Patrick Comerford
I was in Addington, a secluded village outside Winslow in Buckinghamshire, a few times recently, searching mainly for the Old School House (1876), a Jacobethan-style school and schoolmaster’s house that was designed by the Stony Stratford architect Edward Swinfen Harris. But I also spent some time visiting Saint Mary-the-Virgin, a Norman and 14th century church that was rebuilt by the architect George Edmund Street in 1857-1858.
There is evidence of Norman origins for the church, but the present building is basically 14th century, with a nave and two aisles, with a tower that was restored in the 15th century and a chancel and aisles were rebuilt by Street in 1857-1858.
Addington is off the main road, about half way between Winslow (3.2 km) and Buckingham (4.8 km), and with a population of 145. It is first referred to in the Domesday Book (1086), when the manor was held by Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, half-brother of William the Conqueror.
Bishop Odo, who probably commissioned the Bayeux Tapestry, was later banished from England and died in Palermo. The manor was acquired by the family of Romenel, who had held it under Bishop Odo, and then by the FitzBernard family. The living and the rectory were given by the FitzBernards to the Priory of Saint John of Jerusalem in Clerkenwell in 1222, and the earliest-known rector, Henry de Hogginshall, is named when records began that year, in 1222.
Mediaeval rectors of Addington included John de Bokingham, who became Archdeacon of Nottingham (1349), Dean of Lichfield (1350-1363), Archdeacon of Northampton (1351-1363) and Bishop of Lincoln (1362-1398).The advowson of the rectory continued to be vested in the Prior and Convent of Saint John of Jerusalem until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1542. It was annexed to the manor after the Caroline restoration in 1660. The tithes and glebe of this parish were exchanged for certain lands, settled on the rector, by an act of parliament in 1726.
Meanwhile, the manor was sold by the FitzBernard family in 1313 to John Blackett, who soon sold it to Sir John Molins. It then passed through a number of female heirs to the Hungerford and Hastings families before it was sold in 1532 to the Curzons, and by them to John Busby in 1628, marking the start of a long association with the Busby family, who have several monuments in the church.
Sir John Busby, who died in 1700, was colonel of the Buckinghamshire militia. His plaque in the church has a cartouche with trophies and a portrait bust above. The sculptor was Nicholas Bigee. The monument was consecrated by his son Revd Thomas Busby, who was both the patron and rector and was responsible for the church restorations in 1710.
The Revd Thomas Busby was the Rector of Addington from 1693 until he died in 1725; his wife Ann died in 1745. Their monument, erected 28 years after he died by their two daughters and heiress, Anne and Jane.
The monument was made in 1753 by John Michael Rysbrack (1694-1770), a Flemish sculptor who spent most of his career in England. He was one of the foremost sculptors of monuments, architectural decorations and portraits in the mid-18th century, and his works include the monuments to Isaac Newton, John Milton and Ben Jonson in Westminster Abbey, a statue of the Duke of Marlborough, and busts of Robert Walpole, Henry Bolingbroke, and Alexander Pope.
Rysbrack’s monument to Thomas and Ann Busby in Addington shows a cherub with a broken column and an obelisk behind. A putto stands by the broken column, representing the broken Busby line as Thomas Busby had no son, and holds a snake biting its own tail, a symbol of eternal life.
Anne and Jane, the daughters of the Revd Thomas Busby, died within months of each other in 1798 and 1800. Their monument by the sculptor Humphrey Hopper (1767-1844) shows a weeping woman kneeling beside two urns, representing the two sisters.
Anne Busby married Sir Charles Sir Charles Kemeys Tynte (1710-1785), 5th Baronet, MP for Monmouth (1745-1747) and Somerset (1747-1774), who added the name Kemeys to his own in 1747. His mother, Jane Kemeys, Lady Tynte, who died in 1745, was a first cousin of Philip Wharton (1698–1731), Duke of Wharton, the dissipate ‘Rake of Rathfarnham’ who married Maria Theresa O’Neill, sometimes known as Maria Theresa O’Beirne and Maria Theresa Comerford.
Under the wills of Lady Kemyes Tynte and her sister Jane Busby, Addington Manor was inherited by General the Hon Vere Poulett (1761-1812), a son of Vere Poulett (1710-1788), 3rd Earl Poulett. The general was father-in-law of the Irish peer George Nugent-Grenville (1788-1850, 2nd Baron Nugent of Carlanstown, MP for Buckingham (1810-1812) and Aylesbury (1812-1832, 1847-1850), and Lord High Commissioner for the Ionian Islands (1832-1835), when he lived at the Palace in Corfu. From Vere Poulett, the estate passed to his son, John Poulett (1789-1846).
Meanwhile, Addington, like most parishes in Buckinghamshire, was transferred from the Diocese of Lincoln to the Diocese of Oxford in 1845. John Gellibrand Hubbard, a London banker and merchant, bought the Addington Estate in 1854 and initiated a significant building and renovation programme. George Edmund Street, who was the architect for the Diocese of Oxford at the time, was commissioned for several projects by Hubbard, who at the same time was building an imposing mansion nearby as his own residence.
Hubbard, who found the whole estate had fallen into disrepair, rebuilt the Rectory and many of the other buildings. As a consequence, many of the buildings in Addington are of Victorian origin and all the earlier timbered and thatched houses have been lost. Hubbard also built and endowed Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn, and paid for a new chancel aisle in Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church, Buckingham.
Hubbard was an active supporter of the Anglo-Catholic movement and his daughter, the Hon Lucy Marian Hubbard (1845-1893), joined the Community of Saint John Baptist, also known as the Sisters of Mercy or Clewer Sisters, founded in 1852 by the widowed Harriet Monsell and the Revd Thomas Thellusson Carter.
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GE Street (1824-1881) was a leading architect in the Victorian Gothic Revival. Although he is best known as the designer of the Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand in London, he worked mainly as a church architect.
Early in his career, Street worked for five years in the London office of the Buckingham-born architect George Gilbert Scott, who was born in Gawcott, and in 1850 he was architect to the Diocese of Oxford by Bishop Samuel Wilberforce.
Street built or restored 113 churches in the Diocese of Oxford, including at least two dozen churches in Buckinghamshire. His other churches include All Saints’ Church, Margaret Street, London, and his major works outside England include the restoration of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, and Saint Brigid’s Cathedral, Kildare, and designing Saint Paul’s Within the Walls, Rome, and the American Cathedral in Paris.
Street’s rebuilding and restoration of Saint Mary’s Church, Addington, included the porch, aisles and chancel and the addition of a vestry.
After Street’s work, the church was reconsecrated on 8 January 1859 by Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford. The Revd William Fremantle of the Claydons, had assisted as Rural Dean at the re-consecration. He later complained about the ceremonial practices that day, including a procession with a processional cross, the cross set in the wall above the communion table, the placing of an ‘embroidered cover’ (presumably a burse and veil) over the communion vessels and adding water to the Communion wine.
Hubbard hosted the festivities after the reconsecration in his unfinished mansion. In his sermon, the bishop remarked, ‘It (the church) is a free gift of a good man, one who in God’s providence has come to reside amongst you, and who would not build up his own house without providing for the worship of God and for the souls of his people by building and restoring your parish church.’
Hubbard was an MP first for Buckingham and later for the city of London and became 1st Baron Addington in 1887. His memorial on the north wall, by the sculptor E Roscoe Mullins in 1897, says: ‘His life was devoted to the service of God and of his neighbours. To great business ability he added a fervent piety and an unfailing charity. He rebuilt this church in the year 1857. ‘A counsellor, a good man, and just’ S Luke xxiii 50; the Gospel reference is to Joseph of Arimethea.
Saint Mary the Virgin Church in Addington has a nave, chancel, north and south aisles, vestry, porch and a crenellated tower. Set into the high altar is a rare ‘Super Altare,’ probably from the 14th century. It was discovered during the 19th century restoration, along with six books walled up in the chancel, placed there 300 years earlier and valuable records of their times.
At the right hand side of the main altar, is a 12th century capital and shaft that has been converted into a piscina. This had originally been stored in the vestry together with the stone slab that has been set into the altar. The date of these two artefacts suggests that a church stood on this site in the 12th century.
The 14th century arcades and chancel arch are the only substantial parts of the interior of the mediaeval church that survive. The west tower, dating from the 14th century and with unusual pillared supports, is the only exterior part of the mediaeval church that survives. The north and south aisles were added at this time and the tower was restored in 1490.
The 19th century font was designed by Street, the organ was built in 1857, and the church has three bells in use, by John Warner and Son (1870), Chandler (1656) and RA (1626).
The windows in the chancel are 14th century in style, and on either side of the nave are restored 14th century arcades of three pointed arches supported by octagonal piers. The clerestory windows are circular and have glass contemporary with the 19th century restoration but the openings may be 14th century.
The east window and clerestory glass is Victorian. The East Window by Clayton and Bell (1858) depicts the Ascension, the Annunciation, the Crucifixion with the Virgin Mary and Saint John, Saint John leading the Virgin Mary away, the Nativity, the burial of Christ, and an angel greeting the two Marys at the tomb at the Resurrection.
The west window is of two cinquefoil lights under a four centred head and is probably 15th century and it is likely that it was inserted when the tower was restored.
The windows, although originally recorded as having plain glass, now have the largest collection of Netherlandish glass in any church in England. They are thought to have been collected by the first Lord Addington, and were inserted when Street rebuilt the church in 1857-1858. In all, there are over 60 small Netherlandish panels, roundels, ovals and rectangles, some of them of high quality. Except for the four in the west wall of the tower, all are clearly visible, and most of them can be seen in detail.
Further restoration was carried out by the architect Sir Charles Nicholson in 1926-1930, when the south aisle and the chancel were refurnished and panelled.
When John Hubbard (1883-1964), 3rd Baron Addington, died in 1964, the Diocesan Board of Patronage became patrons of the living and the Hubbard connection with Addington came to an end.
Saint Mary-the-Virgin in Addington is part of the benefice of Winslow, which includes Saint Laurence’s Church, Winslow, Saint James’s Church, Great Horwood and Saint Mary’s Church, Addington. The Revd Dr Stephen O’Connor has been the parish priest since 2023, and the other clergy include Canon Alan Hodgetts, who retired to Winslow in 2020, and the Revd Daphne Preece, a retired hospital chaplain and URC minister.
• Saint Mary’s Church, Addington, is a festival church and does not have a regular Sunday service, although services are held about once a month and for major celebrations and festivals, including Nine Lessons and Carols at 5 pm next Sunday (7 December 2025).
