Patrick Comerford
I have an appointment for a day-long procedure in the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford later this week. Although I hope to be home that evening, I have been told too there is an outside possibility that I may be asked to stay overnight.
Since a stroke four or five years ago, I have had a number of visits or hospital stays in Oxford, and have become quite familiar with the chapel in the John Radcliffe Hospital. There are designated chapels and quiet spaces for prayer and worship in all four of the hospital sites in Oxford, and I recently visited the Chapel in the Churchill Hospital in Headington.
The Churchill Hospital in Oxford is part of Oxford University Hospitals. The hospital is Oxford’s state-of-the-art centre of excellence for cancer patients. The hospital opened on 27 January 1942, but the present chapel was not dedicated until 34 years later, on 8 July 1976.
The hospital staff and volunteers in the Churchill Hospital were helpful when it came to finding the chapel during my recent visit. The chapel or prayer room is located in the old hospital, close to the OCDEM (Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism) building, with access through the old main entrance near Car Park 4.
The chapel is a multi-faith space for quiet thought and contemplation, and weekly services conducted by the Oxford University Hospitals Chaplaincy team. The chaplaincy team supports patients, families, and staff across Christian, Muslim, and other faith and non-faith traditions.
The chaplaincy team includes Christian ministers from different traditions, including the Church of England, Roman Catholic and Free Churches. It works across five sites within the trust, including the John Radcliffe Hospital, the Churchill Hospital, the Horton Hospital and Sobell House, and is sensitive to individual denominational and faith needs.
For 10 years, the chapel in the Churchill Hospital had plain glass windows. The Cowley Road Hospital, formerly the Cowley Workhouse, closed in 1981, the chapel was repurposed, and three of the lights from the chapel windows were moved to the Churchill Hospital Chapel. They were dedicated 40 years ago, 10 years after the chapel was dedicated, on 14 May 1986.
Each light was installed between a pair of contemporary lights, forming three impressive windows, depicting the Nativity, the Crucifixion and the Ascension. The inscription below the image of the Crucifixion, ‘Good Lord, deliver us’, is from the Litany in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. The light depicting the Nativity is signed J Bell Bristol.
The stained glass firm of Joseph Bell & Son was based in Bristol from 1840 to 1996. The firm was initially established by Joseph Bell (1810-1895), and continued to be run by his son, Frederick Henry Bell (1847-1899) and grandson, Frederick George Bell (1878-1967) until 1923. Each generation was involved in the design and painting of the glass, with additional artists brought in to design and make commissions.
Joseph Bell & Son was sold to Arnold Robinson, who had already undertaken commissions for the firm. After his death in 1955, Basil Barber, who had previously worked as chief cartoonist for Sir Ninian Comper and joined the studio in 1953, ran the firm until Arnold Robinson’s son, Geoffrey Robinson, took over the firm in 1959.
The studio closed after Geoffrey Robinson retired in 1996.
Services are held in the hospital chapel or at the bedsides of individual patients. There are regular opportunities during the week for people to worship and the times of services are published on the chapel notice boards and on the wards. Various special services are organised during the year and are publicised throughout the hospitals.
Islamic Friday prayers or Jummah Salah are held for Muslims in the chapel on Fridays at 1:15 pm, and at 1 pm in winter.
A quiet room or reflection space is also available opposite WH Smith on the ground floor on the main corridor in the Churchill Hospital and is open 24 hours a day.
There have been proposals in recent years to redevelop the Churchill Hospital site. This could mean the three windows in the chapel are moved, once again, and relocated in the John Radcliffe Hospital.
As for the original home of the three chapel windows, the Cowley Road Hospital, formerly the Cowley Workhouse, it was built in 1860s on a site bought from Magdalen College and Pembroke College. The hospital was designed by the Oxford architect William Fisher, and it was a maternity hospital and then a geriatric hospital before it closed in 1981.
The site later became home to the East Oxford Health Centre, Saint Bartholomew’s Medical Centre and Central Oxford Mosque. The former chapel on Manzil Way is now the Asian Cultural Centre and the only building remaining of the once imposing Oxford City Workhouse.
For my guide to churches, chapels and religious buildings and sites in Oxford, visit here
