Patrick Comerford
Saint Paul’s Church on Saint Paul’s Square is the largest Church of England parish church in Bedford. The former mediaeval collegiate church is a grade I listed building of cathedral proportions. With its size and tall spire, Saint Paul’s dominates the town.
Saint Paul’s is the largest Anglican church in Bedfordshire. During World War II, it was the home for the BBC’s daily worship and hosted the Service for the National Day of Prayer in 1941.
Today, it is the Civic Church of the Borough of Bedford and of the County of Bedfordshire. It works closely with three other churches in Bedford – Saint Peter de Merton, Saint Martin’s and Saint Andrew’s – and welcomes thousands of visitors and pilgrims throughout the year.
Saint Paul’s is in the Diocese of St Albans. It has a cathedral choral tradition with a modern catholic liturgy officially, and it is a member of the Major Churches Network and of the Cathedrals Plus network.
Evidence suggests that Saint Paul’s Church was founded as a new minster by King Offa, who died in 796 CE, to serve the inhabitants of his new fortified urban burgh. Offa is said to have been buried in Bedford, and his minster church of Saint Paul has been identified as a probable site of his grave.
Oscytel (or Oskytel), Archbishop of York, was buried in the church 956, indicating Saint Paul’s was an important minster church from at least the 10th century. The church was a house of secular canons, and was ruled by an abbot from 971.
The life of the church was frequently interrupted by the invasions of the Danes. They used the river to move inland to Bedford on their way westwards into the Saxon kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex, and in 1009-1010, they destroyed the church.
The church was soon rebuilt and is named in the Domesday Book in 1086. However, the second church on the site was destroyed or seriously damaged in 1153 in a civil war between King Stephen and the future Henry II, after a siege of Bedford Castle.
In the Middle Ages, Saint Paul’s was the largest of the five original parishes in Bedford. It was a collegiate church with a dean and college of six secular canons, similar to a cathedral chapter, and each canon had his own residence to the west of the church.
However, the clergy in Bedford were far from exemplary in their behaviour and lifestyle. When one of the canons, Philip de Broy, killed a man in 1164, he damaged the good name of the canons of Saint Paul’s. This situation was not uncommon at the time, and to avoid these incidents several collegiate foundations adopted the practice of housing the clerics in priories following the Rule of Saint Augustine.
Rose de Beauchamp of Bedford Castle and her son Simon found a site just outside the town to relocate the canons of Saint Paul’s in 1165. They named their new home a mile downstream of Bedford as Newenham or ‘new home’ – now known as Newnham. It was founded as the Prior and Convent of Saint Paul, with the archdeacon as the senior canon and the chapter members following the rule of Saint Augustine.
From the 12th to the 16th century, Saint Paul's was in effect a parish church with the atmosphere of an Augustinian priory.
The third church on the site was also destroyed and rebuilt following the siege of 1224.
Simon de Beauchamp, who founded the priory with his mother, died ca 1208, and was buried by the high altar. Seven years later, his son William was one of the barons who forced King John to sign the Magna Carta in 1215. He became one of the victims of the king’s revenge when Bedford Castle was taken by one of John’s mercenaries, Falkes de Bréauté, known for his ruthless cruelty and ambition.
Henry III ordered him to surrender in 1224, but instead he began to strengthen the castle, using stones from Saint Paul’s and neighbouring Saint Cuthbert’s to build and fortify towers and walls. Henry III’s siege of the castle that summer lasted for six weeks until the rebels surrendered on 14 August, and most of the garrison were hanged.
Saint Paul’s was rebuilt as the fourth church on the site in the 1230s, using recycled stones. However, little survives from the 13th century building, apart from the finely moulded Early English case of the south door.
Most of the present church – the fifth on the site – was built or rebuilt in the 15th century in the Perpendicular style. The roofs were raised, clerestories added, windows enlarged, a second storey was added to south porch, as were the north and south windows, the oak roofs, the parclose screen, the priest’s two-storey vestry, misericords in the quire or chancel and the Trinity Chapel.
The Chapel of the Holy and Undivided Trinity was built in the early 15th century for two of the town's merchant guilds, the Guild of the Holy and Indivisible Trinity and the Guild of Corpus Christi. The chapel was used until the Reformation in the 1540s as a chantry chapel where Masses were sung for the souls of deceased guild members. Later it was used for sittings of the Archdeacon’s Court.
The Priory began to withdraw from officiating at the church from the late 15th century. A guild priest took over the services in the Trinity Chapel, and a parish priest, Father Alexander, was appointed in 1508. The first Vicar of St Paul’s, the Revd John Berde, was appointed in 1528, ending the direct link between church and priory that had existed for almost four centuries.
During the Tudor Reformation, Newnham Priory was dissolved in 1541, and its lands and income were appropriated to the crown, leaving the church poorly endowed. The school once run by the canons continued with the support of an earlier benefactor of the town and church, Sir William Harpur, and eventually developed into Bedford Grammar School.
Sir William Harpur was the Lord Mayor of London in 1562, and the Harpur Trust, which has a long history of operating independent schools in Bedford, has donated many of the stained glass windows in the church.
John Bunyan, the author of The Pilgrim’s Progress, preached in Saint Paul’s on 23 May 1656.
Saint Paul’s Church continued to suffer neglect until 1697, when Thomas Christie, MP for Bedford, whose family held some of the old church lands, bequeathed his tithes to Saint Paul’s to improve the building and the living.
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, preached the Assize Sermon in the church on 10 March 1758.
However, despite Christie’s bequest, the church fabric continued to be neglected until the 1830s, when a long process of restoration and enlargement began.
During the 19th century Saint Paul’s became part of the Anglo-Catholic tradition, in which it remains. Canon Michael Ferrebee Sadler (1819-1895) was appointed in 1864, in succession to the Revd John Donne. Sadler was a Tractarian and he encouraged Fanny Eagles (1836-1907) to become a deaconess, and as a result the Sisters of Saint Etheldreda were associated with the parish from 1869.
The architectural work in the church in the 19th century includes the tower and spire, transepts, choir stalls, quire and quire roof.
Late 19th and early 20th century work in the church includes the rood screen designed by the Gothic Revival architect George Frederick Bodley (1827-1907), who also reordered the chancel and restored the choir stalls. The Trinity Chapel was retoreded by the Bedford-based architect Charles Edward Mallows (1864-1915), who was part of the Arts and Craft movement. The English Altar and altar rails were designed by the Bromsgrove Guild, a company of artists and designers associated with the Arts and Crafts Movement and founded by Walter Gilbert (1871-1946).
Later in the 20th century, from the mid-1970s to 1982, the church was restored and otherwise improved. Further work was completed on a narthex at the west end of the church in 2014.
During World War II, the BBC moved much of its operations from London to Bedford. The Trinity Chapel in Saint Paul’s was used by the BBC as the studio for broadcasting the Daily Service and the ‘Epilogue’ both nationally and throughout Europe.
This period is commemorated by an inscription on the floor at the entrance of the chapel: ‘The BBC broadcast the Christian message from this chapel 1941-1945 in the Darkness of War: Nation shall speak peace unto nation, they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, Hope through Reconciliation, Forgiveness through Understanding, Peace’.
At the south end of the high altar rail, an inscription on a wooden panel records the National Day of Prayer on Sunday 7 September 1941, when the Archbishop Cosmo Lang of Canterbury and Archbishop William Temple of York came together to Saint Paul’s to lead the worship and broadcast live to the nation. The service was broadcast around the world, ‘to uplift and inspire many millions to a new endeavour to set up a kingdom of righteousness on the earth.’
The three manual organ is a rebuilding in 2010 of an instrument built by Norman and Beard in 1900.
The church has a ring of 12 bells, hung for English-style change ringing. Most of the bells were cast in 1896-1897 to form a new ring of 10 to replace the eight that had been in the church since around 1744. One of the original bells was retained as the ninth of the new 10, but was recast in 1945. The bells were taken out of the tower during World War II, and were rehung in 1945. Two new bells were added in 1977, marking Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee.
Today Saint Paul’s serves a diverse parish and enjoys choral and liturgical worship in the English cathedral tradition. The church is also a central venue for concerts, recitals and exhibitions.
Canon Kevin Ian Goss has been the Vicar of Saint Paul’s since 2014. Father Kevin was a professional musician and teacher, and is a former Precentor of Canterbury Cathedral. He is an honorary canon of St Albans Cathedral. Canon Michael Bradley and the Revd Roger Stokes are honorary priests and the Revd Anthony Davis is the Assistant Curate.
• Sunday services: 8 am, Holy Communion (BCP), 10.15 am, Parish Eucharist; 5.30 pm, Evening Service (Compline, Choral Evensong or Evening Prayer). The weekday services that include Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer and the Eucharist. The church is open every day for private prayer from 10 am to 4 pm.
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