Davidson House, Upper Saint John Street, once the home of one the finest of Lichfield’s architects, has been neglected for over a decade (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Patrick Comerford
As I was walking up Upper John Street in Lichfield last week, setting out in search of Borrowcop Hill and Borrowcop Gazebo, I stopped once again to look at the sad state of decay and neglect of Davidson House at 67 Upper Saint John Street. This Regency-era house, built ca 1810, is more than 200 years old. It faces a prominent corner at Davidson Road and is just a few metres south of Lichfield City train station, and north of both King Edward VI School and Holy Cross Church.
Back in 2015, I had written about the sad neglect of this fine house, which had once been a museum and, before that, the home of a distinguished Lichfield architect. But in the 10 years since then, the house has decayed even further and lost more of its key architectural features.
According to the local history group, Lichfield Discovered, and the local historian Kate Gomez, this house is part of Lichfield’s ‘at-risk’ heritage. Yet, despite its important place in the heritage of Lichfield, it looks forlorn and abandoned, and is rapidly becoming an eyesore on the landscape of Lichfield.
The windows in this once elegant house are boarded up, the stonework and façade are crumbling, and there is a sad air of abandonment about the whole site.
Davidson House was once the home of the Old Comrades Association of the South Staffordshire Regiment and the collection of the Regimental Museum from 1938 until 1963, when it moved to Whittington. But Davidson House is also of architectural interest because it was once the home of the Lichfield architect Thomas Johnson (1795-1865), who lived there for over 30 years, from 1834 until he died in 1865.
Thomas Johnson trained as a pupil of the Lichfield architect Joseph Potter (1756–1842) and was influenced by his method. Potter, who had a large practice in Staffordshire and the neighbouring counties in the late 18th and early 19th century, lived in Pipehill, south-west of Lichfield, but had his office in Saint John Street.
Apart from restorations to Lichfield Cathedral, Potter’s work included Newton’s College (1800-1802), the Causeway Bridge, Bird Street (1816), Freeford Hall, which he enlarged for William Dyott (1826-1827), and Holy Cross Church, Upper Saint John Street (1835), and his son designed the Guildhall (1846-1848).
By 1814, the Potter practice was run from a house on the north side of Saint John’s Hospital. Later it was continued by his son, Joseph Potter, who died in 1875.
Meanwhile, Thomas Johnson went on to work as a junior partner with the prolific Staffordshire architect James Trubshaw (1777-1853) of Little Haywood, near Colwich. Soon, Johnson married Trubshaw’s eldest daughter, Mary.
Johnson and Potter worked on the nave of Saint Mary’s Church (Church of England) in Uttoxeter in 1828. But a year later, in 1829, Johnson set up his own practice as an architect in Tamworth Street, Lichfield, and he continued to design churches, including the very large Saint James’s in Longton (1832-1834). By 1834, he was living in the house that later became Davidson House in Upper Saint John Street.
The portico of Davidson House and its Tuscan pillars have been removed or vandalised (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Around this time, Johnson fell under the influence of the Cambridge Camden Society, which was strongly influenced by AWN Pugin. The early members included Canon James Thomas Law (1790-1876), a prebendary and chancellor of Lichfield Cathedral and a former Master of Saint John’s Hospital (1821-1826).
Both Law and Johnson were founding members in 1841 of the Lichfield Society for the Encouragement of Ecclesiastical Architecture, and both were active committee members. Canon William Gresley (1801-1876) of Saint Mary’s, a leading Tractarian and former curate of Saint Chad’s, was the first chairman, and the committee met in Canon Law’s house in Market Street. Other committee members included the antiquarian and lawyer, William Salt of Stafford, and the Revd Richard Rawle (1812-1889), who was the Vicar of Tamworth in 1869-1872 and later the Bishop of Trinidad and Tobago (1872-1888).
Johnson also began working on the restoration of Saint Chad’s Church, Lichfield, in 1841, and he did further work there in 1848-1849.
He worked with the London-born architect Sydney Smirke, who also designed the Hinkley family home at Beacon Place, in the controversial restoration of Saint Michael’s Church, Lichfield, in 1842-1843. During that work, the original memorial stone commissioned by Samuel Johnson for his family was removed as Saint Michael’s was repaved, and much of the mediaeval fabric of the church was lost. But Johnson’s restoration work is a remarkable example of the strong influence of Pugin’s ideas on his work, and the historian of Staffordshire Gothic architecture, the Revd Michael J Fisher, says it is a surprisingly god example of Gothic for its time.
Johnson designed Saint Mary’s Church, Great Wyrley, two miles south of Cannock, in the Gothic style in 1844-1845.
Johnson completed his rebuilding of All Saints’ Church, Leigh, two miles off the A522 between Cheadle and Uttoxeter, in 1846. Michael Fisher, in his book Staffordshire and the Gothic Revival, describes this as ‘one of the most remarkable of Staffordshire’s Victorian churches’, and he laments that the importance of this church has not been fully recognised. This work was funded mainly by Richard Bagot of Blithfield, Bishop of Oxford and later Bishop of Bath and Wells, and a former rector of All Saints’.
The bishop’s son, the Revd Lewis Bagot, was the incumbent at the time of Johnson’s rebuilding, while the bishop’s nephew, the Revd Hervey Bagot was Rector of Blithfield and an active member of the Lichfield Society with Johnson. The chancel furnishings and floor tiles at Leigh have been attributed to Pugin and were donated by Herbert Minton, who also donated the reredos.
Johnson was also the architect for Christ Church, Lichfield, which was built in 1846-1847 on Christchurch Lane, just off Walsall Road. The church was designed in the Victorian Gothic Revival style and was built of sandstone quarried in Lichfield. It was consecrated on 26 October 1847 by the Bishop of Lichfield, John Lonsdale.
Christ Church was endowed by Ellen Jane Hinckley, daughter of John Chappel Woodhouse, Dean of Lichfield. She married her third husband, Richard Hinckley, a Lichfield solicitor, in 1835 and they lived in Beacon Place. Ellen had suffered tragic family losses: her first husband was the Revd William Robinson, and they were the parents of two daughters who died in childhood and are commemorated in the memorial known as Chantry’s ‘Sleeping Children’ in Lichfield Cathedral.
Thomas Johnson’s part of the old Grammar School now includes the council chambers of Lichfield District Council (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Johnson’s other works in Lichfield include a wing, school room and front wall built ca 1849 at the former Lichfield Grammar School on Saint John Street.
As I recalled in my posting on Borrowcop Hill yesterday, the school moved south to a site at Borrowcop Lane, off Upper Saint John Street in 1903. Johnson’s part of the old school now includes the council chambers of Lichfield District Council, while other parts of the school are being transformed by Lichfield Discovered since last February.
Johnson also designed the railway bridge crossing Upper Saint John Street which leads trains to and from Lichfield City Station, and which I once described in a feature in the Lichfield Gazette.
The bridge, close to Davidson House, was built in 1849 for the South Staffordshire Railway Company. In his design, Johnson tried to evoke a city gate, with battlements, heraldic decoration, and side towers containing multi-arched pedestrian ways. Bishop Lonsdale, who consecrated Christ Church a few years earlier, and the Bagot family are among the Lichfield notables he singled out for commemoration in the heraldic images on the bridge next to his home in Upper John Street, as well as a depiction of the 16th century seal of Lichfield, drawing on images of the three legendary kings said to have been slain in the third century and buried on Borrowcop Hill.
The Corn Exchange in Conduit Street was designed by Thomas Johnson in a Tudor style (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
The Corn Exchange in Conduit Street was designed by Johnson in a Tudor style. It was built by a company formed for the purpose and was opened in 1850. The arcaded ground floor was a market hall, and the upper floor, with an octagonal north end, housed the corn exchange. A savings bank in the same style was built at the Bore Street end of the building.
Thomas Johnson of Saint John Street was 70 when he died in 1865, and he was buried at Saint Michael’s on 11 May 1865. He left an estate of less than £5,000 and his will was proved on 18 August. He was succeeded by his son, also Thomas Johnson, and the work of the two sons is sometimes confused.
Davudson House takes its name from Brigadier General Charles Steer Davidson. He donated the building to he South Staffordshire Regimental Museum, which was located in the house from 1938 to 1963.
Davidson House is a three-storey, three-window range house built ca 1810. It is a brick building with ashlar dressings, a hipped slate roof with two large brick stacks, a gable facing, with a front to the left. There is an ashlar plinth, with sill bands and a top modillioned cornice with a blocking course.
The central entrance once had an architrave and an overlight to paired three-panel doors, and there was a porch with slender Tuscan columns. But both the doors, porch and Tuscan pillars have long disappeared through negligence or vandalism or have been purloined.
The bay window to the left had a cornice, while the windows had pilasters, friezes and cornices. A tripartite bay window had colonnettes and 8:12:8-pane sashes, but these too have now been lost. A similar window to the right had brick piers and a central open pediment.
There were two similar tripartite windows on the first floor and these had colonnettes and central open pediments. They flanked a window with an open pediment over a 12-pane sash. The second floor windows had architraves to six-pane sashes that can still be seen.
The worn steps and neglected railings at Davidson House on Upper Saint John Street, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
The terrace to the right end has steps to the street level and there are plain iron railings, though these too are sadly neglected.
The street façade has similar details. You can see a high plinth, tripartite windows to ground and first floors, and the plinth to the ground floor has brick piers. At the rear there is a two-storey gabled service range. The right return has a cogged brick cornice and varied fenestration, and at one time the windows inside had shutters, although this is impossible to verify today.
In recent years, Davidson House was divided into offices. But given its past association with one of Lichfield’s architectural giants, it is sad to consider the continuing neglect of this architectural gem.
Without immediate intervention and attention, this part of Lichfield’s architectural heritage is in danger of being beyond restoration and may be lost forever.
The windows of Davidson House are boarded up (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
31 July 2025
Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025:
83, Thursday 31 July 2025
‘Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven … brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old’ (Matthew 13: 52) … newspapers at a kiosk in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church, and the week began with the Sixth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VI, 27 July 2025). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Ignatius of Loyola (1556), founder of the Society of Jesus or Jesuits.
Before today 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 kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind’ (Matthew 13: 47) … fishing boats and nets by the harbour in Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Matthew 13: 47-53 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 47 ‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; 48 when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. 49 So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50 and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
51 ‘Have you understood all this?’ They answered, ‘Yes.’ 52 And he said to them, ‘Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.’ 53 When Jesus had finished these parables, he left that place.
‘When [the net] was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good [fish] into baskets’ (Matthew 13: 48) … a sign outside a fish shop in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
This morning’s reflection:
We have more weeping and gnashing of teeth in this morning’s Gospel reading (Matthew 13: 47-53), more separating of the righteous and the evil, and more people being thrown into the furnace of fire.
But we also have some more images of what the kingdom of heaven is like:
• Casting a net into the sea (verse 47);
• Catching an abundance of fish (verse 47);
• Drawing the abundance of fish ashore, and realising there is too much there for personal needs (verse 48);
• Writing about it so that others can enjoy the benefit and rewards of treasures new and old (verse 52).
So there are, perhaps, four or five times as many active images of the kingdom than there are passive images.
And we hear that ‘every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old’ (Matthew 13: 52).
When the Revd Stephen Hilliard was leaving The Irish Times to enter full-time parish ministry, the then deputy editor, Ken Gray, joked that he was moving from being a ‘column of the Times’ to being a ‘pillar of the Church.’
Later, when I asked Stephen to define the different challenges of journalism and parish ministry, I was told: ‘In many ways they’re the same. We’re supposed to be comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.’
Nadine Gordimer, in a lecture in London, once argued that a writer’s highest calling is to bear witness to the evils of conflicts and injustice. But that is the calling of a priest too.
When I was moving from journalism in The Irish Times, another colleague asked me, in a tongue-in-cheek way, whether I was moving from being one of the Scribes to being one of the Pharisees.
In my 30 or more years as a full-time journalist and writer, I had tried to work at the point where faith meets the major concerns of the world.
Since leaving The Irish Times back in 2002, I continue to write regularly in other formats too. My daily blog has been a daily exercise: I continue to write occasionally for The Irish Times, the Wexford People, and for local and church-based newspapers and magazines, as well as contributing regularly to books and journals.
But, just as ministry is never exercised as a personal right but always in communion with the Church, so too journalists and writers never write for themselves, but need to heed the needs of editors and readers.
There is a time to be silent in ministry, and there is a time to be silent as a writer. I am humbled whenever I listen to Leonard Cohen’s song, If it be your will. He ended many of his concerts singing this poem, which for me is about submission to God’s will, accepting God’s will, leaving God in control of my spirit. It is a song that I hope is heard at my funeral (later rather than sooner):
If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will
If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing
If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well
And draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light
In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this night
If it be your will
If it be your will.
Until then, I shall continue to write.
‘Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven … brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old’ (Matthew 13: 52) … catching up with the news in ‘The Irish Times’
Today’s Prayers (Thursday 31 July 2025):
The theme this week (27 to 2 August) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Reunited at Last’. This theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update from Raja Moses, Programme Coordinator, Diocese of Durgapur, Church of North India.
The USPG prayer diary today (Thursday 31 July 2025) invites us to pray:
Lord, please strengthen parents and families whose loved ones have been taken. In their darkest moments, give courage, hope and the support they need to bring their children home.
The Collect:
Merciful God,
you have prepared for those who love you
such good things as pass our understanding:
pour into our hearts such love toward you
that we, loving you in all things and above all things,
may obtain your promises,
which exceed all that we can desire;
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 Prayer:
God of our pilgrimage,
you have led us to the living water:
refresh and sustain us
as we go forward on our journey,
in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Creator God,
you made us all in your image:
may we discern you in all that we see,
and serve you in all that we do;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
‘Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven … brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old’ (Matthew 13: 52) … newspapers on sale in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued tomorrow
‘Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven … brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old’ (Matthew 13: 52)
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
Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church, and the week began with the Sixth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VI, 27 July 2025). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Ignatius of Loyola (1556), founder of the Society of Jesus or Jesuits.
Before today 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 kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind’ (Matthew 13: 47) … fishing boats and nets by the harbour in Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Matthew 13: 47-53 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 47 ‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; 48 when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. 49 So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50 and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
51 ‘Have you understood all this?’ They answered, ‘Yes.’ 52 And he said to them, ‘Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.’ 53 When Jesus had finished these parables, he left that place.
‘When [the net] was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good [fish] into baskets’ (Matthew 13: 48) … a sign outside a fish shop in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
This morning’s reflection:
We have more weeping and gnashing of teeth in this morning’s Gospel reading (Matthew 13: 47-53), more separating of the righteous and the evil, and more people being thrown into the furnace of fire.
But we also have some more images of what the kingdom of heaven is like:
• Casting a net into the sea (verse 47);
• Catching an abundance of fish (verse 47);
• Drawing the abundance of fish ashore, and realising there is too much there for personal needs (verse 48);
• Writing about it so that others can enjoy the benefit and rewards of treasures new and old (verse 52).
So there are, perhaps, four or five times as many active images of the kingdom than there are passive images.
And we hear that ‘every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old’ (Matthew 13: 52).
When the Revd Stephen Hilliard was leaving The Irish Times to enter full-time parish ministry, the then deputy editor, Ken Gray, joked that he was moving from being a ‘column of the Times’ to being a ‘pillar of the Church.’
Later, when I asked Stephen to define the different challenges of journalism and parish ministry, I was told: ‘In many ways they’re the same. We’re supposed to be comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.’
Nadine Gordimer, in a lecture in London, once argued that a writer’s highest calling is to bear witness to the evils of conflicts and injustice. But that is the calling of a priest too.
When I was moving from journalism in The Irish Times, another colleague asked me, in a tongue-in-cheek way, whether I was moving from being one of the Scribes to being one of the Pharisees.
In my 30 or more years as a full-time journalist and writer, I had tried to work at the point where faith meets the major concerns of the world.
Since leaving The Irish Times back in 2002, I continue to write regularly in other formats too. My daily blog has been a daily exercise: I continue to write occasionally for The Irish Times, the Wexford People, and for local and church-based newspapers and magazines, as well as contributing regularly to books and journals.
But, just as ministry is never exercised as a personal right but always in communion with the Church, so too journalists and writers never write for themselves, but need to heed the needs of editors and readers.
There is a time to be silent in ministry, and there is a time to be silent as a writer. I am humbled whenever I listen to Leonard Cohen’s song, If it be your will. He ended many of his concerts singing this poem, which for me is about submission to God’s will, accepting God’s will, leaving God in control of my spirit. It is a song that I hope is heard at my funeral (later rather than sooner):
If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will
If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing
If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well
And draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light
In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this night
If it be your will
If it be your will.
Until then, I shall continue to write.
‘Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven … brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old’ (Matthew 13: 52) … catching up with the news in ‘The Irish Times’
Today’s Prayers (Thursday 31 July 2025):
The theme this week (27 to 2 August) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Reunited at Last’. This theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update from Raja Moses, Programme Coordinator, Diocese of Durgapur, Church of North India.
The USPG prayer diary today (Thursday 31 July 2025) invites us to pray:
Lord, please strengthen parents and families whose loved ones have been taken. In their darkest moments, give courage, hope and the support they need to bring their children home.
The Collect:
Merciful God,
you have prepared for those who love you
such good things as pass our understanding:
pour into our hearts such love toward you
that we, loving you in all things and above all things,
may obtain your promises,
which exceed all that we can desire;
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 Prayer:
God of our pilgrimage,
you have led us to the living water:
refresh and sustain us
as we go forward on our journey,
in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Creator God,
you made us all in your image:
may we discern you in all that we see,
and serve you in all that we do;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
‘Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven … brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old’ (Matthew 13: 52) … newspapers on sale in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued tomorrow
‘Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven … brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old’ (Matthew 13: 52)
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
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30 July 2025
Borrowcop Gazebo and
my search for the legends
and legendary graves on
the highest hill in Lichfield
Borrowcop Gazebo stands at the top of Borrowcop Hill, the highest point in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Patrick Comerford
After an afternoon walk along Cross Hand in Lane on the northern fringes of Lichfield a few days ago, I decided to cross to the other side of Lichfield and to search for Borrowcop Hill and the Borrowcop Gazebo. The hill at around 113 metres AOD (above sea level) is the highest point in Lichfield and is shrouded in myth and legend.
I have known Lichfield for 50 or 60 years, to the point that I have felt at home there almost all my life. But this was my first time ever to search for Borrowcop Hill, even though when I first stayed in Lichfield in my teens it was nearby on Birmingham Road.
I knew even then about the legends and the myths surrounding Borrowcop Hill and about its history too. But, somehow, I had never visited the hill or searched for the gazebo. I thought I knew where they were, so I was surprised how difficult it was to find Borrowcop Hill last Friday afternoon, hidden in behind the houses off King’s Hill Road and Borrowcop Lane, both reached from Upper Saint John Street.
Things would have been easier had I gone up King’s Hill Road and found the narrow lane behind King Edward VI School. Instead, I ended up walking aimlessly in the summer heat up and down along Borrowcop Lane and could find no signs pointing to the hill. I might never have found either the hill or the gazebo but for the Google Maps app on my ’phone. Eventually I found a narrow, almost secret, lane off Hillside, running between the back gardens of houses and the school grounds.
Is it any wonder that the gazebo has been described as ‘one of Lichfield’s little know gems’? Yet its hilltop location offers views on clear days across Lichfield and out towards the Black Country and Charnwood Forest.
Borrowcop Gazebo is hidden among the trees at the top of Borrowcop Hill (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Local legend in Lichfield has it that three British kings were slain on there by the Romans in the year 288 and that they were buried in a ‘barrow’ on the hilltop. Other variations of the story say it is the traditional site of the graves of three Christian kings who were killed in battle with King Penda in 288.
In its earliest written forms, the name Borrowcop appears as ‘Burwey’ or ‘Burwhay’, incorporating the Old English element burh, suggesting a fortified place or that there may have been an Anglo-Saxon fortification on the site, according to David Horovitz in his study of Staffordshire placenames.
A Historic Character Assessment or Extensive Urban Survey of Lichfield for Staffordshire County Council in 2011 said excavations carried out by antiquarians on Borrowcop Hill in earlier centuries allegedly recovered burnt bone from the mound. However, more recent archaeological investigations have so far failed to recover any evidence for human activity’.
Although most historians now accept the story is a myth without historical foundation, it inspired for the City Seal adopted by Lichfield in 1549. The city seal became part of a large relief on the façade of the Guildhall, but it was later moved first to the Museum Gardens and then to the herbaceous borders in Beacon Park.
The legend of slain kings buried on Borrowcop Hill was perpetuated in the Lichfield City Seal, still seen on the railway bridge on Saint John Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
A version of the seal is among the heraldic symbols decorating the railway bridge on Saint John Street, close to Lichfield City station, and the three golden crowns of the legendary kings were later incorporated into the emblems of Saxon Hill Academy.
The gazebo was built on the hill in 1804-1805, paid for by public subscription. Before that, buildings on the site included a late 17th century structure called the Temple, built in 1694, the ‘Temple’ of 1694, a summer-house, an arbour in the 1720s, an ‘observation turret’ and a gun store, probably built ca 1750.
There are accounts of Erasmus Darwin recovering bits of burnt bone on the hill in the 18th century. At times of celebrations and at times of threatened invasion, beacons were lit on top of the hill.
In a talk organised by Lichfield Discovered in 2014 on Philip Larkin’s connections with Lichfield, Peter Young, the former Town Clerk of Lichfield, said that Larkin wrote three poems when he was staying with relatives at Cherry Orchard in 1940-1941. Young suggested the arched field in ‘Christmas 1940’ refers to Borrowcop Hill.
When Larkin returned to Lichfield from Oxford for a Christmas holiday in 1940-1941, he regularly walked from Cherry Orchard into the centre of Lichfield to drink in the George and the Swan. During that time in Lichfield, he wrote three poems: ‘Christmas 1940’, ‘Out in the lane I pause’ and ‘Ghosts’.
Writing about ‘Christmas 1940’, Larkin told Jim Sutton: ‘I scribbled this in a coma at about 11.45 p.m. last night. The only thing is that its impulse is not purely negative – except for the last 2 lines, where I break off into mumblings of dotage.’
This poem was never published during Larkin’s own lifetime. It was first published in 1992 in Selected Letters of Philip Larkin, 1940-1985, edited by Anthony Thwaite (p 8). It was included in 2005 by AT Tolley in Philip Larkin: Early Poems and Juvenalia (p 135), and more recently it is included by Archie Burnett in Philip Larkin: The Complete Poems (p 171).
The Gazebo was in poor condition by 1963. John Sanders, then Principal of the School of Art and chair of a Lichfield Study Group for the preservation of buildings of interest, announced the group’s intention to enter a Civic Trust ‘improvement competition,’ hoping for a grant of £450.
Meanwhile, the grammar school, which dates from 1495, had moved to the area from Saint John Street in 1903, and it merged with the adjacent King’s Hill secondary modern school in 1971 to become King Edward VI School. Another school in the area, evocatively named Saxon Hill, opened in 1979.
Borrowcop Gazebo was restored in 1985 thanks to the persistence of Derrick Duval (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
The gazebo is a square pavilion built of brick with two round arches no each side, a pyramidal tile roof and a ball finial on roof. The arches have square brick piers and pilasters, and narrow imposts on the proud brick arches. Inside, there is a spine wall with a on bench to each side and embossed-tile paving, and renewed roof timbers.
The condition of the gazebo was a cause of concern once again in 1981, when Derrick Duval, an architect who was then a newly elected city councillor (1980-1995), pushed for its restoration. He was the Mayor of Lichfield in 1982, I stayed in his home on Dam Street two or three times around 2009-2011, and he died on 16 December 2022.
Derrick’s dream for the gazebo was eventually achieved in 1985 through the Government’s Community Programme. Borrowcop Gazebo is now owned and maintained by Lichfield City Council.
Borrowcop Hill was once the venue for a Good Friday fair after the more sombre services in the cathedral. The hill was a place for walks and other entertainment, and until the late 20th century children enjoyed tobogganing and skiing down the slopes in the snow at winter.
The urban survey of Lichfield in 2011 pointed out the potential for archaeological deposits to survive at Borrowcop Hill and associated with the line of the Roman Road.
But, as I found on Friday afternoon, it is no longer possible to walk across fields from Cherry Orchard to Borrowcop, as Philip Larkin must have done 85 years ago. Now high railings have enclosed the school field and access to the Gazebo today is only possible along an enclosed, marrow footpath between King’s Hill Road and facing Minor’s Hill.
A hidden narrow pathway off King’s Hill Road leading to Borrowcop Hill (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Christmas 1940, by Philip Larkin
‘High on arched field I stand
Alone: the night is full of stars:
Enormous over tree and farm
The night extends,
And looks down equally to all on earth.
‘So I return their look; and laugh
To see as them my living stars
Flung from east to west across
A windless gulf?
– So much to say that I have never said,
Or ever could.’
‘High on arched field I stand / Alone’ (Philip Larkin) … a lone carved owl perched on books beneath the gazebo on Borrowcop Hill (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Patrick Comerford
After an afternoon walk along Cross Hand in Lane on the northern fringes of Lichfield a few days ago, I decided to cross to the other side of Lichfield and to search for Borrowcop Hill and the Borrowcop Gazebo. The hill at around 113 metres AOD (above sea level) is the highest point in Lichfield and is shrouded in myth and legend.
I have known Lichfield for 50 or 60 years, to the point that I have felt at home there almost all my life. But this was my first time ever to search for Borrowcop Hill, even though when I first stayed in Lichfield in my teens it was nearby on Birmingham Road.
I knew even then about the legends and the myths surrounding Borrowcop Hill and about its history too. But, somehow, I had never visited the hill or searched for the gazebo. I thought I knew where they were, so I was surprised how difficult it was to find Borrowcop Hill last Friday afternoon, hidden in behind the houses off King’s Hill Road and Borrowcop Lane, both reached from Upper Saint John Street.
Things would have been easier had I gone up King’s Hill Road and found the narrow lane behind King Edward VI School. Instead, I ended up walking aimlessly in the summer heat up and down along Borrowcop Lane and could find no signs pointing to the hill. I might never have found either the hill or the gazebo but for the Google Maps app on my ’phone. Eventually I found a narrow, almost secret, lane off Hillside, running between the back gardens of houses and the school grounds.
Is it any wonder that the gazebo has been described as ‘one of Lichfield’s little know gems’? Yet its hilltop location offers views on clear days across Lichfield and out towards the Black Country and Charnwood Forest.
Borrowcop Gazebo is hidden among the trees at the top of Borrowcop Hill (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Local legend in Lichfield has it that three British kings were slain on there by the Romans in the year 288 and that they were buried in a ‘barrow’ on the hilltop. Other variations of the story say it is the traditional site of the graves of three Christian kings who were killed in battle with King Penda in 288.
In its earliest written forms, the name Borrowcop appears as ‘Burwey’ or ‘Burwhay’, incorporating the Old English element burh, suggesting a fortified place or that there may have been an Anglo-Saxon fortification on the site, according to David Horovitz in his study of Staffordshire placenames.
A Historic Character Assessment or Extensive Urban Survey of Lichfield for Staffordshire County Council in 2011 said excavations carried out by antiquarians on Borrowcop Hill in earlier centuries allegedly recovered burnt bone from the mound. However, more recent archaeological investigations have so far failed to recover any evidence for human activity’.
Although most historians now accept the story is a myth without historical foundation, it inspired for the City Seal adopted by Lichfield in 1549. The city seal became part of a large relief on the façade of the Guildhall, but it was later moved first to the Museum Gardens and then to the herbaceous borders in Beacon Park.
The legend of slain kings buried on Borrowcop Hill was perpetuated in the Lichfield City Seal, still seen on the railway bridge on Saint John Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
A version of the seal is among the heraldic symbols decorating the railway bridge on Saint John Street, close to Lichfield City station, and the three golden crowns of the legendary kings were later incorporated into the emblems of Saxon Hill Academy.
The gazebo was built on the hill in 1804-1805, paid for by public subscription. Before that, buildings on the site included a late 17th century structure called the Temple, built in 1694, the ‘Temple’ of 1694, a summer-house, an arbour in the 1720s, an ‘observation turret’ and a gun store, probably built ca 1750.
There are accounts of Erasmus Darwin recovering bits of burnt bone on the hill in the 18th century. At times of celebrations and at times of threatened invasion, beacons were lit on top of the hill.
In a talk organised by Lichfield Discovered in 2014 on Philip Larkin’s connections with Lichfield, Peter Young, the former Town Clerk of Lichfield, said that Larkin wrote three poems when he was staying with relatives at Cherry Orchard in 1940-1941. Young suggested the arched field in ‘Christmas 1940’ refers to Borrowcop Hill.
When Larkin returned to Lichfield from Oxford for a Christmas holiday in 1940-1941, he regularly walked from Cherry Orchard into the centre of Lichfield to drink in the George and the Swan. During that time in Lichfield, he wrote three poems: ‘Christmas 1940’, ‘Out in the lane I pause’ and ‘Ghosts’.
Writing about ‘Christmas 1940’, Larkin told Jim Sutton: ‘I scribbled this in a coma at about 11.45 p.m. last night. The only thing is that its impulse is not purely negative – except for the last 2 lines, where I break off into mumblings of dotage.’
This poem was never published during Larkin’s own lifetime. It was first published in 1992 in Selected Letters of Philip Larkin, 1940-1985, edited by Anthony Thwaite (p 8). It was included in 2005 by AT Tolley in Philip Larkin: Early Poems and Juvenalia (p 135), and more recently it is included by Archie Burnett in Philip Larkin: The Complete Poems (p 171).
The Gazebo was in poor condition by 1963. John Sanders, then Principal of the School of Art and chair of a Lichfield Study Group for the preservation of buildings of interest, announced the group’s intention to enter a Civic Trust ‘improvement competition,’ hoping for a grant of £450.
Meanwhile, the grammar school, which dates from 1495, had moved to the area from Saint John Street in 1903, and it merged with the adjacent King’s Hill secondary modern school in 1971 to become King Edward VI School. Another school in the area, evocatively named Saxon Hill, opened in 1979.
Borrowcop Gazebo was restored in 1985 thanks to the persistence of Derrick Duval (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
The gazebo is a square pavilion built of brick with two round arches no each side, a pyramidal tile roof and a ball finial on roof. The arches have square brick piers and pilasters, and narrow imposts on the proud brick arches. Inside, there is a spine wall with a on bench to each side and embossed-tile paving, and renewed roof timbers.
The condition of the gazebo was a cause of concern once again in 1981, when Derrick Duval, an architect who was then a newly elected city councillor (1980-1995), pushed for its restoration. He was the Mayor of Lichfield in 1982, I stayed in his home on Dam Street two or three times around 2009-2011, and he died on 16 December 2022.
Derrick’s dream for the gazebo was eventually achieved in 1985 through the Government’s Community Programme. Borrowcop Gazebo is now owned and maintained by Lichfield City Council.
Borrowcop Hill was once the venue for a Good Friday fair after the more sombre services in the cathedral. The hill was a place for walks and other entertainment, and until the late 20th century children enjoyed tobogganing and skiing down the slopes in the snow at winter.
The urban survey of Lichfield in 2011 pointed out the potential for archaeological deposits to survive at Borrowcop Hill and associated with the line of the Roman Road.
But, as I found on Friday afternoon, it is no longer possible to walk across fields from Cherry Orchard to Borrowcop, as Philip Larkin must have done 85 years ago. Now high railings have enclosed the school field and access to the Gazebo today is only possible along an enclosed, marrow footpath between King’s Hill Road and facing Minor’s Hill.
A hidden narrow pathway off King’s Hill Road leading to Borrowcop Hill (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Christmas 1940, by Philip Larkin
‘High on arched field I stand
Alone: the night is full of stars:
Enormous over tree and farm
The night extends,
And looks down equally to all on earth.
‘So I return their look; and laugh
To see as them my living stars
Flung from east to west across
A windless gulf?
– So much to say that I have never said,
Or ever could.’
‘High on arched field I stand / Alone’ (Philip Larkin) … a lone carved owl perched on books beneath the gazebo on Borrowcop Hill (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025:
82, Wednesday 30 July 2025
A snatch of heaven? … evening lights at Stowe Pool and Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church and this week began with the Sixth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VI, 27 July 2025). The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today (30 July) remembers William Wilberforce (1833), Social Reformer, Olaudah Equiano (1797) and Thomas Clarkson (1846), Anti–Slavery Campaigners.
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read 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.
A snatch of heaven? … a beach walk in Dublin Bay (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Matthew 13: 44-46 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 44 ‘The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
45 ‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; 46 on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.’
A snatch of heaven? … how would you describe Sorrento or the Bay of Naples to someone who has never been beyond these islands? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
This morning’s reflection:
I asked a few days ago whether you ever find yourself lost for words when it comes to describing a beautiful place you have visited?
If you have ever been to the Bay of Naples or Sorrento, how would you describe what you have seen to someone who has never travelled beyond these islands? For someone who has been to Dublin, and been on the DART, you might want to compare the Bay of Naples with the vista in Dalkey or Killiney … but that hardly catches the majestic scope of the view.
You might want to compare the church domes with the great copper dome in Rathmines … but that goes nowhere near describing the intricate artwork on those Italian domes.
You might compare the inside of the duomo in Amalfi with the inside of your favourite parish church … but you know you are getting nowhere near what you want to say.
And as for Capri … you are hardly going to write a romantic song about Dalkey Island, or even Howth Head.
Comparisons never match the beauty of any place that offers us a snatch or a glimpse of heaven.
And yet, we know that the photographs on our phones, no matter how good they seem to be when we are taking them, never do justice to the places we have been to once we get back home. We risk becoming bores either by trying to use inadequate words or inadequate images to describe experiences that we can never truly share with people unless they go there, unless they have been there too.
I suppose that helps to a degree to understand why Jesus keeps on trying to grasp at images that might help the Disciples and help us to understand what the Kingdom of God is like. He tries to offer us a taste of the kingdom with a number of parables in this chapter in Saint Matthew’s Gospel:
• The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed … (verse 31).
• The kingdom of heaven is like yeast … (verse 33).
• The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field … (verse 44).
• The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls … (verse 45).
• The kingdom of heaven is like a net in the sea … (verse 47).
In the verses that follow, he asks: ‘Do they understand?’ They answer, ‘Yes.’ But how can they really understand, fully understand?
Many years ago, after a late Sunday lunch at the café in Mount Usher in Co Wicklow, I posted some photographs of the gardens on my blog. An American reader I have never met commented: ‘A little piece of heaven.’
We have a romantic imagination that confuses gardens with Paradise, and Paradise with the Kingdom of Heaven. But perhaps that is a good starting point, because I have a number of places where I find myself saying constantly: ‘This is a little snatch of heaven.’ They include:
• The road from Cappoquin out to my grandmother’s farm in West Waterford.
• The journey along the banks of the River Slaney between Ferns and Wexford.
• The view from the east end of Stowe Pool across to Lichfield Cathedral at sunset on a Spring evening.
• The Backs in Cambridge.
• Sunset behind at the Fortezza in Rethymnon on the Greek island of Crete.
• The sights and sounds on some of the many beaches I like to walk on regularly … beaches in Achill, Kerry, Clare, north Dublin, Crete … I could go on.
Already this year, I have managed to get back to some of these places.
At times, I imagine the Kingdom of Heaven must be so like so many of these places where I find myself constantly praising God and thanking God for creation and for re-creation.
But … but it’s not just that. And I start thinking that Christ does more than just paint a scene when he describes the kingdom of heaven. Looking at this morning’s Gospel reading again, I realise he is doing more than offering holiday snapshots or painting the scenery.
In this chapter, Jesus tries to describe the Kingdom of Heaven in terms of doing, and not just in terms of being:
• Sowing a seed (verse 31);
• Giving a nest to the birds of the air (verse 32);
• Mixing yeast (verse 33);
• Turning small amounts of flour into generous portions of bread (verse 34);
• Finding hidden treasure (verse 44);
• Rushing out in joy (verse 44);
• Selling all that I have because something I have found is worth more – much, much more, again and again (verse 44, 46);
• Searching for pearls (verse 45);
• Finding just one pearl (verse 46);
• Casting a net into the sea (verse 47);
• Catching an abundance of fish (verse 47);
• Drawing the abundance of fish ashore, and realising there is too much there for personal needs (verse 48);
• Writing about it so that others can enjoy the benefit and rewards of treasures new and old (verse 52).
So there are, perhaps, four or five times as many active images of the kingdom than there are passive images.
One of my favourite T-shirts, one I bought in Athens some years ago, said: ‘To do is to be, Socrates. To be is to do, Plato. Do-be-do-be-do, Sinatra.’
The kingdom is more about doing than being.
I was sorry to miss the annual conference of USPG in Swanwick, Derbyshire, earlier this month (July 2025). Over the years, at these conferences in Swanwick and High Leigh, I have heard about a number of activities that, for me, offer snatches of what the kingdom is like:
• Working with refugees and asylum seekers who continue to arrive in inhospitable and strange places in desperate and heart-breaking circumstances;
• Listening to how the Bible relates to the work of the Church with victims of gender-based violence and people trafficking;
• the commitment of people in the church to challenging violence and working for peace;
• stories of people who work at lobbying politicians and empowering churches in the whole area of climate change;
• hearing how God creates out of chaos, how God’s pattern for growing the Church is about entering chaos and bringing about something creative, something new.
At those conferences, I have regularly been offered fresh and engaging signs of the ministry of Christ as he invites us to the banquet, as he invites us into the Kingdom – works that are little glimpses or snatches of what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.
This morning, could I challenge you once again to think of three places, three gifts in God’s creation, that offer you glimpses of the Kingdom of Heaven, and to think of three actions that for you symbolise Christ’s invitation into the Kingdom of Heaven.
Give thanks for these pearls beyond price, and share them with someone you love and cherish.
A snatch of heaven? … summer afternoon punting on the Backs in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 30 July 2025):
The theme this week (27 to 2 August) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Reunited at Last’. This theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update from Raja Moses, Programme Coordinator, Diocese of Durgapur, Church of North India.
The USPG prayer diary today (Wednesday 30 July 2025, World Day Against Trafficking in Persons) invites us to pray:
Lord, bring freedom to those at risk of trafficking, healing to survivors, and justice against those who exploit. Strengthen all who fight this evil and guide us to be voices for the voiceless.
The Collect:
God our deliverer,
who sent your Son Jesus Christ
to set your people free from the slavery of sin:
grant that, as your servants William Wilberforce, Olaudah Equiano and Thomas Clarkson
toiled against the sin of slavery,
so we may bring compassion to all
and work for the freedom of all 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 Prayer:
God our redeemer,
who inspired William Wilberforce, Olaudah Equiano and Thomas Clarkson to witness to your love
and to work for the coming of your kingdom:
may we, who in this sacrament share the bread of heaven,
be fired by your Spirit to proclaim the gospel in our daily living
and never to rest content until your kingdom come,
on earth as it is in heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Are our images of the kingdom passive or active? … a T-shirt in the Plaka in Athens (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
A snatch of heaven? … sunset behind the Fortezza in Rethymnon at Easter (Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church and this week began with the Sixth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VI, 27 July 2025). The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today (30 July) remembers William Wilberforce (1833), Social Reformer, Olaudah Equiano (1797) and Thomas Clarkson (1846), Anti–Slavery Campaigners.
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read 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.
A snatch of heaven? … a beach walk in Dublin Bay (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Matthew 13: 44-46 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 44 ‘The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
45 ‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; 46 on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.’
A snatch of heaven? … how would you describe Sorrento or the Bay of Naples to someone who has never been beyond these islands? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
This morning’s reflection:
I asked a few days ago whether you ever find yourself lost for words when it comes to describing a beautiful place you have visited?
If you have ever been to the Bay of Naples or Sorrento, how would you describe what you have seen to someone who has never travelled beyond these islands? For someone who has been to Dublin, and been on the DART, you might want to compare the Bay of Naples with the vista in Dalkey or Killiney … but that hardly catches the majestic scope of the view.
You might want to compare the church domes with the great copper dome in Rathmines … but that goes nowhere near describing the intricate artwork on those Italian domes.
You might compare the inside of the duomo in Amalfi with the inside of your favourite parish church … but you know you are getting nowhere near what you want to say.
And as for Capri … you are hardly going to write a romantic song about Dalkey Island, or even Howth Head.
Comparisons never match the beauty of any place that offers us a snatch or a glimpse of heaven.
And yet, we know that the photographs on our phones, no matter how good they seem to be when we are taking them, never do justice to the places we have been to once we get back home. We risk becoming bores either by trying to use inadequate words or inadequate images to describe experiences that we can never truly share with people unless they go there, unless they have been there too.
I suppose that helps to a degree to understand why Jesus keeps on trying to grasp at images that might help the Disciples and help us to understand what the Kingdom of God is like. He tries to offer us a taste of the kingdom with a number of parables in this chapter in Saint Matthew’s Gospel:
• The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed … (verse 31).
• The kingdom of heaven is like yeast … (verse 33).
• The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field … (verse 44).
• The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls … (verse 45).
• The kingdom of heaven is like a net in the sea … (verse 47).
In the verses that follow, he asks: ‘Do they understand?’ They answer, ‘Yes.’ But how can they really understand, fully understand?
Many years ago, after a late Sunday lunch at the café in Mount Usher in Co Wicklow, I posted some photographs of the gardens on my blog. An American reader I have never met commented: ‘A little piece of heaven.’
We have a romantic imagination that confuses gardens with Paradise, and Paradise with the Kingdom of Heaven. But perhaps that is a good starting point, because I have a number of places where I find myself saying constantly: ‘This is a little snatch of heaven.’ They include:
• The road from Cappoquin out to my grandmother’s farm in West Waterford.
• The journey along the banks of the River Slaney between Ferns and Wexford.
• The view from the east end of Stowe Pool across to Lichfield Cathedral at sunset on a Spring evening.
• The Backs in Cambridge.
• Sunset behind at the Fortezza in Rethymnon on the Greek island of Crete.
• The sights and sounds on some of the many beaches I like to walk on regularly … beaches in Achill, Kerry, Clare, north Dublin, Crete … I could go on.
Already this year, I have managed to get back to some of these places.
At times, I imagine the Kingdom of Heaven must be so like so many of these places where I find myself constantly praising God and thanking God for creation and for re-creation.
But … but it’s not just that. And I start thinking that Christ does more than just paint a scene when he describes the kingdom of heaven. Looking at this morning’s Gospel reading again, I realise he is doing more than offering holiday snapshots or painting the scenery.
In this chapter, Jesus tries to describe the Kingdom of Heaven in terms of doing, and not just in terms of being:
• Sowing a seed (verse 31);
• Giving a nest to the birds of the air (verse 32);
• Mixing yeast (verse 33);
• Turning small amounts of flour into generous portions of bread (verse 34);
• Finding hidden treasure (verse 44);
• Rushing out in joy (verse 44);
• Selling all that I have because something I have found is worth more – much, much more, again and again (verse 44, 46);
• Searching for pearls (verse 45);
• Finding just one pearl (verse 46);
• Casting a net into the sea (verse 47);
• Catching an abundance of fish (verse 47);
• Drawing the abundance of fish ashore, and realising there is too much there for personal needs (verse 48);
• Writing about it so that others can enjoy the benefit and rewards of treasures new and old (verse 52).
So there are, perhaps, four or five times as many active images of the kingdom than there are passive images.
One of my favourite T-shirts, one I bought in Athens some years ago, said: ‘To do is to be, Socrates. To be is to do, Plato. Do-be-do-be-do, Sinatra.’
The kingdom is more about doing than being.
I was sorry to miss the annual conference of USPG in Swanwick, Derbyshire, earlier this month (July 2025). Over the years, at these conferences in Swanwick and High Leigh, I have heard about a number of activities that, for me, offer snatches of what the kingdom is like:
• Working with refugees and asylum seekers who continue to arrive in inhospitable and strange places in desperate and heart-breaking circumstances;
• Listening to how the Bible relates to the work of the Church with victims of gender-based violence and people trafficking;
• the commitment of people in the church to challenging violence and working for peace;
• stories of people who work at lobbying politicians and empowering churches in the whole area of climate change;
• hearing how God creates out of chaos, how God’s pattern for growing the Church is about entering chaos and bringing about something creative, something new.
At those conferences, I have regularly been offered fresh and engaging signs of the ministry of Christ as he invites us to the banquet, as he invites us into the Kingdom – works that are little glimpses or snatches of what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.
This morning, could I challenge you once again to think of three places, three gifts in God’s creation, that offer you glimpses of the Kingdom of Heaven, and to think of three actions that for you symbolise Christ’s invitation into the Kingdom of Heaven.
Give thanks for these pearls beyond price, and share them with someone you love and cherish.
A snatch of heaven? … summer afternoon punting on the Backs in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 30 July 2025):
The theme this week (27 to 2 August) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Reunited at Last’. This theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update from Raja Moses, Programme Coordinator, Diocese of Durgapur, Church of North India.
The USPG prayer diary today (Wednesday 30 July 2025, World Day Against Trafficking in Persons) invites us to pray:
Lord, bring freedom to those at risk of trafficking, healing to survivors, and justice against those who exploit. Strengthen all who fight this evil and guide us to be voices for the voiceless.
The Collect:
God our deliverer,
who sent your Son Jesus Christ
to set your people free from the slavery of sin:
grant that, as your servants William Wilberforce, Olaudah Equiano and Thomas Clarkson
toiled against the sin of slavery,
so we may bring compassion to all
and work for the freedom of all 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 Prayer:
God our redeemer,
who inspired William Wilberforce, Olaudah Equiano and Thomas Clarkson to witness to your love
and to work for the coming of your kingdom:
may we, who in this sacrament share the bread of heaven,
be fired by your Spirit to proclaim the gospel in our daily living
and never to rest content until your kingdom come,
on earth as it is in heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Are our images of the kingdom passive or active? … a T-shirt in the Plaka in Athens (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
A snatch of heaven? … sunset behind the Fortezza in Rethymnon at Easter (Patrick Comerford, 2025)
29 July 2025
Greece pays tribute
to the composer
Mikis Theodorakis on
his 100th birthday
‘My whole life is close to you’ … today celebrated the 100th birthday of the Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis
Patrick Comerford
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis (1925-2021), one of the most influential composers in Greece, who was born 100 years ago on 29 July 1925.
A series of concerts, around the globe and throughout Greece this year are marking this centenary, with centenary celebrations paying tribute to Theodorakis, who would have turned 100 today. His work – from the Mauthausen Cycle to film scores to interpretations of Greek folk music and songs – has profoundly shaped and defined Greek music today.
Mikis Theodorakis, composer, conductor, and politician, was born on the island of Chios on 29 July 1925 and died in Athens almost four years ago on 2 September 2021.
As one of the most prominent figures in Greek music, Theodorakis is more relevant than ever and continues to resonate around the world. His music expresses his political values and fused his idealism and his commitment to freedom.
His scores for films such as Zorba the Greek and Electra, his interpretations of classical plays and drama, or his settings for the works of contemporary Greek poets such as Odysseas Elytis, Giorgos Seferis and Yiannis Ritsos, show how Theodorakis catches Greek cultural imaginations, combining Greek traditional music and classical composition, high art and popular culture.
In January 1968, 31 years after Seferis completed ‘Epiphany, 1937’, the composer Mikis Theodorakis conceived of it as a choral piece, Επιφάνια-Αβέρωφ (Epiphania-Averof), naming the cantata after the prison in central in Athens. He had been detained there since August 1967, after the colonels right-wing junta had seized power on 21 April 1967, and was denied the Christmas amnesty extended to many other political prisoners in December 1967.
Gail Holst’s book, Theodorakis: Myth and Politics in Modern Greek Music (Amsterdam, 1980), shows that for Theodorakis setting the entire ‘Epiphany, 1937’ to music was a tour de force, his own epiphanic moment in the junta’s jail cells.
Theodorakis worked on the poem as a cantata to be performed with the help of his fellow prisoners. Each evening, while other prisoners listened to the radio in a communal hall from 7:30 to 8:30, Theodorakis used the hour to train his choir of 10 prisoners.
The poem’s first-person-singular refrain Κράτησα τη ζωή μου (Kratêsa tê zôê mou) is translated into English by Keeley and Sherrard as ‘I’ve kept a rein on my life’. It could also be translated as ‘I’ve kept a hold on my life’. In this refrain, Theodorakis heard a multiplicity of voices, the universality of their utterance further enhanced by the composer’s preference for a mixed chorus of both men and women.
This recurring phrase throughout the main part of the poem struck Theodorakis’s sensitivity and curiosity. Seferis’s refrain creates a sense of monotony and repetition and at the same time the sense of one carrying something heavy.
Gail Holst’s book, Theodorakis: Myth and Politics in Modern Greek Music (1980), shows that for Theodorakis setting the entire ‘Epiphany, 1937’ to music was a tour de force, his own epiphanic moment in the junta’s jail cells.
The key figure in these concerts and events is Maria Farantouri, who worked closely with Theodorakis for many years and is the most important voice in his oeuvre. She is known for her powerful, soulful and sensitive voice, and she continues to captivate audiences with her interpretations of his work.
Her version of Το γελαστό παιδί (The Laughing Boy) celebrates the uprising in the Athens Polytechnic on 17 November 1973 that led to the downfall of the colonels within a year. The song, composed by Mikis Theodorakis, was first included on the soundtrack of the Costas-Garvas movie Z (1969), and was quickly linked with resistance to the junta.
For Greeks, it is a song about the death of so many young people killed resisting the regime. When the regime was toppled in 1974, Mikis Theodorakis and many singers organised a concert to celebrate the return of democracy to Greece, and Maria Farantouri sang one of the most touching songs of the time.
There was a palpable response when she intentionally changed the original reference to August to the month of November to honour the students killed in November 1973. The original Greek lyrics are by the poet Vassilis Rotas, but they are based on earlier poem by the Irish playwright Brendan Behan.
Some years ago, my friends Paddy Sammon, a former Irish diplomat once based in Athens, and Damian Mac Con Uladh, an Irish journalist from Ballinasloe now based in Corinth, have researched the Irish background to this great Greek classic of resistance to oppression. The original laughing boy in Brendan Behan’s poem is Michael Collins. Theodorakis adapted the Greek translation, and adapted it in the context of Grigoris Lambrakis, the pacifist activist killed by far-right extremists in Greece in the years before the colonels seized power.
Behan adapted the poem in his play The Hostage (1958). The play first came to the attention of Theodorakis while he was living in Paris, and he was inspired to compose a cycle of 16 songs in 1962 with Greek lyrics by Vasilis Rotas (1889-1977).
Rotas’s translation of The Hostage was staged in Athens in 1962 at a time when the Greek civil war was still a taboo topic and left-wing activity was under close police surveillance. The play became a way for people to identify with their struggle against a repressive regime.
Maria Farantouri went into exile after the coup in 1967, and sang this song at solidarity concerts across Europe. ‘It became a hymn not only for the Irish liberation movement, but also for every liberation movement in the world, and Greek democracy,’ she told an RTÉ documentary.
When the junta sent in tanks against protesting students at the Athens Polytechnic on 17 November 1973, killing at least 24 people over a number of days, Maria Farantouri added a couple of stanzas to the song, and changed the date from August to November, deliberately linking the song to that event.
At many of this year’s anniversary concerts, Maria Farantouri is accompanied by Tasis Christoyannis, a distinguished baritone singer, and Alkinoos Ioannidis, a versatile singer, composer and poet from Cyprus, whose style is a mix of folk, classical and rock and who brings a fresh, contemporary dimension to Theodorakis’ repertoire.
Other accompanying musicians and singers include Vassilis Lekkas, Myron Michaelidis, Manolis Mitsias, Yota Negka and Thanassis Voutsas. Their voices highlight the many dimensions of the musical legacy of Theodorakis, although he once said of his work: ‘I like to believe that the bulk of my work – from the simplest song to the most intricate symphonic composition – belongs to a single musical unity.’
The sound of bouzoukis, lutes, and the delicate santouri blend seamlessly with clarinet, violin, and intricately woven orchestral arrangements, creating a musical fusion of tradition and expressive artistry, full of passion and poetry.
‘The Ballad of Mauthausen’, the Holocaust cantata written by Iakovos Kambanellis and Mikis Theodorakis … Mauthausen was the last of the concentration camps to be liberated, on 3 May 1945
During these concerts, Farantouri sings from all periods of Theodorakis’s oeuvre. But the highlight on many evenings is The Ballad of Mauthausen.
Mauthausen was the last of the concentration camps to be liberated at the end of the Holocaust and World War II 80 years ago, on 3 May 1945. The Ballad of Mauthausen (Η Μπαλάντα του Μαουτχάουζεν) is a cantata written by the Greek playwright Iakovos Kambanellis (1922-2011) and Mikis Theodorakis 60 years ago in 1965. It is based on the experiences in Mauthausen of Kambanellis, who wrote four poems that Mikis Theodorakis set to music.
The book and the music were born in an incendiary political and cultural milieu in Greece. Two days after its first performance, all music by Theodorakis was banned from Greek state radio. Within two years, the military had seized power and the colonels silenced Theodorakis and many other voices for seven long years.
For the first time ever, the complete music of Zorba the Greek – the work that in many ways has become the musical soul of Greece – has been performed live, interpreted with the original instruments used in the 1964 recording.
The Oscar-winning film, based on a major work by Nikos Kazantzakis, first published in Greek in 1946 as Life and Times of Alexis Zorbas. Theodorakis wrote the score for the 1964 film that became, perhaps, the best-loved Greek film. It was one of my earliest introductions to Greek culture, music and literature.
Other features on programmes include selections from Odyssey (2006), Theodorakis’ final song cycle, set to the poetry of Kostas Kartelias, include pieces from Ta Lyrika (1976), with poetry by Tasos Livaditis, and Beatrice on Zero Street (1994), with poetry by Dionysis Karatzas – works that belong to the composer’s later lyrical period. The evening also include some of his most loved and well-known songs, drawn from earlier song cycles and set to the verses of great poets and lyricists.
The two concerts in the Megaron Moussikis in Thessaloniki (1 and 2 January) included Theodorakis’ ballet suite Greek Carnival. The two concerts in the Megaron Moussikis, Athens (16 and 17 February) included excepts from Pablo Neruda’s Canto General in its original orchestration for a 15-member ensemble and two choirs.
Two concerts in Xanthi (11 and 12 April) also marked the centenary of the birth of Manos Hadjidakis, when Maria Farantouri and Nikos Kypourgos, two of Manos Hadzidakis’ most important collaborators, discussed his music and his influence on modern Greek music.
A concert in the Pyrgos Vassilissis (Queen’s Tower) in Ilion (30 May) was dedicated to the 100 years since the founding of Ilion.
Other concert venues in Greece have included Chania (13 June) and Iraklion (14 June) in Crete; the Kallimarmaron Stadium in Athens (25 June); Thessaloniki (30 June and 1 July), where Maria Farantouri and Manolis Mitsias sang poems by the Andalusian poet Federico Garcia Lorca, set to music by Theodorakis and other composers; and Thessaly (19 July).
Concerts venues in Greece in the coming weeks include the island of Lefkada (8 August), the Ancient Theatre in Dion (11 August), the Little Theatre in ancient Epidaurus (16 August), Siviris in Chalkidiki (24 August), and Serres (7 September).
International venues so far this year have included a concert in Grand Pera in Istanbul (19 March), when Maria Farantouri was accompanied by the pianist Achilleas Gouastor in a programme that included poems by Kiki Demoula, set to music by Sakis Papademetriou, as well as songs by Theodorakis. There was a concert in Helsinki too on 27 March.
A concert in Bochum, Germany (9 May) included The Ballad of Mauthausen, with a reading and talk that also marked the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. International concerts later this year are taking place in Düsseldorf (11 October), Rotterdam (13 October) and Lucerne (31 October).
In his music, Theodorakis expressed his political values and fused his idealism and his commitment to freedom. I was in Crete at the time of his funeral, the island was immersed in three days of official mourning and I could see how people were deeply moved emotionally as they watched that funeral on television screens everywhere. In the week after his death, Theodorakis was described by a leading Greek newspaper, Kathimerini, as ‘Greece’s last enduring myth.’
Patrick Comerford
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis (1925-2021), one of the most influential composers in Greece, who was born 100 years ago on 29 July 1925.
A series of concerts, around the globe and throughout Greece this year are marking this centenary, with centenary celebrations paying tribute to Theodorakis, who would have turned 100 today. His work – from the Mauthausen Cycle to film scores to interpretations of Greek folk music and songs – has profoundly shaped and defined Greek music today.
Mikis Theodorakis, composer, conductor, and politician, was born on the island of Chios on 29 July 1925 and died in Athens almost four years ago on 2 September 2021.
As one of the most prominent figures in Greek music, Theodorakis is more relevant than ever and continues to resonate around the world. His music expresses his political values and fused his idealism and his commitment to freedom.
His scores for films such as Zorba the Greek and Electra, his interpretations of classical plays and drama, or his settings for the works of contemporary Greek poets such as Odysseas Elytis, Giorgos Seferis and Yiannis Ritsos, show how Theodorakis catches Greek cultural imaginations, combining Greek traditional music and classical composition, high art and popular culture.
In January 1968, 31 years after Seferis completed ‘Epiphany, 1937’, the composer Mikis Theodorakis conceived of it as a choral piece, Επιφάνια-Αβέρωφ (Epiphania-Averof), naming the cantata after the prison in central in Athens. He had been detained there since August 1967, after the colonels right-wing junta had seized power on 21 April 1967, and was denied the Christmas amnesty extended to many other political prisoners in December 1967.
Gail Holst’s book, Theodorakis: Myth and Politics in Modern Greek Music (Amsterdam, 1980), shows that for Theodorakis setting the entire ‘Epiphany, 1937’ to music was a tour de force, his own epiphanic moment in the junta’s jail cells.
Theodorakis worked on the poem as a cantata to be performed with the help of his fellow prisoners. Each evening, while other prisoners listened to the radio in a communal hall from 7:30 to 8:30, Theodorakis used the hour to train his choir of 10 prisoners.
The poem’s first-person-singular refrain Κράτησα τη ζωή μου (Kratêsa tê zôê mou) is translated into English by Keeley and Sherrard as ‘I’ve kept a rein on my life’. It could also be translated as ‘I’ve kept a hold on my life’. In this refrain, Theodorakis heard a multiplicity of voices, the universality of their utterance further enhanced by the composer’s preference for a mixed chorus of both men and women.
This recurring phrase throughout the main part of the poem struck Theodorakis’s sensitivity and curiosity. Seferis’s refrain creates a sense of monotony and repetition and at the same time the sense of one carrying something heavy.
Gail Holst’s book, Theodorakis: Myth and Politics in Modern Greek Music (1980), shows that for Theodorakis setting the entire ‘Epiphany, 1937’ to music was a tour de force, his own epiphanic moment in the junta’s jail cells.
The key figure in these concerts and events is Maria Farantouri, who worked closely with Theodorakis for many years and is the most important voice in his oeuvre. She is known for her powerful, soulful and sensitive voice, and she continues to captivate audiences with her interpretations of his work.
Her version of Το γελαστό παιδί (The Laughing Boy) celebrates the uprising in the Athens Polytechnic on 17 November 1973 that led to the downfall of the colonels within a year. The song, composed by Mikis Theodorakis, was first included on the soundtrack of the Costas-Garvas movie Z (1969), and was quickly linked with resistance to the junta.
For Greeks, it is a song about the death of so many young people killed resisting the regime. When the regime was toppled in 1974, Mikis Theodorakis and many singers organised a concert to celebrate the return of democracy to Greece, and Maria Farantouri sang one of the most touching songs of the time.
There was a palpable response when she intentionally changed the original reference to August to the month of November to honour the students killed in November 1973. The original Greek lyrics are by the poet Vassilis Rotas, but they are based on earlier poem by the Irish playwright Brendan Behan.
Some years ago, my friends Paddy Sammon, a former Irish diplomat once based in Athens, and Damian Mac Con Uladh, an Irish journalist from Ballinasloe now based in Corinth, have researched the Irish background to this great Greek classic of resistance to oppression. The original laughing boy in Brendan Behan’s poem is Michael Collins. Theodorakis adapted the Greek translation, and adapted it in the context of Grigoris Lambrakis, the pacifist activist killed by far-right extremists in Greece in the years before the colonels seized power.
Behan adapted the poem in his play The Hostage (1958). The play first came to the attention of Theodorakis while he was living in Paris, and he was inspired to compose a cycle of 16 songs in 1962 with Greek lyrics by Vasilis Rotas (1889-1977).
Rotas’s translation of The Hostage was staged in Athens in 1962 at a time when the Greek civil war was still a taboo topic and left-wing activity was under close police surveillance. The play became a way for people to identify with their struggle against a repressive regime.
Maria Farantouri went into exile after the coup in 1967, and sang this song at solidarity concerts across Europe. ‘It became a hymn not only for the Irish liberation movement, but also for every liberation movement in the world, and Greek democracy,’ she told an RTÉ documentary.
When the junta sent in tanks against protesting students at the Athens Polytechnic on 17 November 1973, killing at least 24 people over a number of days, Maria Farantouri added a couple of stanzas to the song, and changed the date from August to November, deliberately linking the song to that event.
At many of this year’s anniversary concerts, Maria Farantouri is accompanied by Tasis Christoyannis, a distinguished baritone singer, and Alkinoos Ioannidis, a versatile singer, composer and poet from Cyprus, whose style is a mix of folk, classical and rock and who brings a fresh, contemporary dimension to Theodorakis’ repertoire.
Other accompanying musicians and singers include Vassilis Lekkas, Myron Michaelidis, Manolis Mitsias, Yota Negka and Thanassis Voutsas. Their voices highlight the many dimensions of the musical legacy of Theodorakis, although he once said of his work: ‘I like to believe that the bulk of my work – from the simplest song to the most intricate symphonic composition – belongs to a single musical unity.’
The sound of bouzoukis, lutes, and the delicate santouri blend seamlessly with clarinet, violin, and intricately woven orchestral arrangements, creating a musical fusion of tradition and expressive artistry, full of passion and poetry.
‘The Ballad of Mauthausen’, the Holocaust cantata written by Iakovos Kambanellis and Mikis Theodorakis … Mauthausen was the last of the concentration camps to be liberated, on 3 May 1945
During these concerts, Farantouri sings from all periods of Theodorakis’s oeuvre. But the highlight on many evenings is The Ballad of Mauthausen.
Mauthausen was the last of the concentration camps to be liberated at the end of the Holocaust and World War II 80 years ago, on 3 May 1945. The Ballad of Mauthausen (Η Μπαλάντα του Μαουτχάουζεν) is a cantata written by the Greek playwright Iakovos Kambanellis (1922-2011) and Mikis Theodorakis 60 years ago in 1965. It is based on the experiences in Mauthausen of Kambanellis, who wrote four poems that Mikis Theodorakis set to music.
The book and the music were born in an incendiary political and cultural milieu in Greece. Two days after its first performance, all music by Theodorakis was banned from Greek state radio. Within two years, the military had seized power and the colonels silenced Theodorakis and many other voices for seven long years.
For the first time ever, the complete music of Zorba the Greek – the work that in many ways has become the musical soul of Greece – has been performed live, interpreted with the original instruments used in the 1964 recording.
The Oscar-winning film, based on a major work by Nikos Kazantzakis, first published in Greek in 1946 as Life and Times of Alexis Zorbas. Theodorakis wrote the score for the 1964 film that became, perhaps, the best-loved Greek film. It was one of my earliest introductions to Greek culture, music and literature.
Other features on programmes include selections from Odyssey (2006), Theodorakis’ final song cycle, set to the poetry of Kostas Kartelias, include pieces from Ta Lyrika (1976), with poetry by Tasos Livaditis, and Beatrice on Zero Street (1994), with poetry by Dionysis Karatzas – works that belong to the composer’s later lyrical period. The evening also include some of his most loved and well-known songs, drawn from earlier song cycles and set to the verses of great poets and lyricists.
The two concerts in the Megaron Moussikis in Thessaloniki (1 and 2 January) included Theodorakis’ ballet suite Greek Carnival. The two concerts in the Megaron Moussikis, Athens (16 and 17 February) included excepts from Pablo Neruda’s Canto General in its original orchestration for a 15-member ensemble and two choirs.
Two concerts in Xanthi (11 and 12 April) also marked the centenary of the birth of Manos Hadjidakis, when Maria Farantouri and Nikos Kypourgos, two of Manos Hadzidakis’ most important collaborators, discussed his music and his influence on modern Greek music.
A concert in the Pyrgos Vassilissis (Queen’s Tower) in Ilion (30 May) was dedicated to the 100 years since the founding of Ilion.
Other concert venues in Greece have included Chania (13 June) and Iraklion (14 June) in Crete; the Kallimarmaron Stadium in Athens (25 June); Thessaloniki (30 June and 1 July), where Maria Farantouri and Manolis Mitsias sang poems by the Andalusian poet Federico Garcia Lorca, set to music by Theodorakis and other composers; and Thessaly (19 July).
Concerts venues in Greece in the coming weeks include the island of Lefkada (8 August), the Ancient Theatre in Dion (11 August), the Little Theatre in ancient Epidaurus (16 August), Siviris in Chalkidiki (24 August), and Serres (7 September).
International venues so far this year have included a concert in Grand Pera in Istanbul (19 March), when Maria Farantouri was accompanied by the pianist Achilleas Gouastor in a programme that included poems by Kiki Demoula, set to music by Sakis Papademetriou, as well as songs by Theodorakis. There was a concert in Helsinki too on 27 March.
A concert in Bochum, Germany (9 May) included The Ballad of Mauthausen, with a reading and talk that also marked the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. International concerts later this year are taking place in Düsseldorf (11 October), Rotterdam (13 October) and Lucerne (31 October).
In his music, Theodorakis expressed his political values and fused his idealism and his commitment to freedom. I was in Crete at the time of his funeral, the island was immersed in three days of official mourning and I could see how people were deeply moved emotionally as they watched that funeral on television screens everywhere. In the week after his death, Theodorakis was described by a leading Greek newspaper, Kathimerini, as ‘Greece’s last enduring myth.’
Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025:
81, Tuesday 29 July 2025
Gnasher and Gnipper in the ‘Beano’ always seemed ready to gnash their teeth
Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church and this week began with the Sixth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VI, 27 July 2025). The Church Calendar today (29 July 2025) remembers Mary, Martha and Lazarus, Companions of our Lord. Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read 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.
Harvest or weeds? … a field near Cross in Hand on the northern edges of Lichfield last week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Matthew 13: 36-43 (NRSVA):
36 Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, ‘Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.’ 37 He answered, ‘The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; 38 the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. 40 Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, 42 and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!’
Fields of green and gold beside Comberford Hall, between Lichfield and Tamworth in rural Staffordshire last week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
This morning’s reflection:
In my imagination, when I was a child, not only were the summers long and sunny, but weekend entertainment was simpler and less complicated. The highlights of the weekend seemed to be Dr Who and Dixon of Dock Green, and the weekly editions of the Eagle and the Beano.
I may have been just a little too old (16) for the first appearance of Gnasher (1968), the pet dog of Dennis the Menace in the Beano. The G- tagged onto the beginning of the name of both Gnasher and his son Gnipper is pronounced silently, just like the silent P at the beginning of Psmith, the Rupert Psmith in so many PG Wodehouse novels.
Most of the Beano speech bubbles for both Gnasher and Gnipper consist of normal English words beginning with the letter ‘N’ with a silent ‘G’ added to the beginning, as in ‘Gnight, Gnight.’
I was a little too old for the introduction of Gnasher, but nonetheless I and my friends in our late teens and early 20s loved Gnasher and Gniper, joked about those silent ‘Gs’ and even recalled how as children we had joked about ‘weeping and G-nashing of teeth.’
There is very little to joke about in today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 13: 36-43). The idea of people being thrown into the furnace of fire is not a very appealing image for children, and so to joke about it is a childhood method of coping.
But throughout history, humanity has stooped to burn what we dislike and what we want to expunge, and we have done it constantly.
We have been burning books as Christians since Saint Athanasius ordered the burning of texts in Alexandria in the year 367. In the Middle Ages, and sometimes even later, we burned heretics at the stake. When that stopped, we burned anything deemed to be an occasions of sin.
They were burned publicly as an accompanying theme for the outdoor sermons of San Bernardino da Siena in the early 15th century. These included mirrors, cosmetics, fine dresses, playing cards … even musical instruments, and, of course, books, song sheets, artworks, paintings and sculpture. In his sermons, the book-burning friar regularly called for Jews and gays to be either isolated from society or eliminated from the human community.
Later in Florence, the supporters of Savonarola collected and publicly burned thousands of objects, including cosmetics, art, and books in 1497.
On the other hand, Franz Kafka’s last request to his friend Max Brod in 1921 was to ‘burn all my diaries, letters, manuscripts … completely and unread'.
But, more recently, the Nazis staged regular book burnings, especially burning books by Jewish writers, including Thomas Mann, Karl Marx and Albert Einstein. Extremists of all religious and political persuasions want to burn the symbols and totems of their opponents, whether it is Pastor Terry Jones burning the Quran and effigies of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama in Florida or jihadists burning the Twin Towers in New York.
Today we are witnessing efforts by the Trump regime to suppress free speech by journalists in the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press, capriciously excluding journalists from the White House press pool, and threatening to strip NBC and ABC of their licenses to broadcast. The hypocricy of these threats is aggravated by claims from the Trump regime that it was defending free speech when it attacked Britain and other Euopean countries for seeking to curb violence and racism on US-based social media platforms.
The limits of our extremists seem to be defined by their inflammatory words.
But who is being burned in this morning’s Gospel reading?
Who is doing the burning?
And who will be weeping and gnashing their teeth?
Contrary to many shoddy reading of this Gospel reading, Christians are not asked to burn anyone or anything at all. And, if we have enemies, we are called not to burn them but to love them.
Christ has been speaking by the lake first to the crowd, telling them the parable of the wheat and the weeds (verse 24-30). The word that we have traditionally translated as tares or weeds (verses 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 36, 38, 40) is the Greek word ζιζάνια (zizania), a type of wild rice grass, although Saint Matthew is probably referring to a type of darnel or noxious weed. It looks like wheat until the plants mature and the ears open, and the seeds are a strong soporific poison.
Christ then withdraws into a house, and has a private conversation with the Disciples (verses 36-43), in which he explains he is the sower (verse 37), the good seed is not the Word, but the Children of the Kingdom (verse 38), the weeds are the ‘Children of the Evil One’ (verse 38), and the field is the world (verse 38).
The harvest is not gathered by the disciples or the children of the kingdom, but by angels sent by the Son of Man (verses 39, 41). It is an apocalyptic image, describing poetically and dramatically a future cataclysm, and not an image to describe what should be happening today. It is imagery that draws on the apocalyptic images in the Book of Daniel, where the three young men who are faithful to God are tried in the fires of the furnace, yet come out alive, stronger and firmer in their faith (see Daniel 3: 1-10).
The slaves or δοῦλοι (douloi), the people who want to separate the darnel from the wheat (verse 27-28), are the disciples: Saint Paul introduces himself in his letters with phrases like Παῦλος δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ (Paul, a doulos, slave, or servant of Jesus Christ), (see Romans 1: 1, Philippians 1: 1, Titus 1: 1), and the same word is used by James (see James 1: 1), Peter (see II Peter 1: 1) and Jude (see Jude 1) to introduce themselves in their letters.
In the Book of Revelation, this word is used to describe the Disciples and the Church (see Revelation 1: 1; 22: 3).
In other words, the Apostolic writers see themselves as slaves in the field, working at Christ’s command in the world.
This is one of eight parables about the last judgment found only in Saint Matthew’s Gospel, and six of the seven New Testament uses of the phrase ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ (ὁ κλαυθμὸς καὶ ὁ βρυγμὸς τῶν ὀδόντων) occur in this Gospel (Matthew 8: 12; 13: 42; 13: 50; 22: 13; 24: 51; and 25: 30; see also Luke 13: 28).
When it comes to explaining the parable to the disciples in today’s reading (verses 36-43), the earlier references to the slaves in the first part (verses 27-28) are no longer there. It is not that the slaves have disappeared – Christ is speaking directly to those who would want to uproot the tares but who would find themselves uprooting the wheat too.
The weeding of the field is God’s job, not ours. The reapers, not the slaves, will gather in both the weeds and the wheat, the weeds first and then the wheat (verse 30).
Farmers are baling the hay and taking in the harvest in many places already. In a few weeks’ time, many farmers will be seen burning off the stubble on their fields to prepare the soil for autumn sowing and the planting of new crops. In this sense, the farmer understands burning as purification and preparation – it is not as harsh as city dwellers think.
It is not for us to decide who is in and who is out in Christ’s field, in the kingdom of God. That is Christ’s task alone.
Christ gently cautions the Disciples against rash decisions about who is in and who is out. Gently, he lets them see that the tares are not damaging the growth of the wheat, they just grow alongside it and amidst it.
But so often we decide to assume God’s role. We do it constantly in society, and we do it constantly in the Church, deciding who should be in and who should be out.
The harvest comes at the end of time, not now, and I should not hasten it even if the reapers seem to tarry.
The weeds we identify and want to uproot may turn out to be wheat, what we presume to be wheat because it looks like us may turn out to be weeds.
We assume the role of the reapers every time we decide we would be better off without someone in our society or in the Church because we disagree with them about issues like sexuality, women bishops and priests, and other issues that we mistake for core values.
The core values, as Christ himself explains, again and again, are loving God and loving others.
It is not without good reason that the Patristic writers warn that schism is worse than heresy (see Saint John Chrysostom, Patrologia Græca, vol. lxii, col. 87, On Ephesians, Homily 11, §5). We do not need to demythologise this morning’s reading. Christ leaves that to the future. This morning we are called to grow and not to worry about the tares. That growth must always emphasise love first.
When some members of the Church have sought to ‘out’ or ‘throw out’ people because of their sexuality they have caused immense personal tragedy for individuals and their families and friends – weeping and gnashing of teeth indeed.
When I want a Church or society that looks like me, I eventually end up living on a desert island or as a member of a sect of one – and there I might just find out too how unhappy I am with myself!
But if I allow myself to grow in faith and trust and love with others, I may, I just may, to my surprise, find that they too are wheat rather than weeds, and hopefullu they may realise the same about me.
‘The field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom’ (Matthew 13: 38) … harvest fields last week in Fisherwick, between Lichfield and Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 29 July 2025):
The theme this week (27 to 2 August) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Reunited at Last’. This theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update from Raja Moses, Programme Coordinator, Diocese of Durgapur, Church of North India.
The USPG prayer diary today (Tuesday 29 July 2025) invites us to pray:
Loving Father, we lift up all survivors of trafficking who have suffered fear, abuse and trauma. Bring healing, restore their dignity, and give hope for the future.
The Collect:
God our Father,
whose Son enjoyed the love of his friends,
Mary, Martha and Lazarus,
in learning, argument and hospitality:
may we so rejoice in your love
that the world may come to know
the depths of your wisdom, the wonder of your compassion,
and your power to bring life out of death;
through the merits of Jesus Christ,
our friend and brother,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post Communion Prayer:
Father,
from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name,
your servants Mary, Martha and Lazarus revealed your goodness
in a life of tranquillity and service:
grant that we who have gathered in faith around this table
may like them know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge
and be filled with all your fullness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Franz Kafka’s last wishes … a video in last year’s exhibition, ‘Kafka: Making of an Icon’, in the Weston Library in Oxford (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
Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church and this week began with the Sixth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VI, 27 July 2025). The Church Calendar today (29 July 2025) remembers Mary, Martha and Lazarus, Companions of our Lord. Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read 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.
Harvest or weeds? … a field near Cross in Hand on the northern edges of Lichfield last week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Matthew 13: 36-43 (NRSVA):
36 Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, ‘Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.’ 37 He answered, ‘The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; 38 the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. 40 Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, 42 and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!’
Fields of green and gold beside Comberford Hall, between Lichfield and Tamworth in rural Staffordshire last week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
This morning’s reflection:
In my imagination, when I was a child, not only were the summers long and sunny, but weekend entertainment was simpler and less complicated. The highlights of the weekend seemed to be Dr Who and Dixon of Dock Green, and the weekly editions of the Eagle and the Beano.
I may have been just a little too old (16) for the first appearance of Gnasher (1968), the pet dog of Dennis the Menace in the Beano. The G- tagged onto the beginning of the name of both Gnasher and his son Gnipper is pronounced silently, just like the silent P at the beginning of Psmith, the Rupert Psmith in so many PG Wodehouse novels.
Most of the Beano speech bubbles for both Gnasher and Gnipper consist of normal English words beginning with the letter ‘N’ with a silent ‘G’ added to the beginning, as in ‘Gnight, Gnight.’
I was a little too old for the introduction of Gnasher, but nonetheless I and my friends in our late teens and early 20s loved Gnasher and Gniper, joked about those silent ‘Gs’ and even recalled how as children we had joked about ‘weeping and G-nashing of teeth.’
There is very little to joke about in today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 13: 36-43). The idea of people being thrown into the furnace of fire is not a very appealing image for children, and so to joke about it is a childhood method of coping.
But throughout history, humanity has stooped to burn what we dislike and what we want to expunge, and we have done it constantly.
We have been burning books as Christians since Saint Athanasius ordered the burning of texts in Alexandria in the year 367. In the Middle Ages, and sometimes even later, we burned heretics at the stake. When that stopped, we burned anything deemed to be an occasions of sin.
They were burned publicly as an accompanying theme for the outdoor sermons of San Bernardino da Siena in the early 15th century. These included mirrors, cosmetics, fine dresses, playing cards … even musical instruments, and, of course, books, song sheets, artworks, paintings and sculpture. In his sermons, the book-burning friar regularly called for Jews and gays to be either isolated from society or eliminated from the human community.
Later in Florence, the supporters of Savonarola collected and publicly burned thousands of objects, including cosmetics, art, and books in 1497.
On the other hand, Franz Kafka’s last request to his friend Max Brod in 1921 was to ‘burn all my diaries, letters, manuscripts … completely and unread'.
But, more recently, the Nazis staged regular book burnings, especially burning books by Jewish writers, including Thomas Mann, Karl Marx and Albert Einstein. Extremists of all religious and political persuasions want to burn the symbols and totems of their opponents, whether it is Pastor Terry Jones burning the Quran and effigies of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama in Florida or jihadists burning the Twin Towers in New York.
Today we are witnessing efforts by the Trump regime to suppress free speech by journalists in the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press, capriciously excluding journalists from the White House press pool, and threatening to strip NBC and ABC of their licenses to broadcast. The hypocricy of these threats is aggravated by claims from the Trump regime that it was defending free speech when it attacked Britain and other Euopean countries for seeking to curb violence and racism on US-based social media platforms.
The limits of our extremists seem to be defined by their inflammatory words.
But who is being burned in this morning’s Gospel reading?
Who is doing the burning?
And who will be weeping and gnashing their teeth?
Contrary to many shoddy reading of this Gospel reading, Christians are not asked to burn anyone or anything at all. And, if we have enemies, we are called not to burn them but to love them.
Christ has been speaking by the lake first to the crowd, telling them the parable of the wheat and the weeds (verse 24-30). The word that we have traditionally translated as tares or weeds (verses 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 36, 38, 40) is the Greek word ζιζάνια (zizania), a type of wild rice grass, although Saint Matthew is probably referring to a type of darnel or noxious weed. It looks like wheat until the plants mature and the ears open, and the seeds are a strong soporific poison.
Christ then withdraws into a house, and has a private conversation with the Disciples (verses 36-43), in which he explains he is the sower (verse 37), the good seed is not the Word, but the Children of the Kingdom (verse 38), the weeds are the ‘Children of the Evil One’ (verse 38), and the field is the world (verse 38).
The harvest is not gathered by the disciples or the children of the kingdom, but by angels sent by the Son of Man (verses 39, 41). It is an apocalyptic image, describing poetically and dramatically a future cataclysm, and not an image to describe what should be happening today. It is imagery that draws on the apocalyptic images in the Book of Daniel, where the three young men who are faithful to God are tried in the fires of the furnace, yet come out alive, stronger and firmer in their faith (see Daniel 3: 1-10).
The slaves or δοῦλοι (douloi), the people who want to separate the darnel from the wheat (verse 27-28), are the disciples: Saint Paul introduces himself in his letters with phrases like Παῦλος δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ (Paul, a doulos, slave, or servant of Jesus Christ), (see Romans 1: 1, Philippians 1: 1, Titus 1: 1), and the same word is used by James (see James 1: 1), Peter (see II Peter 1: 1) and Jude (see Jude 1) to introduce themselves in their letters.
In the Book of Revelation, this word is used to describe the Disciples and the Church (see Revelation 1: 1; 22: 3).
In other words, the Apostolic writers see themselves as slaves in the field, working at Christ’s command in the world.
This is one of eight parables about the last judgment found only in Saint Matthew’s Gospel, and six of the seven New Testament uses of the phrase ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ (ὁ κλαυθμὸς καὶ ὁ βρυγμὸς τῶν ὀδόντων) occur in this Gospel (Matthew 8: 12; 13: 42; 13: 50; 22: 13; 24: 51; and 25: 30; see also Luke 13: 28).
When it comes to explaining the parable to the disciples in today’s reading (verses 36-43), the earlier references to the slaves in the first part (verses 27-28) are no longer there. It is not that the slaves have disappeared – Christ is speaking directly to those who would want to uproot the tares but who would find themselves uprooting the wheat too.
The weeding of the field is God’s job, not ours. The reapers, not the slaves, will gather in both the weeds and the wheat, the weeds first and then the wheat (verse 30).
Farmers are baling the hay and taking in the harvest in many places already. In a few weeks’ time, many farmers will be seen burning off the stubble on their fields to prepare the soil for autumn sowing and the planting of new crops. In this sense, the farmer understands burning as purification and preparation – it is not as harsh as city dwellers think.
It is not for us to decide who is in and who is out in Christ’s field, in the kingdom of God. That is Christ’s task alone.
Christ gently cautions the Disciples against rash decisions about who is in and who is out. Gently, he lets them see that the tares are not damaging the growth of the wheat, they just grow alongside it and amidst it.
But so often we decide to assume God’s role. We do it constantly in society, and we do it constantly in the Church, deciding who should be in and who should be out.
The harvest comes at the end of time, not now, and I should not hasten it even if the reapers seem to tarry.
The weeds we identify and want to uproot may turn out to be wheat, what we presume to be wheat because it looks like us may turn out to be weeds.
We assume the role of the reapers every time we decide we would be better off without someone in our society or in the Church because we disagree with them about issues like sexuality, women bishops and priests, and other issues that we mistake for core values.
The core values, as Christ himself explains, again and again, are loving God and loving others.
It is not without good reason that the Patristic writers warn that schism is worse than heresy (see Saint John Chrysostom, Patrologia Græca, vol. lxii, col. 87, On Ephesians, Homily 11, §5). We do not need to demythologise this morning’s reading. Christ leaves that to the future. This morning we are called to grow and not to worry about the tares. That growth must always emphasise love first.
When some members of the Church have sought to ‘out’ or ‘throw out’ people because of their sexuality they have caused immense personal tragedy for individuals and their families and friends – weeping and gnashing of teeth indeed.
When I want a Church or society that looks like me, I eventually end up living on a desert island or as a member of a sect of one – and there I might just find out too how unhappy I am with myself!
But if I allow myself to grow in faith and trust and love with others, I may, I just may, to my surprise, find that they too are wheat rather than weeds, and hopefullu they may realise the same about me.
‘The field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom’ (Matthew 13: 38) … harvest fields last week in Fisherwick, between Lichfield and Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 29 July 2025):
The theme this week (27 to 2 August) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Reunited at Last’. This theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update from Raja Moses, Programme Coordinator, Diocese of Durgapur, Church of North India.
The USPG prayer diary today (Tuesday 29 July 2025) invites us to pray:
Loving Father, we lift up all survivors of trafficking who have suffered fear, abuse and trauma. Bring healing, restore their dignity, and give hope for the future.
The Collect:
God our Father,
whose Son enjoyed the love of his friends,
Mary, Martha and Lazarus,
in learning, argument and hospitality:
may we so rejoice in your love
that the world may come to know
the depths of your wisdom, the wonder of your compassion,
and your power to bring life out of death;
through the merits of Jesus Christ,
our friend and brother,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post Communion Prayer:
Father,
from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name,
your servants Mary, Martha and Lazarus revealed your goodness
in a life of tranquillity and service:
grant that we who have gathered in faith around this table
may like them know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge
and be filled with all your fullness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Franz Kafka’s last wishes … a video in last year’s exhibition, ‘Kafka: Making of an Icon’, in the Weston Library in Oxford (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
28 July 2025
A weary pilgrim walks
part of the way along
‘Saint Editha’s Way’ from
Polesworth to Lichfield
Inside Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth, central to the new pilgrim route, the 14-mile ‘Saint Editha’s Way’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Patrick Comerford
I was back in Lichfield and Tamworth at the end of last week for one of those short pilgrimages and self-guided mini-retreats that a make a few times in the year, and that are important for my spiritual health and well-being.
But I was visiting Lichfield and Tamworth too to hear about the ‘Saint Editha’s Way’ pilgrim route, a 14-mile journey celebrating the story of ancient Mercia. The pilgrim route starts at Polesworth Abbey and weaves its way through along canal tow-path to Amington, through to Tamworth, including Tamworth Castle and Saint Editha’s Church, then on to Wigginton and through Hopwas, finishing at Lichfield Cathedral.
The total distance is about 14 miles and takes about five hours at walking pace or 1.5 hours on a bicycle. An interactive map of the route that can be download to your phones is available on the Footpaths App, just click here.
An interactive map of ‘Saint Editha’s Way’ illustrates the 14-mile, five-hour pilgrim route
Some people may decide to walk the whole of Saint Editha’s Way in one go, while others may walk it in sections over a longer period, perhaps over several days.
For a shorter route, walkers can start at Polesworth Abbey and stop at Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth – this is about 6.5 miles and takes about 2.5 hours. Alternatively, walkers can start at Tamworth and proceed to Lichfield Cathedral – this is about 7 miles and takes about three hours. There are good bus services along the whole route and regular connections between Lichfield and Polesworth, so walkers need not walk the whole way back.
There is information about the churches and castles on the route in the Pilgrim Guidebook, a special handbook for the journey with details about landmarks on the route and other tips and information. Much of it has been researched and compiled by Dr David Biggs, chair of the Tamworth and District Civic Society. I picked up my copy in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth, on Friday morning and it is also available at Polesworth Abbey and Lichfield Cathedral.
Saint Editha was a 10th century princess in Mercia, one of several kingdoms making up what we now call England. Tamworth was the political capital of Mercia and Lichfield was the ecclesiastical capital.
Saint Editha was probably the sister of Athelstan, who was crowned first King of all England in 925 CE. Renowned for her charity and good works, she renounced royal luxury to live a holy life. She was married in Tamworth Church in 926 CE but was abandoned later by her pagan husband Sihtric, the Viking ruler of York and Northumbria. She then led a life of saintly devotion and good works in her convent in Tamworth until she died in the year 960.
She became a saint by popular acclaim, her shrine in Tamworth became a place of pilgrimage. The church in Tamworth was named in her honour in 963 by her nephew King Edgar when he completed the rebuilding of the church and its foundation as a collegiate church. Other churches in the area with her name include Polesworth Abbey.
The Comberford Chapel in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
The mediaeval tradition of pilgrimages to Tamworth to venerate Saint Editha is recalled in an anonymous poem from the Middle Ages:
Over ye river broad, ye pilgrims onward speed
By olden Tamworth altars fare, for ghostly good to speed.
Soundeth ye church bells merrily, about ye lofty aisle
Through tinctured shapes of saints and kings ye shafted sunbeams smile.
Standeth ye marble of Saint Edith, all in bright array.
Ora pro nobis peccatoribus [pray for us sinners] each rich one doth say.
Gentles from embroidered silk scraps scattereth pence around
To simple men, with dusty feet, weeping upon ye ground.
The marble statue referred to was likely removed or destroyed in the Reformation in the 16th century. But a new statue of Saint Editha in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth, was commissioned this year (2025) to mark the inauguration of the new pilgrimage route. She is depicted with a crozier, as an abbess, and a church, representing the churches where she is the patron.
A stop by the canal bridge in Hopwas, where the A51 crosses both the River Tame and the Coventry Canal (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
The principal stopping points along the way include Polesworth Abbey in the heart of Polesworth, Saint Editha’s, Amington, a Victorian parish church with Burne-Jones glass, Tamworth Castle, Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth, Spital Chapel, Wigginton, a mediaeval chapel that was originally part of a hospital, and Lichfield Cathedral.
The route meanders through beautiful countryside including Pooley Country Park, a substantial stretch of peaceful canal, the grounds of Tamworth Castle, and past the woods and fields of Hopwas. The route traverses several busy main roads, but the entire journey is along footpaths. Each stop along the route has a special pilgrimage marker, and entry is free at each stop with the one exception of Tamworth Castle.
Other sights along the way include Alvecote Priory, now an atmospheric derelict ruin, Saint Rufin’s Well in the grounds of Tamworth Castle, and Saint Chad’s Well in the churchyard at Saint Chad’s Church, Lichfield.
I travelled part of the way on Friday afternoon, from Tamworth through Hopwas and Whittington to Lichdield, but travlled by bus for most of the journey by bus. In Lichfield, I stopped to pray in the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital before continuing on to Lichfield Cathedral.
Later in the afternoon, I walked along part of Cross in Hand Lanethe old pilgrim route along Cross in Hand Lane, the first (or final) stage on ‘The Two Saints Way’ between the shrine of Saint Chad in Lichfield and the shrine of Saint Werburgh in Chester. I had a late lunch at the Hedgehog before returning at the end of the day to Lichfield Cathedral for Evening Prayer.
Pilgrims who complete the route along ‘Saint Editha’s Way’ may present their handbook at the front desk of Lichfield Cathedral during visiting hours to receive a special stamp and certificate to prove they have successfully completed the Saint Editha’s Way.
The Pilgrim’s Prayer in the handbook:
O Lord of Heaven and Earth,
guide my steps as I journey through this land of Mercia,
where saints have walked and holy lives were lived.
I lift my heart to you, O God,
with the spirit of a pilgrim – seeking not only places, but peace.
Teach me, like Saint Editha, to set aside pride and vanity,
and to walk humbly with you in all things.
O Lord, as O walk this pilgrim way,
be my compass and my strength.
Through the prayers of Saint Editha and all the Mercian saints,
draw me nearer to your heart.
In the name of Jesus Christ the King of all things.
Amen.
The pilgrim arrives at Lichfield Cathedral in the afternoon summer sunshine
Patrick Comerford
I was back in Lichfield and Tamworth at the end of last week for one of those short pilgrimages and self-guided mini-retreats that a make a few times in the year, and that are important for my spiritual health and well-being.
But I was visiting Lichfield and Tamworth too to hear about the ‘Saint Editha’s Way’ pilgrim route, a 14-mile journey celebrating the story of ancient Mercia. The pilgrim route starts at Polesworth Abbey and weaves its way through along canal tow-path to Amington, through to Tamworth, including Tamworth Castle and Saint Editha’s Church, then on to Wigginton and through Hopwas, finishing at Lichfield Cathedral.
The total distance is about 14 miles and takes about five hours at walking pace or 1.5 hours on a bicycle. An interactive map of the route that can be download to your phones is available on the Footpaths App, just click here.
An interactive map of ‘Saint Editha’s Way’ illustrates the 14-mile, five-hour pilgrim route
Some people may decide to walk the whole of Saint Editha’s Way in one go, while others may walk it in sections over a longer period, perhaps over several days.
For a shorter route, walkers can start at Polesworth Abbey and stop at Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth – this is about 6.5 miles and takes about 2.5 hours. Alternatively, walkers can start at Tamworth and proceed to Lichfield Cathedral – this is about 7 miles and takes about three hours. There are good bus services along the whole route and regular connections between Lichfield and Polesworth, so walkers need not walk the whole way back.
There is information about the churches and castles on the route in the Pilgrim Guidebook, a special handbook for the journey with details about landmarks on the route and other tips and information. Much of it has been researched and compiled by Dr David Biggs, chair of the Tamworth and District Civic Society. I picked up my copy in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth, on Friday morning and it is also available at Polesworth Abbey and Lichfield Cathedral.
Saint Editha was a 10th century princess in Mercia, one of several kingdoms making up what we now call England. Tamworth was the political capital of Mercia and Lichfield was the ecclesiastical capital.
Saint Editha was probably the sister of Athelstan, who was crowned first King of all England in 925 CE. Renowned for her charity and good works, she renounced royal luxury to live a holy life. She was married in Tamworth Church in 926 CE but was abandoned later by her pagan husband Sihtric, the Viking ruler of York and Northumbria. She then led a life of saintly devotion and good works in her convent in Tamworth until she died in the year 960.
She became a saint by popular acclaim, her shrine in Tamworth became a place of pilgrimage. The church in Tamworth was named in her honour in 963 by her nephew King Edgar when he completed the rebuilding of the church and its foundation as a collegiate church. Other churches in the area with her name include Polesworth Abbey.
The Comberford Chapel in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
The mediaeval tradition of pilgrimages to Tamworth to venerate Saint Editha is recalled in an anonymous poem from the Middle Ages:
Over ye river broad, ye pilgrims onward speed
By olden Tamworth altars fare, for ghostly good to speed.
Soundeth ye church bells merrily, about ye lofty aisle
Through tinctured shapes of saints and kings ye shafted sunbeams smile.
Standeth ye marble of Saint Edith, all in bright array.
Ora pro nobis peccatoribus [pray for us sinners] each rich one doth say.
Gentles from embroidered silk scraps scattereth pence around
To simple men, with dusty feet, weeping upon ye ground.
The marble statue referred to was likely removed or destroyed in the Reformation in the 16th century. But a new statue of Saint Editha in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth, was commissioned this year (2025) to mark the inauguration of the new pilgrimage route. She is depicted with a crozier, as an abbess, and a church, representing the churches where she is the patron.
A stop by the canal bridge in Hopwas, where the A51 crosses both the River Tame and the Coventry Canal (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
The principal stopping points along the way include Polesworth Abbey in the heart of Polesworth, Saint Editha’s, Amington, a Victorian parish church with Burne-Jones glass, Tamworth Castle, Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth, Spital Chapel, Wigginton, a mediaeval chapel that was originally part of a hospital, and Lichfield Cathedral.
The route meanders through beautiful countryside including Pooley Country Park, a substantial stretch of peaceful canal, the grounds of Tamworth Castle, and past the woods and fields of Hopwas. The route traverses several busy main roads, but the entire journey is along footpaths. Each stop along the route has a special pilgrimage marker, and entry is free at each stop with the one exception of Tamworth Castle.
Other sights along the way include Alvecote Priory, now an atmospheric derelict ruin, Saint Rufin’s Well in the grounds of Tamworth Castle, and Saint Chad’s Well in the churchyard at Saint Chad’s Church, Lichfield.
I travelled part of the way on Friday afternoon, from Tamworth through Hopwas and Whittington to Lichdield, but travlled by bus for most of the journey by bus. In Lichfield, I stopped to pray in the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital before continuing on to Lichfield Cathedral.
Later in the afternoon, I walked along part of Cross in Hand Lanethe old pilgrim route along Cross in Hand Lane, the first (or final) stage on ‘The Two Saints Way’ between the shrine of Saint Chad in Lichfield and the shrine of Saint Werburgh in Chester. I had a late lunch at the Hedgehog before returning at the end of the day to Lichfield Cathedral for Evening Prayer.
Pilgrims who complete the route along ‘Saint Editha’s Way’ may present their handbook at the front desk of Lichfield Cathedral during visiting hours to receive a special stamp and certificate to prove they have successfully completed the Saint Editha’s Way.
The Pilgrim’s Prayer in the handbook:
O Lord of Heaven and Earth,
guide my steps as I journey through this land of Mercia,
where saints have walked and holy lives were lived.
I lift my heart to you, O God,
with the spirit of a pilgrim – seeking not only places, but peace.
Teach me, like Saint Editha, to set aside pride and vanity,
and to walk humbly with you in all things.
O Lord, as O walk this pilgrim way,
be my compass and my strength.
Through the prayers of Saint Editha and all the Mercian saints,
draw me nearer to your heart.
In the name of Jesus Christ the King of all things.
Amen.
The pilgrim arrives at Lichfield Cathedral in the afternoon summer sunshine
Labels:
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Lichfield,
Lichfield Cathedral,
Local History,
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Saints,
Tamworth,
Tamworth Castle,
Whittington
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