which he ‘let his imagination take command and soar’, was installed in 1952. It depicts the Trinity (centre), the four evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (top row), as well as the Virgin Mary (left) and Saint Joseph (right), with Saint Etheldreda of Ely (far left) and Saint Bridget of Kildare (far right). At the base, Nuttgens has placed a sturdy version of the Last Supper mostly in bright golds and reds whose clearly articulated composition surely reveals the influence of his friend and neighbour Eric Gill.

Later, his pupil and friend Charles Blakeman created stained glass for the nave, west window and crypt. The West Window by Blakeman was added in 1964, depicting Catholic suffering during the Reformation. Three Carthusian monks and two other priests were put to death for refusing to acknowledge Henry Vlll as head of the Church are shown in the centre of the window, while Christ triumphant hangs on the Cross above the Tyburn Gallows.

The windows in the south wall depict scenes from the Old Testament, and the windows in the north wall show scenes from the New Testament.

Two groups of four statues of English Catholic martyrs from the reign of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I were installed along the north and south walls In the 1960s. They include Saint Edmund Gennings, Saint Swithun Wells, Saint Margaret Ward, Blessed John Forest, Blessed Edward Jones, Blessed John Roche, Saint Anne Line and Saint John Houghton.

For many years, Saint Etheldreda’s was the oldest Catholic church building in England, but since 1971 that place has been taken by the 12th-century church of Saint Leonard and Saint Mary in Malton, North Yorkshire. Saint Etheldreda’s has been fully restored and is an active church today. The crypt, also used as a chapel, is a popular, atmospheric venue for baptisms.

The steps leading down to the crypt in Saint Etheldreda’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Pilgrims visit the church as a stopping point on the London Martyrs’ Way, a pilgrimage route developed by the British Pilgrimage Trust and to venerate the hand relic of Saint Etheldreda.

Saint Etheldreda’s Church is open Monday to Saturday, 8 am to 5 pm, and Sunday 8 am to 12:30 pm. The nearest tube stations are Chancery Lane (Central Line) and Farringdon (Circle, Hammersmith and City and Metropolitan Lines). Ye Old Mitre is only open Monday to Friday.

Sunday Masses in Saint Etheldreda’s Church are at 9 am (English) and 11 am (Sung Latin); Weekday Masses are at 1 pm, Monday to Friday; Masses on holy days are at 1 pm and 6 pm.

Ely Court, a narrow alley running between Ely Place and Hatton Garden (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

A return visit to Saint Francis Xavier, the Jesuits’ classical-style church on Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin

Saint Francis Xavier Church, or Gardiner Street Church, Dublin … designed by Bartholomew Esmonde and Joseph B Keane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

Today, the Church Calendar remembers the great Jesuit saint and missionary, Saint Francis Xavier. During my visit to Dublin this week, I visited Saint Francis Xavier Church, popularly known as Gardiner Street Church, the Jesuit-run church on Upper Gardiner Street, near Mountjoy Square.

Gardiner Street Church has associations with many famous Dubliners, including James Joyce, but this was my first time to visit the church since the funeral of Seán MacBride almost 40 years ago in January 1988.

The church was one of the first to be built in Dublin after Catholic Emancipation in 1829. The church was designed by the Jesuit priest Father Bartholomew Esmonde working with the architect Joseph B Keane, as a classical cut granite stone essay. An earlier chapel at 30 Hardwicke Street was opened by Father Charles Aylmer SJ in 1816, the first public chapel of the restored Society of Jesus.

Inside Saint Francis Xavier Church facing east … the church was built in 1829-1835 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The four founders of Gardiner Street church were Father Peter Kenny, Father Bartholomew Esmonde, Father Charles Aylmer and Archbishop Daniel Murray. The foundation stone was laid by Father Charles Aylmer on 2 July 1829, the year of Catholic Emancipation, and Archbishop Murray on 3 May 1832 celebrated the first Mass in the church on 3 May 1832 at a temporary altar. The church was solemnly blessed by Archbishop Murray on 12 February 1835 in the presence of 14 bishops and a large congregation.

The church is considered one of the best executed churches of the period. The architectural historian Christine Casey describes it in her book Dublin as ‘the most elegant church of the period in Dublin’. The building is known for its sculpted altar piece and paintings, mostly Italian in origin and dating from the Victorian period.

Father Bartholomew Esmonde (1789-1862) was a Jesuit priest, educator, and amateur architect. He was superior of the Society of Jesus in Ireland briefly in 1820. He was born on 12 December 1789, the second son of Dr John Esmonde and Helen (née O’Callan) of Sallins, Co Kildare. His father was executed by hanging on 13 June 1798 for his part in leading the United Irishmen at the Battle of Prosperous in Co Kildare in the 1798 Rising.

The High Altar and sanctuary in Saint Francis Xavier Church … the high altar was designed in Rome by Bartholomew Esmonde (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Bartholomew Esmonde was a younger brother of Sir Thomas Esmonde (1786-1868), 9th Baronet, MP for Wexford. He was educated at the Jesuit novitiate at Stonyhurst College, England and studied philosophy and theology in Palermo, Italy. Esmonde returned to Ireland as Master of Novices at Clongowes Wood College and later served as Rector of Clongowes, where his nephews, Sir John Esmonde (1826-1876), later the tenth baronet, and Colonel Thomas Esmonde VC (1829-1872), went to school.

Bartholomew Esmonde lived in Rome from 1842 and then in Malta, returning to Ireland in 1850. He died on 15 December 1862. His brother Sir Thomas Esmonde commissioned a portrait of him in the Jesuit building in Gardner Street and a monument in Saint Michael’s Church, Gorey, Co Wexford.

His nephew, Colonel Thomas Esmonde (1829-1872), was decorated with the Victoria Cross for his role in the siege of Sebastopol during the Crimean War. His daughter Eva Esmonde married James Charles Comerford (1842-1907), of Ardavon, Rathdrum, Co Wicklow, and their children included the Irish Republican activist Maire Comerford (1893-1982).

Inside Saint Francis Xavier Church facing west … the organ is played in the 1991 film ‘The Commitments’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Dublin-born architect John Benjamin Keane, who worked closely with Esmonde in designing Gardiner Street Church, also designed courthouses in Tralee, Co Kerry (1828), Tullamore, Co Offaly (1832), Downpatrick, Co Down (1832-1834), and Nenagh, Co Tipperary (1842). It is said he designed the courthouse in Carlow (1830-1834), but this was designed by William Vitruvius Morrison and is modelled on the Temple on the Ilissus in Athens.

Keane also designed Saint Mel’s Cathedral, Longford, and Saint John’s Roman Catholic Church, Waterford. He also worked with Sir Richard Morrison on the Pro-Cathedral in Dublin and with AWN Pugin and Patrick Byrne on the designs for the Loreto Convent chapel and lantern in Rathfarnham.

He first appears in records in 1819, as an assistant to Richard Morrison. Some biographical sources say that Keane was trained as an architect at the Office of Works, Dublin, but this has been questioned. By 1823, he was working independently. He exhibited regularly with the Royal Hibernian Academy from 1828 to 1841.

Keane designed the Gothic Revival quadrangle at Queen’s College, Galway (now NUI Galway) in 1845 very much in the fashion of Christ Church College, Oxford. His other buildings include Ballybay House, Co Monaghan (1830), Belleek Manor, Ballina, Co Mayo (1831), Tullamore Courthouse (1835), the Mausoleum at Oak Park, Co Carlow (1841), the courthouses in Nenagh (1843), Waterford (1849) and Ennis (1852), Saint John’s Church, Waterford (1845), and Barmouth Castle, Co Louth.

He was the engineer on the River Suir navigation in 1846-1848. Towards the end of his life, it appears Keane suffered from alcoholism, falling into debt and was jailed in Marshalsea gaol. He died on 7 October 1859.

The cast-iron foliated pulpit with the ‘IHS’ monogram of the Society of Jesus (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Esmonde’s design of Gardiner Street church is informed by his knowledge of the temples of Italy when he lived there. Esmonde and Keane based their designs on Notre-Dame-de-Lorette in Paris, designed by Louis-Hippolyte Lebas ca1824, and on the Jesuits’ mother church in Rome, the Church of the Gesù, with a nave with low side chapels, shallow transepts and a deep apsidal chancel.

There are differences, however, with the roof in Saint Francis Xavier’s flat and coffered, while at the Gesù, it is barrel-vaulted.

The church is significant for its use of native granite for the portico and the fact that it was completed within a relatively short period of time. The apse was originally rectangular and shallow, but was enlarged in 1851, and this was further influenced by the style of the Gesù.

‘Saint Francis Xavier preaching in Japan’ (1860) over the High Altar by Bernardo Celantano (1835-1863) (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Outside, the figures on top of the front pediment, the Sacred Heart, Saint Ignatius and Saint Francis Xavier, are by the sculptor Terence Farrell (1798-1876). The Latin text on the pediment is Deo Uni Et Trino Sub Invoc S Francisci Xaverii , ‘To God one and Three under the invocation of Saint Francis Xavier’.

It is said Father Esmonde designed and assembled the High Altar in Rome. The paintings and sculpture inside the church include the ‘Madonna and Child’ by Ignazio Jacometti (1881), ‘The Agony in the Garden’ by Jacques Augustin Dieudonne (1848, bought in 1853) and ‘Saint Francis Xavier preaching in Japan’ (1860) over the High Altar by Bernardo Celantano (1835-1863).

There is a cast-iron foliated pulpit, with the ‘IHS’ monogram of the Society of Jesus and gilded portrait heads of ‘Christ Crowned with Thorns’ and the ‘Sorrowful Mother of Christ’, and a balustraded timber rail between the nave and the transept. The retention of these interior fittings is of considerable importance in church architecture.

Four oil paintings in the nave are attributed to Pietro Gagliardi (Rome) and were hung in church when Father Nicholas Walsh was the rector (1877-1884).

The organ has been rebuilt several times, always in original organ case. The original instrument was made by Flight and Robson (London) in 1836, and was bought by the Jesuits for 800 guineas.

The Sacred Heart Chapel in Gardiner Street Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The presbytery is on the north side of the church and the Convent of the Sisters of Charity is on the south side. Together, these three form part of a group of impressive ecclesiastical buildings that standing out among the Georgian terraces on the street.

The Jesuits opened a school at Hardwicke Street close to Gardiner Street church in 1832, and this later became Belvedere College on Denmark Street. The church also has close associations with Mother Mary Aikenhead and the early days of the Irish Sisters of Charity.

Over the years, many well-known people have been associated with Saint Francis Xavier’s Church. Matt Talbot, regarded by some as the patron of people struggling with alcoholism, prayed there each morning. John Henry Newman celebrated Mass there when he lived on Dorset Street in 1854. The funeral of the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins was held in the church in 1889.

The church was also the place where Father James Cullen founded the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association in 1898.

The church features in James Joyce’s short story ‘Grace’ in Dubliners and in the 1991 film The Commitments, the church organ is used to play A Whiter Shade of Pale. Many Dubliners also know the church hall, known as the SFX Hall.

The shrine of Blessed John Sullivan in the Sacred Heart Chapel in Gardiner Street Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Father John Sullivan, who was based at the church for a short time in 1907, was beatified (declared blessed) in the church, and he is now buried in the church.

John Sullivan (1861-1933) was a Jesuit priest known for his life of deep spiritual reflection and personal sacrifice, and for his dedicated work among the poor. He taught at Clongowes Wood College, Clane, Co Kildare, from 1907 until he died in 1933.

He was born on 8 May 1861 at 41 Eccles Street, Dublin, a son of Sir Edward Sullivan (1822-1885), later the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and he was baptised in Saint George’s Church of Ireland parish church, Hardwicke Place, on 15 July 1861. Later that year, the family moved to 32 Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin.

He attended Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, studied classics at Trinity College Dublin, and studied for the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn, London. He then travelled across Europe, visiting southern Italy, Macedonia, Greece and Asia Minor, and spent several months in a monastery on Mount Athos.

As a barrister, he was appointed in 1895 to a commission to investigate the massacre of Armenians in Adana, Asia Minor. He joined the Roman Catholic Church at Farm Street Church in Mayfair, London, on 21 December 1896.

From 1900, Sullivan studied with the Jesuits at Tullabeg, near Tullamore, Co Offaly, Stonyhurst and Milltown Park. Archbishop William Walsh of Dublin ordained Sullivan priest in the chapel at Milltown Park in 1907. He said his first Mass at Mount Saint Anne’s convent, Milltown, and was based in Gardiner Street. He then taught at Clongowes Wood College, a Jesuit-run school near Clane, Co Kildare. For five years he was the rector of the Jesuit house at Rathfarnham Castle (1919-1924), but then returned to teaching at Clongowes Wood.

He died in Saint Vincent’s Nursing Home, Lower Leeson Street, Dublin, on 19 February 1933 with his brother Sir William Sullivan at his side. He was buried at Clongowes Wood, but his body was moved to the Sacred Heart Chapel in Gardiner Street Church in 1960.

The chapel of the Virgin Mary in Saint Francis Xavier Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Archbishop George Simms spoke at a memorial service on 8 May 1983, to honour Sullivan’s life and work in Saint George’s Church, where Sullivan was baptised. The Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Dublin, Bishop James Kavanagh, brought greetings from Pope John Paul II.

His beatification was celebrated in Dublin in Saint Francis Xavier Church on 13 May 2017, the first ever beatification to take place in Ireland.

• The Church Co-ordinator (parish priest) is Father Brendan Comerford SJ. Sunday Masses are Sunday 9:15 am, 11 am and 7.30 pm; weekday Masses (Monday to Friday) are at 11 am and 1 pm; Saturday Masses are at 11 am, 1 pm and 6 pm. Gardiner Street Gospel Choir sings at the 7:30 Sunday Mass, except on bank holiday weekends.

A statue of Saint Patrick in Gardiner Street Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Clement’s Church was the first church built in Oxford on a new site since the Middle Ages

Saint Clement’s Church, built in the 1820s, was the first church in Oxford on a new site since the Middle Ages (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

In recent weeks, I have been walking around the St Clement’s area, just east of central Oxford, and I have written about two of the pubs, the Port Mahon and Oranges and Lemons, as well as Saint Ignatius Chapel, the first post-Reformation Roman Catholic place of worship in Oxford, which I was discussing yesterday (18 October 2025).

Saint Ignatius is also associated with John Henry Newman (1801-1890). But for two years Newman was a curate in Saint Clement’s parish, and he was one of the key figures for raising a new Saint Clement’s Church, built in the 1820s and the first church in Oxford built on a new site since the Middle Ages.

Despite these links with Newman, who became a leading figure in the Tractarian or Oxford Movement and was later one of the most prominent Roman Catholics thinker in England, Saint Clement’s Church is now, ironically, one of the prominent evangelical churches in Oxford.

Saint Clement’s Church church dates from the 1820s, but replaced a much older building demolished in 1829 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The present church dates from the 1820s, but replaced a much older building that was demolished in 1829. Saint Clement’s Church originally stood at what is now the Plain roundabout, where the roads from London and Henley cross the River Cherwell at Magdalen Bridge. It served both the small community of Bruggeset (‘Bridge Settlement’) that surrounded it as well as the largely rural area that eventually became East Oxford.

The first written record mentioning the church was in 1122 when it was one of the royal chapels given to Saint Frideswide’s Priory by Henry I. One source thinks the church may have been built in connection with a Danish garrison sometime between 1016 and the 1050s. This would explain its location close to a bridge and its dedication to Saint Clement which was unusual at inland sites at this time.

Saint Clement’s was one of the royal chapels given to Saint Frideswide’s Priory by Henry I in 1122. The Abbot of Oseney afterwards claimed that Saint Clement’s belonged to his church of Sain George in Oxford Castle, but renounced those claims. The Abbot of Eynsham also claimed Saint Clement’s Church at one time.

Almost nothing is known of the appearance of the earliest church, but recent studies suggests a stone head now in the Ashmolean Museum may have originally been a brightly painted stone corbel from the 13th century church, suggesting a church that was rich in colour and carved stonework.

Funds were granted in 1323 to rebuild ‘the Church of Saint Clement beyond Petty Pont’ (Magdalen Bridge). From 1122 to ca 1534, clergy were presented to Saint Clement’s by Saint Frideswide’s Priory, and from the late 15th century the rectors were usually graduates.

Following the Tudor Reformation in the 1530s, the patronage passed briefly to Cardinal College, now Christ Church, Oxford. The patronage of Saint Clements’s has then held by the crown until the mid-19th century. In 1540 it was reported that the benefice had long been vacant and the parishioners without divine offices. Most of those instituted by the Crown were fellows of Oxford colleges.

John Henry Newman was appointed curate in 1824 to help raise money for a new Saint Clement’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

During the Siege of Oxford (1644-1646) in the English Civil War, the church and parish were on the front line between the Parliamentarian forces on Headington Hill and the Royalists in the city. It was reported that ‘no parish suffered more severely’, with whole streets being demolished to facilitate the building of fortifications. Yet, the 17th century Black Horse Inn and the church were among the few buildings to survive.

Later rectors included Humphrey Prideaux (1679-1682), later Dean of Lincoln; Robert Harsnett (1682-1696), a nonjuror dismissed for not swearing allegiance to William and Mary; and John Conybeare (1724-1734 ), later Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and Bishop of Bristol.

John Peshall, writing in 1773, describes a church composed of one aisle 13 yards long (exclusive of a chancel) and six yards and 20 inches broad. There were galleries in the north-east and west side and small capped tiled tower with three bells. The churchyard was extended in 1781, and the capped tower was replaced by a square tower in 1816.

With slum clearances in Oxford in the early 1800s, St Clement’s expanded rapidly, with over 300 new houses were built between 1821 and 1824. The old church, with seating for 250, became too small, and plans was drawn up to build a new church on a new site.

, The rector at the time, the Revd John Gutch (1746-1831), the editor of Anthony Wood's History of Oxford University was by then approaching his 80s; he was also chaplain of All Souls College and still holding on as the Registrar of Oxford University. A curate was needed to help him to raise money for a new church.

John Henry Newman, later Cardinal Newman and then Saint John Henry Newman, was the curate in 1824-1826. Although Newman was only at Saint Clement’s for two years, he had an enormous impact on the parish. He visited every home in the parish, started a Sunday school and preached regularly to a packed church. Some suspected him of being a Methodist, but others were happy that at last they had ‘a proper minister’.

Newman added a gallery to accommodate a new Sunday school in 1825, and his friend and later a fellow Tractarian Edward Pusey (1800-1882) provided a stove for the children.

The liturgical east end of Saint Clement’s Church, Oxford, built in 1825-1828 on land donated by Sir Joseph Lock (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Thanks to Newman’s fundraising, a new church was built by John Hudson of Oxford in 1825-1828 on land in Hacklingcroft Meadow, given by Sir Joseph Lock (1760-1844), a local banker and goldsmith. The subscribers to the new building included Keble, Pusey, Heber and Peel.

Initially, a design along the lines of Salisbury Cathedral or a Grecian temple was suggested. But the parish settled on an Anglo-Norman design for reasons of cost.

The architect was Daniel Robertson, who also designed the Clarendon Press buildings on Walton Street. Saint Clement’s is an early example of the Anglo-Norman or Romanesque Revival style. It has been described ‘as an interesting example of an abortive Romanesque revival’. It did not appeal to contemporary taste, and one critic called it ‘the boiled rabbit’. The architectural historian Sir Niklaus Pevsner has described it as ‘patently Georgian Norman’.

Robertson planned the new church could seat up to 1,024 people, and the site was chosen in the hope that new housing would expand along Marston Lane, now Marston Road. The original plans placed the church on Marston Lane, but it was moved to its current location as part of a revised plan, subsequently abandoned, to build streets and houses in the form of a square.

The south porch of Saint Clement’s Church … Niklaus Pevsner describes the church as ‘patently Georgian Norman’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Clement’s was the first church in Oxford built on a new site since the Middle Ages. The foundation stone was laid in 1825 by the vice-chancellor of Oxford University, Richard Jenkyns (1782-1854), later Dean of Wells, and the church was consecrated on 14 June 1828.

An unforeseen consequence, however, was that Saint Clement’s did not automatically become the parish church when it was consecrated. This was not realised at the time, and a special Act of Parliament had to be passed in 1836 to ensure the legality of all the marriages in the new church.

Although I was unable to see the inside of Saint Clement’s, I understand the east window (geographical north) shows 10 scenes from the life of Christ. It was commissioned in 1846 and is the work of Isaac Hugh Russell, who lived and worked in St Clement’s. The four north windows (geographical west) depict scenes on the theme of faith. They were made in memory of James Morrell (1810-1863) by A and WH O’Connor for Saint Martin’s Church, Carfax in 1865, and were moved to Saint Clement’s in 1896, when Saint Martin’s was demolished.

The ‘Seven Churches’ window (1908) in the north-west corner was given by Morrell family and is based on the letters to the Seven Churches of Asia (see Revelation 1: 12 to 3: 22). It was designed by Powell & Sons of Whitefriars Glassworks, London, who were closely associated with William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement.

The interior had a major refurbishment in the 1870s. The original Georgian box-pews and benches were replaced in 1871 by ‘Neo-Norman’ pews, arranged in four blocks divided by a newly tiled nave and two newly positioned side aisles. The West Gallery was taken down in 1876.

The refurbishment was carried out by Edward George Bruton (1826-1899), an Oxford-based architect who specialised in church commissions in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire and were largely funded by the Morrell brewing family of Headington Hill Hall.

The liturgical west door of Saint Clement’s … the church has been described ‘as an interesting example of an abortive Romanesque revival’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Clement’s first organ was bought in 1846 and installed in the west gallery. It was moved to the south-east corner of the church next to the chancel in 1876 when the gallery was demolished.

A new organ was built by Martin and Coate in 1897-1899, and the old organ was sold to Saint Paul’s Church, Walton Street, later Freud’s nightclub. The new organ was first used at the service for Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee in 1897, and was rebuilt by Nicholson’s of Worcester in 1952.

The patronage passed to a series of trustees belonging to the evangelical tradition. With a radical change in liturgical style, the organ fell into disuse in the late 20th century and was removed in early 2020. Many of the pipes were installed at the Basilica of Saint Dominic in Valletta, Malta, earlier this year (2025).

Saint Clement’s has three bells, all brought from the old church in the 1820s. One was cast in the 13th century and is the oldest bell in Oxford.

At first, the churchyard at the new church was small, but the Morrell family added 556 sq m of land in 1879, and a further 0.4 ha in 1920, partly to provide a setting for a war memorial erected in 1921.

The old churchyard at the Plain was still in use until the 1870s and it was taken over by the City Council in 1939. The last traces of the old churchyard were destroyed in 1950, when a roundabout was made on the Plain.

The planting scheme of limes along the drive continues into Headington Hill Park where they lined the carriageway up to Headington Hill Hall.

Saint Clement’s Mission Hall at 57A St Clement’s was designed by HW Moore and built in 1887-1891 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Clement’s was reordered several times in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, with the addition of a crèche and kitchen, a dais in the chancel area and disabled access. The organ and several pews were removed in 2020-2022 to create a different layout.

Saint Clement’s Church is linked to two charities, both chaired by the rector. The Dawson Trust or Dawson’s Charity, established in 1521, owns property in St Clement’s used to relieve poverty and to maintain the church. The Parochial Charities of Saint Clement Oxford was formed in 1958 and recently merged with Dawson’s Charity. It was formed through the consolidation of three earlier charities, including John Pyke’s Charity and William James’s Charity.

Saint Clement’s Mission Hall at 57A St Clement’s was designed by HW Moore and built in 1887-1891. St Clement’s Community Property, formerly St Clement’s Parish Property (1903-2021), owns and maintains a small number of properties including Saint Clement’s Centre, Cross Street, and the Old Mission Hall and former Victoria Café at the corner of St Clement’s Street and Boulter Street.

The parish bought a former Baptist chapel in George Street (now Cave Street) in 1839 and converted it into schools that later moved to Bath Street.

The last traces of the old Saint Clement’s churchyard were destroyed in 1950 when a roundabout was made on the Plain (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

• Sunday services at Saint Clements’s are at10:30, with ‘All-Age Worship’ on the first Sunday, Holy Communion on the second and fourth Sundays and Morning Worship on the third and fifth Sundays, and an informal service at 18:30, with Communion on the first and third Sundays. The staff includes the Revd Mark Hay, who has been the Rector since April 2024, and the Assistant Curates, the Revd Dr Joanna Tarassenko and the Revd Dr Oliver Wright.

The planting scheme of limes along the drive of Saint Clement’s Church continues into Headington Hill Park (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Ignatius Chapel, Saint Clement’s, was the first Roman Catholic chapel built in Oxford after the Reformation

Saint Ignatius’ Chapel in the Saint Clement’s area was the first post-Reformation Roman Catholic place of worship in Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I have been writing in recent weeks about the St Clement’s area in Oxford, including two of the interesting pubs there: Port Mahon, with its curious naval connections, and the Oranges and Lemons, which has been joyfully repainted and redecorated.

During the past year, I have passed along St Clement’s on the bus, on my way to and from hospital appointments. But is only because I decided to go back one day to see the newly-decorated Oranges and Lemons that I accidentally stumbled the former Saint Ignatius’ Chapel. It is the first post-Reformation Roman Catholic place of worship in Oxford. But it is tucked away in Angel Court, behind a former school next to the Port Mahon. It is secluded – almost hidden – and I had never noticed it from the bus.

Saint Ignatius’ Chapel was built in 1793 by a Scottish-born aristocrat and French-educated Jesuit missionary priest, Father Charles Leslie (1748-1806). He was a younger son of Patrick Leslie, 21st Baron of Balquhain, and had been a Jesuit missionary priest in Woodstock, Tusmore, and Waterperry, 11 km east of Oxford, before moving into Oxford and to the Saint Clement’s area in 1790.

When the Catholic Relief Act was passed in 1791, some legal restrictions on Roman Catholics were removed, allowing them to build their own places of worship and to open their own schools. Other attitudes were changing in Oxford at the time: the university had recently welcomed refugee priests from France and had conferred degrees upon Roman Catholics; and the Saint Clement’s already had some Roman Catholic associations through foreign craft workers moving into the area.

A small Roman Catholic presence had continued in Oxford after the Tudor Reformation, and it is especially associated with Edmund Campion, a fellow of Saint John’s College. Campion’s Decem Rationes was printed secretly at Stonor Park, Henley, in 1581 and 400 copies were found on the benches of the University Church at the commencements that year. Campion was executed later that year.

Two Catholic priests, George Nichols and Richard Yaxley, were arrested for celebrating Mass at the Catherine Wheel inn in Magdalen Street East, and were hanged in Holywell with two of their helpers on 5 July 1589. Another Catholic priest, George Napper, was hanged at Oxford Castle on 9 November 1610 for celebrating Mass.

During the reign of James II, in an attempt to impose Catholicism on the university, Bishop Bonaventure Giffard was imposed as president of Magdalen College and the fellows were expelled. The restoration of the fellows after James II is marked at a special banquet, the Restoration Dinner, in Magdalen College on 25 October each year.

The chapel was built in 1793 in the garden of Leslie’s house in St Clement’s, but set back from the road (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

There were about 60 Roman Catholics in Oxford by 1791 and they wished to attend services. Father Charles Leslie decided to meet their needs and raised funds for a new chapel.

The chapel was built in 1793 in the garden of Leslie’s house in St Clement’s, but set back from the road because of anti-Catholic feelings that were still strong in Oxford. The chapel opened in 1795, and was namedSaint Ignatius – not after Saint Ignatius of Antioch, whose feastday was yesterday (17 October), but after Saint Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus or Jesuits (feastday 31 July).

A burial ground was consecrated in 1798, and Leslie was joined at Saint Ignatius the following year by the last resident chaplain at Thame Park, Father William Hothersoll, who left Thame after the Catholic mission in Oxford moved to the St Clement’s area.

The decision to move the Jesuit mission from Waterperry to Saint Clement’s did not bring an appreciable increase in the Roman Catholic population of St Clement’s, and the congregation of 160 was drawn from Roman Catholic families throughout Oxfordshire.

The Jesuit chapel was out of bounds for undergraduates, and two university proctors would stand outside the chapel on Sundays, looking out for any undergraduates.

After Sunday Mass, the congregation would have breakfast at the Port Mahon next door.

Father Charles Leslie was a notable figure in Oxford and e is said to have been the original of Mr Keith, the priest of JG Lockhart’s novel Reginald Dalton. He had a stroke at the age of 59 and died on 28 December 1806 at the age of 58.

The presbytery was replaced in 1909 by a new school building designed to house 200 pupils (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The chapel holds a significant place in the story of John Henry Newman (1801-1890), later Cardinal Newman and now a canonised saint. Newman, whose feastday was celebrated in the Roman Catholic Church last week (9 October), is to be proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in two weeks time (1 November 2025). He was a curate in the Church of England parish of Saint Clement’s before he became a leading figure in the Tractarian or Oxford Movement. After becoming a Roman Catholic on 9 October 1845, he attended Mass in Saint Ignatius, regularly walking from Littlemore to St Clement’s during his remaining months at Oxford. But he was disparaging about the little chapel, and described it as ‘what to outward appearance is a meeting house’.

Father James Corry, the Jesuit priest at Saint Ignatius in 1871, worried about its size: ‘Even if I were a storm, what can I do in a tea kettle?’ His prayers were answered when the large and imposing Church of Saint Aloysius or the Oratory was built on Woodstock Road.

Saint Aloysius was designed by Joseph Hansom, and opened in 1875 by Cardinal Manning. Saint Ignatius continued to be used as a chapel of ease and some families and undergraduates preferred to continue to worship there. The last Mass was celebrated there in 1911.

Meanwhile, from 1869, the chapel had been in use as a school for girls and infants. The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), when he was the priest at Saint Aloysius in 1878-1879, spent much time at Saint Ignatius’ Chapel and school, teaching and ministering to the poor and infirm in that part of the city.

The presbytery was replaced in 1909 by a new school building with Venetian windows and designed to house 200 pupils, although the chapel continued in use as a school room. Saint Ignatius’ School was renamed Saint Joseph’s Roman Catholic Primary School in 1932, and the school remained there until 1968 when it moved to modern buildings in Headley Way, New Marston.

The chapel and school buildings have been converted into commercial and business premises, and the discreet courtyard off St Clement’s is now known as Angel Court.

A blue plaque was unveiled at the former chapel on Saint Ignatius Day, 31 July 2018, by the Bishop William Kenney, Auxiliary Bishop of Birmingham and the Revd Dr Joseph Munitiz SJ, former Master of Campion Hall, Oxford. A reception was held afterwards at the Port Mahon next door.

The plaque reads: ‘Oxfordshire Blue Plaques Board The Former Chapel of St Ignatius The first Roman Catholic place of worship at Oxford after the Reformation Built by Fr Charles Leslie SJ in 1793 Campion Hall’.

A blue plaque was unveiled at the former chapel on Saint Ignatius Day, 31 July 2018 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)