01 July 2023

Daily prayers in Ordinary Time
with USPG: (34) 1 July 2023

Trinity Hospital, or the Hospital of the Holy Trinity, in New Ross, Co Wexford, was founded in 1578 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and tomorrow is the Fourth Sunday after Trinity. The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today (1 July 2023) recalls Henry, John, and Henry Venn the younger, Priests, Evangelical Divines (1797, 1813 and 1873).

Before today becomes a busy day, I am taking some time for prayer, reading and reflection.

Over these weeks after Trinity Sunday, I have been reflecting each morning in these ways:

1, Looking at relevant images or stained glass window in a church, chapel or cathedral I know;

2, the Gospel reading of the day in the Church of England lectionary;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

The seal of the Hospital of the Holy Trinity … a copy on the façade of the hospital, sculpted by Seamus Furlong in 1592 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Trinity Hospital, or the Hospital of the Holy Trinity, New Ross, Co Wexford:

Between Trinity Chambers, the former Saint Catherine’s Church on South Street in New Ross, Co Wexford, and the neglected courthouse on Priory Street, Trinity Hospital or the Hospital of the Holy Trinity is an interesting collection of houses that tells the story of an Elizabethan charity and a foundation dating back almost 450 years to the late 16th century.

The Trinity Hospital was founded in 1578 by a bequest of a local merchant, Thomas Gregory, a merchant who had been granted the sites of all churches and monasteries in New Ross. The Hospital of the Holy Trinity was incorporated by a charter granted by Queen Elizabeth I in 1584, when the sites of two churches – Saint Saviour, which had been granted to Dunbrody Abbey in 1370, and Saint Michael – were transferred to the new foundation.

The hospital or almshouse was supported by an income from lands of Glen Saint Saviour – now known as called Glensensaw – in Rosbercon, on the west bank of the River Barrow.

The seal of the Hospital of the Holy Trinity bears the initials ‘GC’ of George Conway, the first master, and the date 1587. The tomb of Patrick Conway, ‘formerly burgess of the New Town of Ross,’ who died in 1587, and who perhaps was the father of George Conway, and his wife Katherine Archer, could be seen in Saint Mary’s Church.

The conditions for entry to the hospital were simple: poor women who were in need, and natives of New Ross or residing in the town for 12 months. Religion was to play no part in considering candidates for residence.

At the time, it was alleged that many hospitals were continuing as chantry chapels, and it was suspected in its early decades that the former priests of Saint Saviour’s continued to say Mass in Trinity Hospital.

At first, the hospital or almshouse consisted of six houses in Priory Street, providing accommodation for 14 poor women. Each woman had two rooms and an annual allowance of £18.1.

Almost 200 years after its foundation, Trinity Hospital was rebuilt in 1772 by Charles Tottenham (1716-1795) of nearby Delare House.

By the 19th century, New Ross had several charitable institutions, including the Fever Hospital, founded by H Houghton of Ballyane and completed by his widow in 1809, and the Vicar’s Almshouse, provided accommodation for three poor Protestant widows and endowed by Charles Tottenham and Lord Callan, as well as a Temperance Society, founded in 1829 and said to be the first of its kind in Europe, a Bible Society founded in 1804, and the Rumsey Lending Library, founded with a grant from Mrs Rumsey, the wife of a doctor in Amersham, Buckinghamshire.

The houses at Trinity Hospital were renovated at the beginning of the 20th century, but they retain many of their 16th and 18th century architectural features. These include their compact rectilinear plan form, their feint battered silhouette, the solid massing, the timber sash windows, the uniform proportions of the windows, the high-pitched roofline, and glazed tongue-and-groove timber panelled double doors or replacement iron double doors.

One of the houses has ground floor openings remodelled to accommodate a pair of square-headed carriageways. The range also included an extension that possibly formed part of the larger living quarters of the governor or master of the hospital or almshouse.

Almshouses such as these are found in many English towns and cathedral cities. I am reminded, quite naturally, of Saint John’s Hospital in Lichfield. But they are a rarity in Irish towns.

Although the ground floor of the original house is now boarded up, Trinity Hospital continues to provide a link with the Tudor period in the history of New Ross and it is an important component of the late 18th century architectural heritage of the town.

In a letter to The Irish Times in 2004, Breda Fitzgibbon of New Ross, writing as the Representative of Thomas Gregory and Master of Hospital of the Holy Trinity, challenged a claim that the Royal Hospital Donnybrook, founded in 1743, is the oldest charity in Ireland.

She pointed out that the ‘Master Brethren and Poor of the Hospital of the Holy Trinity,’ was founded in the late 16th century by Thomas Gregory and granted a Royal Charter by Elizabeth I.

With voluntary help, this charity has continued the work of caring for the poor since its foundation without State aid or health board subvention thanks to the continued support of the people of New Ross who have responded generously with their support.

‘Trinity Hospital Erected in the year 1772 Char[les]s Tottenham Esqr Master Give Alms of thy Goods and never turn thy face from a Poor Man’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 8: 5-17 (NRSVA):

5 When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, appealing to him 6 and saying, ‘Lord, my servant is lying at home paralysed, in terrible distress.’ 7 And he said to him, ‘I will come and cure him.’ 8 The centurion answered, ‘Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, “Go”, and he goes, and to another, “Come”, and he comes, and to my slave, “Do this”, and the slave does it.’ 10 When Jesus heard him, he was amazed and said to those who followed him, ‘Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. 11 I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, 12 while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 13 And to the centurion Jesus said, ‘Go; let it be done for you according to your faith.’ And the servant was healed in that hour.

14 When Jesus entered Peter’s house, he saw his mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever; 15 he touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she got up and began to serve him. 16 That evening they brought to him many who were possessed by demons; and he cast out the spirits with a word, and cured all who were sick. 17 This was to fulfil what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah, ‘He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.’

Today’s Prayer:

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been ‘Freeing people from the Traps of Human Trafficking.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday.

The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (1 July 2023) invites us to pray:

We pray for strength and steadfastness in the work of repairing the world. In all things may we honour you and the dignity of each person. Amen.

Collect:

Almighty God,
you have broken the tyranny of sin
and have sent the Spirit of your Son into our hearts
whereby we call you Father:
give us grace to dedicate our freedom to your service,
that we and all creation may be brought
to the glorious liberty of the children of God;
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.

Post Communion:

O God, whose beauty is beyond our imagining
and whose power we cannot comprehend:
show us your glory as far as we can grasp it,
and shield us from knowing more than we can bear
until we may look upon you without fear;
through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

The Tottenham extension to Trinity Hospital, built in 1772 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Yesterday’s reflection

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

Coventry Synagogue
needs tender loving care
if it’s going to be saved

Coventry Synagogue was built in 1870 … but it never celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2020 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

I have known Coventry since my late teens, since I first visited the city in 1970. That year the Jewish community in Coventry celebrated the centenary of the synagogue on Barras Lane, which had been built in 1870.

But the synagogue never celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2020. It had fallen into disrepair and had been abandoned and sold. When I visited Coventry yesterday, the former synagogue, on the western fringes of the city centre, and former rabbi’s house beside it, looked a sad and lonely sight.

The Jewish history of Coventry dates back over 800 years. The first reference to a Jew living in Coventry in 1194, when Elias, a tax gatherer, was in Coventry during the reign of Richard I. Soon after, Antera of Coventry, a female Jewish tax gatherer, was a party to a suit involving a house in Coventry in 1219-1220.

In neighbouring Warwick, the Jewish community had given its name by the mid-13th century to ‘Le Juerie’, which is now known as Jury Street, a corruption of Jewry, and there was a Jew’s house in Castle Street. The Jewish community in Warwick disappeared in 1282, eight years before the expulsion of all Jews from England in 1290.

The house associated with Antera of Coventry in 1219-1220 may have been the same house that was still identified in Coventry in 1467 as having once belonged to the Jews (quod quondam. fuit Judeorum).

Ezra Stiles, President of Yale in 1778-1795, refers in his diary to a family living in Coventry in the 1750s who had converted to Judaism in London, and observed they were more strict in their religious observance than Jews by birth.

The Jewish community in Coventry worshipped in an upper room at No 16 Spon Street in the mid-19th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

The first indication of modern Jewish life in Coventry is about 1775, when Isaac Cohen moved to Coventry. He is said to have been the first in a small community of Ashkenazim who were living in Coventry by the early 19th century.

The Jewish community in Coventry first met in the home of Isaac Cohen, a timber-framed mediaeval building in the lost Great Butcher Row. This was the home of Isaac Cohen, and was demolished in 1936. Isaac Cohen of Coventry died on 13 December 1835, aged 108, having lived in Coventry for about 60 years; his wife died before him in 1833 at the age of 101.

Later places of Jewish worship in Coventry included rooms off Derby Lane, now also demolished, Fleet Street, and, finally, in an upper room at No 16 Spon Street.

Prominent Jewish families in Coventry included the Harris family: Mary (Harris) Jessel was the mother of Sir George Jessel (1824-1883), the first Jew in Britain to be a regular member of the Privy Council and to hold high judicial office.

Coventry’s Jews were represented at the opening of the new synagogue in Severn Street, Birmingham, in 1809.

Until the 1860s, many Jewish people living in Coventry were non-resident members of Singers Hill Synagogue in Birmingham.

The Coventry Hebrew Congregation came into being in 1864, and the worshippers moved to a newly-built synagogue in Barras Lane in 1870. The congregation was then said to number about 50 men and boys. By 1881, the number of people attending services was 22, and by 1889 it was said to be impossible at times to gather the minyan or 10 adult males needed, while the regular congregation seems to have shrunk to about a dozen.

The congregation had been reduced to six contributing members by November 1890, and the synagogue closed temporarily shortly after. It reopened in 1906, but the congregation was still small and very poor.

Coventry Synagogue was built on Barras Lane in 1870 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Coventry Synagogue was built on Barras Lane in 1870, with the rabbi’s house on the upper floor in the south-west corner.

The building was designed by Thomas Naden (1824-1916) of Birmingham, later president of the Birmingham Architectural Association. It was built on a modest scale, with a limited budget. It was built of red brick with blue brick and painted stone dressings and a plain tile roof in a simplified Romanesque style. The connected grouping of two-storeyed rabbi’s house, synagogue and vestibule face onto Barras Lane and Gloucester Street.

The Gloucester Street front has a door with a fanlight and paired, arched lights, and there are similarly paired windows directly above on the first floor level.

The Gloucester Street façade of the rabbi’s house beside the synagogue (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Inside, the synagogue was divided into bays by wooden trusses, which were cusped, had cut-out decoration and rested on stone corbels with detached columns. The Aron haKodesh or ark of painted and gilded wood was in the centre of the north-east (liturgical east) wall, with pilasters on either side of a recess and an arch above with a central oculus window with a stained-glass image of the luhot (Ten Commandments) and a Star of David.

The bimah or reading platform was immediately in front. There were timber pews on either side of the bimah and in the gallery. The 20th century stained glass windows were by Hardman Studios, the pre-eminent stained-glass studios in Birmingham, and some of them were removed when the synagogue closed. The building also had a mikveh (ritual bath) in the basement.

Synagogue services were suspended for many years during World War II because of heavy aerial bombing of Coventry and the evacuation of many people.

There was a post-war recovery in the Jewish community in Coventry, and the Jewish population numbered about 240 in 1964. In the synagogue, GN Jackson carried out post-war alterations to the gallery and rebuilt the porch and vestibule that year.

The synagogue on Barras Lane had been at the centre of the Jewish life in Coventry for over a century when it celebrated its centenary in September 1970, receiving congratulations from Queen Elizabeth II and President Zalman Shazar of Israel.

Inside Coventry Synagogue before it closed (Archive Photograph)

Coventry Jewish Reform Community was formed in October 1993, and for several years it shared the facilities of Barras Lane Synagogue with the Coventry Hebrew Congregation.

However, numbers continued to decline in the Orthodox community, But the congregation had dwindled by 1999 and running costs were exceeding donations. The synagogue ceased holding regular services by 2003 and membership merged with Solihull and District Hebrew Congregation. The building gradually fell into disuse and disrepair.

The sharing arrangement had come to an end and the synagogue finally closed 15 years ago in 2008. The Reform community now holds its services at the Friends’ Meeting House (Quakers) in Coventry and in members’ homes.

The building was designated a Grade II Listed Building on 18 June 2009, because it was a good surviving example of a rare Victorian provincial synagogue, it was largely intact with its original seating, ark alcove and bimah, and because of its well-handled architectural treatment, with a light and spacious interior and appropriate embellishments.

A glimpse of the former glory of the synagogue, gleaned through the windows (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

However, the building quickly deteriorated. Dry rot caused extensive damage, the whole floor had rotted and collapsed, the bathroom and a kitchen were gone. The synagogue was sold ten years ago in 2013 to an Israeli-born businessman, who had plans to restore the building, reopen it as a functioning synagogue and to host school visits.

Avi Tordjmann took on the task of restoring the Barras Lane synagogue for use by the community. He refitted the Rabbi’s house, and had hopes to start work on repairing the prayer hall, and spent two years clearing away debris and waste. He told CoventryLive: ‘In a new age it doesn’t have to be for one religion – it can be for the whole community.’

But as I walked the former synagogue and the former rabbi’s house yesterday, the buildings looked empty, forlorn and abandoned. I caught a glimpse of the former glory of the interior in the sunlight through one of the remaining stained-glass windows inside. But the only sign of the former use of these buildings is a faded and sun-bleached mezuzah affixed to the doorpost of the rabbi’s house, tthe Hebrew letter ש‎ still visible. Curiously, I noticed, its position follows the tradition of Most Sephardi Jews, and is affixed vertically, whilw Ashkenazim usually place it in a slanting position.

Hopefully, Avi Tordjmann can see through his dream of restoring his project to bring this synagogue back to its former glory.

Shabbas Shalom

A faded, sun-bleached mezuzah remains affixed to the doorpost of the rabbi’s house (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)