Daily prayers in Ordinary Time with USPG: (93) 29 August 2023

Saint Mary’s Priory and Cathedral in Coventry was founded in the 12th century with the transformation of a former monastery (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and this week began with the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XII, 27 August 2023). Today, the calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship remembers the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist with a lesser festival.

Before the day begins, I am taking some time this morning for prayer and reflection.

In recent weeks, I have been reflecting on the churches in Tamworth and Lichfield. This week, I am reflecting each morning in these ways:

1, Looking at a church in Coventry;

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

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Bishop Robert de Limesey of Lichfield transferred his see to Coventry in 1095, and the monastery of Saint Mary became the new cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Saint Mary’s Priory and Cathedral, Coventry:

Sir Basil Spence’s Cathedral in Coventry, which opened over 60 years ago in 1962, was not the first, or even the second cathedral in city, but the third.

Saint Mary’s Priory and Cathedral in Coventry was founded in the 12th century with the transformation of the former monastery of Saint Mary, and it destroyed at the Dissolution of the Monastic Houses during the Tudor Reformation in the mid-16th century.

The priory and cathedral stood on a site north of Holy Trinity Church and the former Saint Michael’s Church in the centre of the city. The site was bordered by Priory Row to the south, Trinity Street to the west, and the River Sherbourne to the north. Excavated remains from the west end of the cathedral are open to the public.

Saint Osburg founded a nunnery by the River Sherbourne, on the edge of the Forest of Arden, around 700 CE. A settlement grew up around the nunnery, and in time this became Coventry.

King Canute and his army of laid waste to many towns and villages in Warwickshire in 1016 in his bid to take control of England. When they reached Coventry, they destroyed the Saxon nunnery founded by Saint Osburg.

Leofric, Earl of Mercia and his wife Lady Godiva rebuilt on the remains of the nunnery in 1043 and founded a Benedictine monastery dedicated to Saint Mary for an abbot and 24 monks.

John of Worcester recalls that Leofric and ‘his wife, the noble Countess Godgifu, a worshipper of God and devout lover of Saint Mary ever-virgin, built the monastery there from the foundations out of their own patrimony, and endowed it adequately with lands and made it so rich in various ornaments that in no monastery in England might be found the abundance of gold, silver, gems and precious stones that was at that time in its possession.’

The abbey church of Saint Mary’s was consecrated in 1043, and Earl Leofric was buried there in 1057.

Bishop Robert de Limesey of Lichfield transferred his see to Coventry ca 1095. The papal authorisation for this move in 1102 turned the monastery of Saint Mary into a priory and cathedral. The priory was rebuilt on an opulent scale to reflect its new importance as a cathedral. The rebuilding and expansion of Saint Mary’s was completed about 125 years later.

Robert Marmion fortified the partially-built cathedral in 1143 and fortified it in an attempt to capture Coventry Castle. Part of his alterations include a defensive trench around the church.

The main cathedral building was cruciform in shape, 130 metres (425 ft) long and 44 metres (145 ft) wide at the west front. It was built in two stages, up to 1143 and from ca 1150 to ca 1250. The cathedral had a central tower and two towers at the west end, the remains of which are still visible. It is believed there were three spires similar to, though pre-dating, those at Lichfield Cathedral.

When the monastery was founded, Leofric gave the northern half of his estates in Coventry, known as the Prior’s half, to support the monks. The other half of his estates in Coventry was called the Earl’s-half and later passed to the Earls of Chester.

Roger de Mold, or Roger de Montalt, Earl of Chester, sold the south side of Coventry to the Prior in 1250, and in theory, for the next 95 years, the town was controlled by a single landlord. In practice, however, disputes arose between the monastic tenants and those previously of the Earl, and the Prior never gained complete control of the entire city.

Coventry remained divided in two parts until 1345, the two parts were incorporated by royal charter into what became the city of Coventry, with its council house in Saint Mary’s Guildhall, a short stroll from the Priory.

According to the mediaeval writer William of Malmesbury, the monastery was so wealthy that its walls were too narrow to contain all the gold and silver.

At the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century, the seat of the diocese returned to Lichfield Cathedral in 1539. Henry VIII offered the cathedral buildings to the people of Coventry. However, the city was unable to raise sufficient funding, and the king ordered the buildings destroyed.

It was the only English cathedral to be destroyed during the Reformation. Masonry and other items were removed and used for other purposes, leaving only parts of the cathedral standing. The only major part of the monastic buildings to be spared was the north-west tower, which was used as a dwelling until 1714, when Coventry’s Blue Coat School was founded there.

The Blue Coat School was rebuilt on the site in 1856. During rebuilding, the remains of the cathedral’s west wall were discovered, including the foot of the south-west tower and its spiral staircase.

Coventry remained without a cathedral until 1918, when Saint Michael’s Church, built in the 14th and 15th centuries, became the cathedral of the new Diocese of Coventry was elevated to this status. Saint Michael’s was severely damaged during the Coventry Blitz on 14 November 1940, and replaced after World War by the present cathedral.

The Bluecoat School moved to a new location on Terry Road in 1964. An excavation in the 1960s discovered the original doorway to the chapter house.

Coventry City Council decided to redevelop part of the cathedral site in the late 1990s as a public park as part of its Phoenix Initiative. The Channel 4 programme Time Team was invited to perform an archaeological dig on the site in 1999. The dig consisted of four main trenches: one in the site of the chapter house, one to reach the original floor, four metres below the current ground level, and two to identify the locations of the two crossing piers that would have borne the weight of the tower and roof.

A stone-lined grave was found at the bottom of the trench. Work revealed the remains of a body in the grave just inside the chapter house door. Forensic evidence suggested that the person died in late-middle age and was overweight and diabetic, and it was suggested it was likely the man had been a prior, given to living a relatively sedate life with too much good food and drink.

A later discovery in 2000 was an ‘Apocalypse Mural’, a 14th-century masonry painted with the likeness of four figures, three of them wearing gilded crowns. Further digs were carried out by Time Team in 2001, Coventry Archaeology and Northampton Archaeology.

Parts of the site are open to the public as the Priory Garden and can be walked through or above on wooden walkways. The site of the cloisters has also become a park with a visitor centre containing some of the artefacts excavated.

What was once believed to be the remains of the east end of Saint Mary’s, can be seen beside the current cathedral. Other parts of the priory and cathedral were built over with the 18th century houses on Priory Row.

The priory site is in two parts. A series of pedestrian walkways cross over the priory church, so the site can be viewed from above, giving a good idea of the priory layout. The west wall is exposed, and the foundation walls can be seen.

The second part of the site is the priory cloisters, which have been transformed into a small park, with seating around a square of trees where the monks once strolled. Beside the cloister park is a modern visitor centre, installed as part of a Millennium project to promote Coventry’s history and act as a focal point for encouraging tourism. Volunteers offer tours of the ruins as well as the undercroft.

Coventry Cathedral was the only English cathedral to be destroyed during the Reformation (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Matthew 14: 1-12 (NRSVA):

1 At that time Herod the ruler heard reports about Jesus; 2 and he said to his servants, ‘This is John the Baptist; he has been raised from the dead, and for this reason these powers are at work in him.’ 3 For Herod had arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, 4 because John had been telling him, ‘It is not lawful for you to have her.’ 5 Though Herod wanted to put him to death, he feared the crowd, because they regarded him as a prophet. 6 But when Herod’s birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company, and she pleased Herod 7 so much that he promised on oath to grant her whatever she might ask. 8 Prompted by her mother, she said, ‘Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter.’ 9 The king was grieved, yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he commanded it to be given; 10 he sent and had John beheaded in the prison. 11 The head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, who brought it to her mother. 12 His disciples came and took the body and buried it; then they went and told Jesus.

Our Lady of Coventry by Sister Concordia Scott, installed in the ruins of Saint Mary’s Priory, Coventry, in 2001 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

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), is the ‘República de Jovens Home in Brazil.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (29 August 2023) invites us to pray in these words:

Let us pray for the República de Jovens (Young People’s Community House) project. That it will provide a safe place to call home for all who walk through its doors.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
who called your servant John the Baptist
to be the forerunner of your Son in birth and death:
strengthen us by your grace
that, as he suffered for the truth,
so we may boldly resist corruption and vice
and receive with him the unfading crown of 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 Lord,
whose prophet John the Baptist
proclaimed your Son as the Lamb of God
who takes away the sin of the world:
grant that we who in this sacrament
have known your forgiveness and your life-giving love
may ever tell of your mercy and your peace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Parts of the priory and cathedral were built over with the 18th century houses on Priory Row (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

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

The Execution of Saint John the Baptist … an early 18th century icon from the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian in Anopolis, in the Museum of Christian Art, in the Church of Saint Catherine of Sinai, Iraklion, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Paul’s: a lost Greek Revival church in the Anglo-Catholic tradition in Oxford

The former Saint Paul’s Church is a distinctive building that looks like a Greek temple on Walton Street, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

Jericho is one of the trendiest parts of Oxford these days, with its fashionable wine bars, cafés, restaurants, shops and night clubs.

The name of Jericho probably dates from the 17th century, and seems appropriately named for an area outside the city walls. Jericho was the first planned suburb in Oxford, and developed in the 19th century next to the Oxford University Press and beside the canal, but at one time it also included some of the worst slums in Oxford.

Appropriately for its biblical name too, Jericho is also known for its places of worship. The Church of England parish church, Saint Barnabas, is in the Anglo-Catholic tradition. Saint Sepulchre’s is the name of the cemetery off Walton Street. The Oxford Baptist Chapel is on Albert Street. The Oxford Synagogue – one of the few in England with more than one Jewish tradition worshipping in the same building – and the Oxford Jewish Centre are both in Jericho.

Saint Paul’s is a distinctive building that looks like a Greek temple on Walton Street, facing onto Great Clarendon Street. It stands opposite the Oxford University Press and beside the Blavatnik School of Government. It is surrounded by the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter of the University of Oxford, formerly the Radcliffe Infirmary site, and in recent years it has been a café and arts venue.

Saint Paul’s was the first new church built in Oxford since the Reformation (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Saint Paul’s was the first new parish to be created in Oxford and the first new church to be built in Oxford since the Reformation. The church and the parish came as responses to the first outbreak of cholera in this part of Oxford in 1831, and to serve both the growing new suburb of Jericho and the new industrial area growing up round the University Press.

Saint Paul’s Parish was carved out of the parishes of Saint Thomas and Saint Giles. It covered an area from Saint Giles Road West (now the south end of Woodstock Road) to the canal, and from Workhouse Lane (now Little Clarendon Street) to the end of Walton Street, which then turned west to end outside Carter’s Ironworks.

The parish then included the University Press and the few rows of houses between the Press and Jericho Street, east of Albert Street, Carter’s Ironworks, the odd cottage and Jericho House. On the east side were Walton Hall, Cock’s Alley, the Radcliffe Infirmary and the Radcliffe Observatory with Observatory Street. The present Saint Bernard’s Road was still a crooked sunken lane.

The Radcliffe Trustees made a gift of part of the old burial ground of the Radcliffe Infirmary as a site for the new church. The church was built in 1834 at a cost of about £3,500, and the money was raised by public subscription.

The church was designed by the Oxford-based architect Henry Jones Underwood (1804-1852). He was a brother of the architects Charles Underwood and George Allen Underwood, and trained in London under Henry Hake Seward before joining the office of Sir Robert Smirke. He moved to Oxford in 1830, and much of his work involved designing churches or schools.

Underwood is best known for his Gothic Revival architecture, and his church at Littlemore for John Henry Newman became a model for other churches. He also designed the library of the Oxford Botanic Garden in the Greek Revival style. Underwood died by suicide in 1852 in the White Hart Hotel, Bath.

The church was enlarged in 1853, a year after Underwood’s death, with the addition of an apsidal chancel at the east end designed by the Oxford architect Edward George Bruton (1826-1899).

Two further outbreaks of cholera, in 1849 and 1854, reinforced the parish’s commitments to the liturgical and social values and ideals of the Oxford Movement, emphasising the importance of personal responsibility in promoting education, health reform and social justice, and raising awareness of the living conditions of many people.

One of the churchwardens, Thomas Combe, Superintendent of the University Press, was a friend and follower of John Henry Newman, founding figure in the Oxford Movement, and did much to improve living conditions for people in Jericho.

With further growth of Jericho, the western part of the parish of Saint Paul's was split off in 1869 and became a separate parish, served by Saint Barnabas’s Church, which was built mainly at Thomas Combe’s expense.

The Pre-Raphaelite stained glass windows by Charles Eamer Kempe need attention and repairs (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

The Pre-Raphaelite stained glass windows in Saint Paul’s were installed in 1888-1889. Six of the windows are by Charles Eamer Kempe (1837-1907), three depicting the Nativity, two the Resurrection and one the Ascension, with portraits of local dignitaries grouped round the Ascending Christ, including the then Vicar of Saint Paul’s, Father Duggan, and Thomas Combe.

The congregation of Saint Paul’s fell when Saint Barnabas’s opened, but increased again in the 1880s and 1890s, and the number of Easter communicants rose from 210 in 1872 to 320 in 1890.

The vestry was enlarged in 1892-1893, and the church architect and designer Frederick Charles Eden (1864-1944) remodelled the interior in 1908 and added a new doorway at the south-west corner.

Saint Paul’s is a rectangular stone building in the Greek Classic style with a west portico of the Ionic order and a bell turret. A gallery was added to increase the seating and the windows on the north side were raised to put in clear glass panels after the windows were reglazed with stained glass. The coping stones on the north side were removed so that the north and the south elevations are no longer the same.

Legacy photographs show a bright and colourful interior in Saint Paul’s

Legacy photographs show a bright and colourful interior with a magnificent high altar and tabernacle, adorned with candles and embroidered hangings, many the work of local women such as Ada Earl of Cardigan Street.

The pulpit was in wrought iron. The font, designed by Edward Bouverie Pusey, was an odd rectangular shape on a stand with medallions like a Wedgewood vase. Both the pulpit and the font have disappeared since the church was closed.

There were side altars with statues of the Sacred Heart, Our Lady, Saint Anthony and Saint Joseph, brought in France by Father Roger Wodehouse, along with the tabernacle. The Stations of the Cross were given by Sir Herbert Miller.

Saint Paul’s was known for its ritual and processions. There was Mass on Sunday morning, Benediction in the evening and many weekday services. Sunday evening services created long queues of students waiting to hear the distinguished preachers. There were two Sunday schools, for boys and girls, each with about 100 children.

The church celebrations included May Day and Corpus Christi processions. The annual pilgrimage to Walsingham continued until the church closed. Saint Paul’s also had its own amateur dramatic society, the SPADS. The church staged dramatic tableaux depicting biblical events and there was great competition to take part.

Sunday School and choir outings included visits to Blenheim Palace, Clifton Hampden, London Zoo and Margate. The social club in the 1920s organised a day trip to France by special train to Dover and by the ferry. There were garden fetes in Somerville every year and a Christmas fair in the ballroom of the Randolph Hotel.

When Saint Paul’s was founded, the patronage was vested in the Bishop of Oxford, with the consent of Saint John’s College and Christ Church. The first Vicar of Saint Paul’s was the Revd Henry Gary.

Gary was succeeded by his former curate, Canon Alfred Hackman (1811-1874), as vicar in 1844-1871. Hackman had been chaplain of Christ Church College, Oxford, and Vicar of Cowley, and was also Precentor of Christ Church (1841-1873) and sub-librarian of the Bodleian.

In Hackman’s time, the church developed a reputation as a centre of Tractarianism. Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer were said daily, and Holy Communion was weekly, with about 63 communicants. The congregation was 400 in the morning and 600 in the evening, but some people came from outside the parish. The number of weekly communicants had risen to 110 by 1866, and the congregation of 600 could not grow because of space needs.
Hackman’s curates included Canon James Ridgway (1826-1881), curate in 1851-1853, later a canon of Christ Church and Principal of Culham Training College. The Revd Addington Robert Peel Venables (1827-1876), curate in 1852-1863, was later the second Bishop of Nassau in the Bahamas (1873-1876).

Hackman’s successor was another curate, the Revd William Bottomley Duggan (1844-1904), who was the vicar in 1871-1904. He introduced a surpliced choir, altar frontals in liturgical colours, and Eucharistic vestments.

Father Roger Wodehouse (1890-1958) was a grandson of both the poet Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) and John Wodehouse (1826-1902), 1st Earl of Kimberley, a former Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1864-1866). He had been a curate at Saint Thomas and was one of the original trustees of the Shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham.

Despite a long vacancy, the church attracted large numbers of people in the 1930s with its combination of ‘Roman Catholicism with Moody and Sankey Protestantism.’ But the decline of the parish began in the 1930s with the demolition of some of the worst slums in Oxford, including Jericho Gardens and King Street, when about 50 large families with many children were moved out to Rose Hill. Later, the homes on the north side of Cardigan Street, the south side of Jericho Street, and part of Union Street, now Hart Street, were demolished and the people were moved out to Marston.

As more people moved out of Jericho in the post-war decades, the congregation dwindled to a handful, most of them living outside the parish. The decline was hastened in the 1950s by the rise of the neighbouring church of Saint Mary Magdalen as the centre of Anglo-Catholicism in Oxford.

The old and the new … reflections of Saint Paul’s in the Blavatnik School of Government (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

The parishes of Saint Paul and Saint Barnabas were united in 1963, and Saint Paul’s was closed in 1969. The vicarage at 1A Observatory Street, built in 1905, was sold in 1965. The organ went to Gosford Hill School, some of the statues went to Saint Aloysius Roman Catholic Church, some of the embroidery to Middleton Stoney, the registers to the Bodleian Library and the war memorial is now in the south aisle in Saint Barnabas Church.

The church stood empty until 1975, when the Oxford Area Arts Council bought it as a theatre and arts centre. But the conversion was mismanaged and was incomplete when the Arts Centre opened in 1985, and it closed again in 1987.

The building was acquired in 1988 by Secession Ltd to prevent its demolition, and it opened that year as Freud’s Arts Café, a café bar created by David Freud that offered live music, including jazz, punk, post-punk and blues. The name is written in Roman-style capital letters as ‘FREVD’ above the main entrance door.

A new building for the Blavatnik School of Government of Oxford University opened on the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter site beside Freud in 2015. David Freud opposed the scheme because of the size and height of the building compared to the former church.

But when I tried to visit Freud’s or Saint Paul’s last week, the gates were padlocked, weeds were growing profusely on the site and Kempe’s Pre-Raphaelite windows looked like they are in serious need of attention, repair and conservation.

Saint Paul’s Church became Freud’s Arts Café in 1988 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)