COMERFORD WAY: Patrick Comerford’s online journal on Anglicanism, theology, spirituality, history, architecture, travel, poetry, beach walks ... and more
Farm House on Farm Street stands out from its neighbours and is one of the most visually distinct properties in Mayfair (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Patrick Comerford
My visit to churches in Bloomsbury, Fitzrovia and Mayfair earlier this week, included my first-ever visit to the Jesuit church in Farm Street, Farm Street Church or the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street, which has been described by Simon Jenkins as ‘Gothic Revival at its most sumptuous’.
Across the street from Farm Street Church, Farm House is a six-bedroom, Gothic-style house at 22 Farm Street that was sold recently sold by Wetherell with an asking price of £11 million.
The four-storey house stands out from its neighbours and is one of the most visually distinct properties in Mayfair. It was built in the Gothic style, with a half-timbered façade, heavy panelling and original Jacobean doors. But, despite appearances, it dates back only to the 1900s, and was originally built for a Mrs M Strakosch, on the site of a former farmhouse, Hay Hill Farm, that stood there before Mayfair was developed.
Mrs Strakosch wanted to create an authentic 16th-century house – even putting in original mediaeval doors and panelling. The oak front door is carved inside and out with the heads of the 12 apostles, and the reception hall was once lined with old Flemish linenfold panelling. Other features that have since been lost include walnut panelling and painted 17th-century wooden wardrobe doors in the main bedroom, and the original stone floors have been replaced with wide, wooden boards.
But the house still has many of the original Jacobean internal doors, including the linenfold panelling in the dining room, and paned windows overlooking the street.
Behind the oak front door, Farm House has 4,560 sq ft of living space over four floors, with potential to increase this to 5,500 sq ft. There is a marble hallway, a 25 ft dining room, a bright kitchen and breakfast room and guest cloakroom. The lower ground floor has a large reception room with a private terrace, a second kitchen, and two guest bedroom suites with adjoining bathrooms.
The first floor has a formal drawing room spanning the entire width of the house. The largest bedroom suite is on this floor. The second floor has three further guest bedrooms and a family bathroom, with a south-facing roof terrace accessed from the third guest bedroom. A private garage is hidden behind stable doors.
Blue plaques recall some of the residents and guests at Farm House on Farm Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Farm House has played host to aristocracy, politicians and socialites for the past century. In the 1930s, the house was owned by Thelma Morgan (1904-1970), Viscountess Furness, a socialite and actor whose identical twin sister Gloria was the mother of Gloria Vanderbilt, the fashion designer and artist.
Thelma was married twice, and was also the mistress of the then Prince of Wales, before he become King Edward VIII. Thelma was also a friend of Wallis Simpson, and introduced her to the Prince of Wales during this time. Both Edward and Wallis, later the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, visited Farm House frequently at this time.
The prince soon ended his affair with Thelma and began his relationship with Wallis Simpson. Thelma then had a short-lived affair with Prince Aly Khan. While she was away in the US, Thelma allowed Wallis Simpson to stay at Farm House where she entertained the future king who would be forced to abdicate.
Later, Farm House was the home of Gloria Swanson, who rented the home from Thelma Furness while she was pregnant, and gave birth to her second child there in 1932.
In the 1950s and 60s, Farm House was used by the US Embassy nearby as a residence for diplomats and visiting dignitaries. It is said President John F Kennedy visited Farm House in 1961 while he was visiting the US embassy in Grosvenor Square.
Next door, at 24 Farm Street, it is said Princess Diana often sought solace and sat alone among the books in the library when the house was owned by her step-mother, Raine Spencer, Countess Spencer. It is also said that she first met Dodi Al-Fayed there. Raine Spencer’s husband, John Spencer, the 8th Earl Spencer, bought 24 Farm Street as a gift for Raine in 1990, to say thank you for her support during his recovery from a stroke.
As I stood outside, I wondered how many people in these houses had ever crossed the street to visit Farm Street Church. But more about Farm Street Church tomorrow afternoon, I hope.
The panels of the oak front door of Farm House is carved with images of the 12 Apostles (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” (Matthew 6: 31) … James Joyce and Patrick Kavanagh at Toner’s in Baggot Street, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Patrick Comerford
We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and tomorrow is the First Sunday after Trinity (22 June 2025). Today (21 June) is the Summer Solstice, although next Tuesday (24 June) is officially Midsummer’s Day.
As this hot weather and sunshine is likely to continue for another few days, I may go to watch and enjoy some cricket in Stony Stratford this afternoon. But, before the day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, reading today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
‘Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink’ (Matthew 6: 25) … empty tables at a restaurant in the old town in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Matthew 6: 24-34 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 24 ‘No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.
25 ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” 32 For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
34 ‘So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.’
‘But if God so clothes the grass of the field … will he not much more clothe you?’ … walking through the fields and by the River Tame in Comberford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Today’s Reflection:
The Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Matthew 6: 24-34) continues the series of readings from the Sermon on the Mount. In a world where I wake up each morning worrying whether the large regional conflicts are going to unravel and draw us all into a global conflagration, how do I respond to the advice not to worry about tomorrow?
Imagine two different ways of reading this Gospel passage.
The first is if you have a respectable and well-paying job, a good house in the suburbs, a decent car, adult children who have good prospects too, you have regular holidays, and you can change your car every two or three years.
The second way to read it is to imagine yourself living in a deprived urban area, a single parent with a mortgaged house in negative equity, unemployed, noisy and unsocial neighbours, facing severe cuts in your welfare payments, an adult child with special needs, and an ageing parent who needs residential care you cannot afford.
How then do you then receive the message, do not worry about what you will eat or drink or wear (verse 25), because God will take care of you? Today’s trouble is certainly more than enough for today.
For the first group, this is irrelevant, meaningless. You may be worried about higher taxes, winding down and preparing for retirement, that your children marry the right sort of people. If you have worries, they are hidden from the neighbours, perhaps even hidden from yourself.
For the second group, it verges on the absurd. If you have spent the last few years worrying about the roof your head, unable to afford and prepare adequate meals, worried about the friends and dangers your children meet, the future they face, then this is no easy message to hear. What does Christ mean, ‘do not worry’? Life is full of worries, every single waking day.
But is Christ really saying that the basic necessities of life do not matter? Is he really saying that the basic necessities of life will appear miraculously if only we believe in him correctly?
Let us first put this reading in context – Christ is talking to people who have enough, it seems. Otherwise, his encouragement not to worry would simply be cruel.
But, what about those who truly do not have enough?
How are they going to hear good news in this Gospel reading?
Though the message is going to be heard differently by those who have enough and those who do not, the message is really the same: do not fret.
If you have enough, be thankful, but beware of making an idol of having what you want, rather than merely what you need.
If you do not have enough, it is not because God does not love you. Christ is working to break the connection that was commonly made in his day: those who please God are rewarded with plenty, while those who suffer have earned God’s displeasure.
We still make that connection. How often we have an inner feeling of glee when we think people get what they deserve? How often we think people have brought about their own downfall? How often we think people could improve their lot if only they were not indolent, if only they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps?
Christ encourages us to look beyond the narrow perspectives that attach virtue to success and vice to failure.
That challenge is expressed by Frederick Faber in the words of his hymn, ‘There’s a wideness in God’s mercy’:
For the love of God is broader
than the measure of our mind;
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.
But we make his love too narrow
by false limits of our own;
and we magnify his strictness
with a zeal he will not own.
If our love were but more simple,
we should take him at his word,
and our lives would be gladness
in the presence of the Lord.
God’s desire for us is that we all have enough, rather than calculating the degree to which each of us should be blessed or cursed.
That does not change the circumstances today for the single mother or the unemployed father. But neither do present circumstances justify making political, economic and social decisions based on self-interest and selfishness.
Perhaps it is comforting this morning to recall the Collect for Peace, the Second Collect at Morning Prayer. This collect originated in the Sacramentary of Gelasius and was incorporated in the Sarum Breviary, from which Thomas Cranmer translated it in 1549:
O God, who art the author of peace and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom; Defend us thy humble servants in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in thy defence, may not fear the power of any adversaries; through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Kingdom of God has different values from life in the empire, or life in a profit-based society. The Kingdom of God includes the poor, the merciful, those who mourn. The Kingdom of God calls us to bring light to the darkest parts of the world, to be salt in the world, to be signs and sacraments of mercy and justice.
God is not promising to meet all our needs, like some shopping list brought to the Kingdom-value-supermarket, if we pay up with the right kind of prayers. Tomorrow is going to bring its worries: ‘for tomorrow will bring worries of its own’ (verse 34). But God does not bargain with us. God expects us to serve God through living out the kingdom values, and in that we find perfect freedom.
As we seek first the Kingdom of God we come to accept with joy those things God adds to us. Our trials and troubles remain real, but that reality can be transformed and made glorious as we serve God and seek to do God’s will.
‘Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns …’ (Matthew 6: 26) … an empty barn near Comberford Hall in Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Today’s Prayers (Saturday 21 June 2025):
‘Crossing the Channel’ has been the theme this week (15-21 June) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel). This theme was introduced last Sunday with reflections by Bradon Muilenburg, Anglican Refugee Support Lead.
The USPG prayer diary today (Saturday 21 June 2025) invites us to pray:
Eternal God, grant rest to the souls of those who have died on their journey, and may they be remembered with dignity.
The Collect:
Almighty and everlasting God,
you have given us your servants grace,
by the confession of a true faith,
to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity
and in the power of the divine majesty to worship the Unity:
keep us steadfast in this faith,
that we may evermore be defended from all adversities;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Almighty and eternal God,
you have revealed yourself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
and live and reign in the perfect unity of love:
hold us firm in this faith,
that we may know you in all your ways
and evermore rejoice in your eternal glory,
who are three Persons yet one God,
now and for ever.
Additional Collect:
Holy God,
faithful and unchanging:
enlarge our minds with the knowledge of your truth,
and draw us more deeply into the mystery of your love,
that we may truly worship you,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Collect on the Eve of Trinity I:
O God,
the strength of all those who put their trust in you,
mercifully accept our prayers
and, because through the weakness of our mortal nature
we can do no good thing without you,
grant us the help of your grace,
that in the keeping of your commandments
we may please you both in will and deed;
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.
‘Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them’ (Matthew 6: 26) … a mother bird feeds her chick at Pavlos Beach in Platanias, near Rethymnon (Patrick Comerford)
