Daily prayer in Advent 2025: 14, Saturday 13 December 2025

‘It is like children sitting in the market-places’ (Matthew 11: 16) … Samuel Johnson's statue in winter sunshine in the Market Square, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

We have passed the half-way into the Season of Advent, and the countdown to Christmas seems to be gathering pace. This week began with the Second Sunday of Advent (Advent II, 7 December 2025), and the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today provides for a Commemoration and Lesser Festival that remembers Saint Lucy (304), Martyr at Syracuse, and Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), writer of dictionaries, literary editor and the ‘Great Moralist’.

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 short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

Samuel Johnson’s monument in a corner of the south transept in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 11: 33-36 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 33 ‘No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar, but on the lampstand so that those who enter may see the light. 34 Your eye is the lamp of your body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light; but if it is not healthy, your body is full of darkness. 35 Therefore consider whether the light in you is not darkness. 36 If then your whole body is full of light, with no part of it in darkness, it will be as full of light as when a lamp gives you light with its rays.’

The Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum in Lichfield where Samuel Johnson was born in 1709 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s reflection:

Those two themes continue to be linked in this morning’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Matthew 11: 11-15), when Christ contrasts the reasons John was rejected with the reasons he is criticised.

The theme in the lectionary readings last Sunday for Advent II (7 December 2025) was the Prophets, while tomorrow’s theme is Saint John the Baptist (Advent III or Gaudete Sunday, 14 December 2025). Those two themes continue to be linked in this morning’s Gospel weekday reading at the Eucharist (Matthew 17: 10-13), when Christ once again compares the Prophet Elijah and Saint John the Baptist.

The Gospel reading for the commemorations of Saint Lucy and Samuel Johnson (Luke 11: 33-36) is a reference too to the fact that both Saint Lucy and Samuel Johnson suffered greatly with their eye problems yet were figures of light.

Saint Lucy was martyred at Syracuse in Sicily ca 283-304. Her relics are kept in a shrine in the beautiful Church of San Geremia, facing onto the Grand Canal in Venice, between the Palazzo Labia and the Palazzo Flangini. In mediaeval accounts, her eyes were gouged out before her execution. Saint Lucy’s name, from the Latin lux, ‘light’, also played a large part in her being named as a patron saint of the blind and people with eye-trouble.

Samuel Johnson was known as ‘The Great Moralist’, although in the 18th century that was a term of affection and honour. He was a pious Anglican throughout his life, but is best remembered as a writer of dictionaries and a literary editor. He was a High Church Anglican and deeply committed to the Church of England since his younger days when he read William Law’s A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life.

It is almost 250 years since Samuel Johnson took his friend James Boswell to Lichfield in 1776 to show him ‘genuine civilised life in an English provincial town’. Later Johnson would recall: ‘I lately took my friend Boswell and showed him genuine civilised life in an English provincial town. I turned him loose at Lichfield.’

They stayed at the Three Crowns in Breadmarket Street, beside the house on the corner of Market Square where Johnson was born and spent his childhood.

When Boswell asked Johson why the people of Lichfield seemed to lack industry, Johnson famously replied that the people of Lichfield were philosophers: ‘Sir, (said Johnson,) we are a city of philosophers: we work with our heads, and make the boobies of Birmingham work for us with their hands.’

Lichfield has grown considerably in the 2½ centuries since that visit, from 4,000 people in Samuel Johnson’s days, to about 35,000 people today. It is one of England’s smallest cities, but it retains its civilised charm, and I return to Lichfield regularly for my own personal retreats and time of prayer and reflection.

Samuel Johnson was a key figure in shaping the English language as we use it today. Indeed, he has been described as ‘arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history’ and his biography by Boswell has been described as ‘the most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature.’

Although Johnson began his literary career as a ‘Grub Street’ journalist, he made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, novelist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer.

The 18th century was a period of great intellectual activity, and Lichfield was home to many figures of intellect and culture, including Samuel Johnson, David Garrick, Erasmus Darwin and Anna Seward, prompting Johnson’s observation that Lichfield was ‘a city of philosophers’.

Samuel Johnson was born on 18 September 1709 in what is now the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum, a five-storey house at the west end of the Market Square.

He married the widowed Elizabeth Porter in 1735, when he was 25 and she was 46 and the mother of three children. Two years later, Johnson and 20-year-old David Garrick set off for London in 1737 in search of fame and fortune. They survived many difficulties, and eventually Johnson became the leading literary figure of his generation and Garrick the leading actor.

Johnson’s fortunes took a dramatic turn in 1746 when a publisher commissioned him to compile a dictionary of the English language – a contract that was worth 1,500 guineas. Johnson claimed he could finish the project in three years. In comparison, the Académie Française had 40 scholars who would spend 40 years completing its French dictionary. Eventually, it took Johnson nine years to complete his Dictionary of the English Language.

Johnson’s Dictionary was not the first, nor was it unique. But it remained the standard, definitive and pre-eminent English dictionary for 150 years, until the Oxford English Dictionary was published in 1928. His Dictionary offers insights into the 18th century, providing ‘a faithful record of the language people used.’ It has been described as ‘one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship.’ As a work of literature, it has had a far-reaching impact on modern English.

Johnson’s legacies in Lichfield include: the Johnson statue in Market Square; his monument in a corner of the south transept of Lichfield Cathedral; John Myatt’s fading mosaic mural on a wall on a corner of Bird Street; and ‘Johnson’s Willow’ on the north shore of Stowe Pool.

I have been familiar with the willow trees at this location for over 50 years, and the present willow tree is the fifth there since Johnson’s days.

When Johnson was young, the willow was close to his father’s parchment factory. When he returned to Lichfield in later years, he never failed to visit the tree, passing it on his way to visit his friends the Aston sisters who lived at the two large houses on Stowe Hill. He is said to have described the willow as ‘the delight of his early and waning life’. The original willow eventually became decayed, and in 1829 it was blown down. But it has been replaced by many of its descendants ever since. A fifth willow was planted on the same site by Stowe Pool on 2 November 2021. The ceremony included a reading of a poem about Johnson’s Willow by Sarah Dale, the winning entry in the Johnson Society’s Willow poetry competition.

On his last visit to church, the walk strained Samuel Johnson. However, while there he wrote a prayer for his friends, the Thrale family: ‘To thy fatherly protection, O Lord, I commend this family. Bless, guide, and defend them, that they may pass through this world, as finally to enjoy in thy presence everlasting happiness, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.’

In his last prayer, on 5 December 1784, before receiving Holy Communion and eight days before he died, Samuel Johnson prayed:

Almighty and most merciful Father, I am now, as to human eyes it seems, about to commemorate, for the last time, the death of thy Son Jesus Christ our Saviour and Redeemer. Grant, O Lord, that my whole hope and confidence may be in his merits, and his mercy; enforce and accept my imperfect repentance; make this commemoration available to the confirmation of my faith, the establishment of my hope, and the enlargement of my charity; and make the death of thy Son Jesus Christ effectual to my redemption. Have mercy on me, and pardon the multitude of my offences. Bless my friends; have mercy upon all men. Support me, by the grace of thy Holy Spirit, in the days of weakness, and at the hour of death; and receive me, at my death, to everlasting happiness, for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen.

As he lay dying, Samuel Johnson’s final words were: ‘Iam Moriturus’ (‘I who am about to die’). He fell into a coma and died at 7 pm on 13 December 1784 at the age of 75. He was buried at Westminster Abbey a week later.

Johnson’s life and work are celebrated in a stained glass window in Southwark Cathedral, he has monuments in Westminster Abbey, Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London, and Lichfield Cathedral, and he is named in the calendar of the Church of England on this day as a modern Anglican saint.

John Myatt’s fading mosaic mural of Samuel Johnson on a wall on a corner of Bird Street, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 13 December 2025):

The theme this week (7 to 13 December 2025) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel),has been ‘Divine Sufficiency’ (pp 8-9). This theme was introduced last Sunday with Reflections from the Revd Neli Miranda, Vicar at Saint James the Apostle in Guatemala City and Professor of Theology at the University Mariano Gálvez of Guatemala.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 13 December 2025) invites us to pray:

We pray for the Spirit of Solidarity to grow among Christian communities, and that this spirit may not only alleviate immediate needs but also become a force for social change.

The Collect:

Eternal Father,
whose servant Samuel Johnson knew the omnipotence and omniscience of the divine presence in his life,
giving him the grace of great learning and piety:
help us to use wisely the gifts you have entrusted to us,
not swelling with pride,
but humbly acknowledging the glorious wonder
of the blessing we have received.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God of truth,
whose Wisdom set her table
and invited us to eat the bread and drink the wine
of the kingdom:
help us to lay aside all foolishness
and to live and walk in the way of insight,
that we may come with your servant Samuel Johnson
to the eternal feast of heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of Advent III:

O Lord Jesus Christ,
who at your first coming sent your messenger
to prepare your way before you:
grant that the ministers and stewards of your mysteries
may likewise so prepare and make ready your way
by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just,
that at your second coming to judge the world
we may be found an acceptable people in your sight;
for you are alive and reign with the Father
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

The shrine of Santa Lucia di Siracusa or Saint Lucy of Syracuse in the Church of San Geremia in Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

Saint Lucy depicted in a monument to Lucy Marian Hubbard in Saint Mary’s Church, Addington, near Buckingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Mary the Virgin, a Norman church in secluded Addington, was restored by GE Street in the 1850s

Saint Mary-the-Virgin, a Norman and 14th century church in Addington, near Winslow in Buckinghamshire, was rebuilt by George Edmund Street in 1857-1858 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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.

The church in Addington was linked to the Priory of Saint John of Jerusalem from 1222 to 1542 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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.

The monument to Sir John Busby by Nicholas Bigee (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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 monument to the Revd Thomas Busby by John Michael Rysbrack (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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.

The monument to Anne Busby, Lady Kemyes Tynte, and her sister Jane Busby by Humphrey Hopper (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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).

Inside Saint Mary’s Church, Addington, facing east (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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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The monument to Lucy Marian Hubbard in Saint Mary’s Church includes a depiction of Saint Lucy (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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 rebuilt the chancel in Saint Mary’s Church, Addington (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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.

John Gellibrand Hubbard’s monumennt in Saint Mary’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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.

GE Street designed the 19th century font (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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.

Saint Mary’s Church, Addington, has the largest collection of Netherlandish glass in any church in England (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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.

Inside Saint Mary’s Church, looking from the chancel towards the west end and the tower (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

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).

The west tower of Saint Mary’s Church, Addington, dates from the 14th century and is the only exterior part of the mediaeval church that survives (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The east end of Saint Mary’s Church, Addington (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

JO Scott’s hospital is a hidden gem in Buckingham that has survived NHS changes and threats of closure

Buckingham Hospital was designed by John Oldrid Scott (1841-1913) and was built as Buckingham Nursing Home in 1886 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I regularly change buses or stop briefly in Buckingham on my way from Stony Stratford to Oxford and other towns and villages in Buckinghamshire and neighbouring Oxfordshire.

The open space on High Street, east of the Old Gaol that now serves as the town’s bus station and market square was once the site of the cattle market in Buckingham but now has the function of a market square and bus stop. This area was once known as Cow Fair, North-East End and Hubbard Boulevard, and was only properly laid out in the late 19th century after Buckingham Hospital was built in 1886.

With the decline in importance of Buckingham Castle in the 12th and 13th centuries, the economic centre of the town moved eastwards to the present site of Market Square, Market Hill and High Street.

The rectangular open area of High Street between the Old Gaol and the bus stop forms a square that is divided into two islands. It has benefited from an environmental enhancement scheme in the 1990s, and one report declared ‘the former Cow Fair has a rather continental feel.’

Buckingham Hospital was given to the town of Buckingham in 1886 by John Gellibrand Hubbard (1805-1889), a year before he became Lord Addington (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Buckingham Hospital was built as Buckingham Nursing Home in 1886, with its entrance on the north-west side of the former Cattle Market, between No 19 and No 21 High Street. The entrance, across the street from the bus stop, has attractive curved metal railings atop a low brick boundary wall and metal gates.

The line of the this wall runs around the north-east and north-west boundaries of the hospital, and was built originally to enclose the Buckingham Union Workhouse. The workhouse was built in the late 1830s to a design by the architect Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811-1878), who was born in Gawcott, a village about 2.4 km (1.5 miles) south-west of Buckingham where his father where his father, the Revd Thomas Scott (1780-1835), was the perpetual curate or vicar.

Scott began his career as a leading designer of workhouses and became a prolific Gothic Revival architect, working on the design, building and renovation of churches and cathedrals. He designed or altered over 800 buildings and his other workhouses in Buckinghamshire included Winslow and Amersham. His workhouse in Buckingham was demolished in the 1960s.

Buckingham Hospital was built in 1886 to designs by Scott’s son, the architect John Oldrid Scott (1841-1913). He was a son of Sir George Gilbert Scott and Caroline (Oldrid) Scott; his brother George Gilbert Scott junior and nephew Sir Giles Gilbert Scott were also prominent architects.

John Oldrid Scott was responsible for many significant churches, and his works in this area include Saint George the Martyr Church, Wolverton (transepts, 1894) and Saint George’s Sunday School and Church Institute, Wolverton (1907-1908).

Buckingham Hospital was built as Buckingham Nursing Home (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Royal Buckinghamshire Hospital is in Aylesbury, but Buckingham Hospital is in Buckingham.

Buckingham Hospital was given to the town in 1886 by John Gellibrand Hubbard (1805-1889), 1st Baron Addington, a City of London financier and a Conservative politician. He gave his name to Addington Road in Buckingham, behind the hospital, and to the former Hubbard Boulevard.

Hubbard was the MP for Buckingham from 1859 until he lost the seat in the 1868 general election, and then for the City of London from 1874 until 1887, when he was made a peer with the title of Lord Addington.

Hubbard bought the Addington estate near Buckingham in 1854, demolished Addington House which had fallen into disrepair, and commissioned the architect Philip Charles Hardwick (1822-1892) to design Addington Manor in 1856-1857.

A of flight of stone steps leads up to the central doorway of Buckingham Hospital (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Buckingham Hospital stands on raised ground and Scott’s main building is largely obscured from view from the High Street and the bus stop, tucked away in the west corner of the site to the rear of 21 to 23 High Street and Toombs Yard.

It is a substantial, handsome building, built with vitrified bricks laid in a header bond with red bricks that emphasise its architectural details. The principal elevation is symmetrical with a central bay and two shallow gable wings to each end of the façade. A flight of stone steps leads up to the central doorway, which has a stone surround and pediment above. Each floor of the gable wings has canted sash bay windows.

The roof is tiled and elegant banded brick and stone ridge stacks punctuate the ridgeline.

The roof of Buckingham Hospital is tiled and elegant banded brick and stone ridge stacks punctuate the ridgeline (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The hospital has been greatly extended in more recent years with a substantial addition to the rear and a number of other buildings in the grounds. None of these additions contribute to the character or setting of the Victorian building or the Conservation Area.

The hospital first appeared on official maps as the ‘Nursing Home’, but it was known as Buckingham Hospital on maps from as early as the 1930s. It was privately financed until 1948, when it became part of the National Health Service.

GG Scott’s workhouse was demolished in the 1960s, and his son’s hospital was threatened with closure in the decade from 1966 to 1977 because of its small size. But local funds were raised to provide staff wages and to expand facilities in 1970s and 1980s and the hospital was kept open. The hospital buildings were extended in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The railings and entrance Buckingham Hospital, facing the bus stand on High Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Between Moreton Road and the entrance to the hospital, along the north-west side of High Street and the former cattle market, Nos 21 to 37 High Street include a picturesque mixture of two-storey and three-storey cottages, many built in brick and stone and with timber framing. They range in date from the 15th and 16th centuries through to the 17th, 18th and 19th century, and some of them have earlier origins than their appearances suggest.

Most of these cottages open onto the very edge of the footpath and they form an almost unbroken row that gives them a prominence in the streetscape of Buckingham and that helps to define and enclose the north-west side of the former Cattle Market in front of the hospital.

Picturesque cottages along the north-west side of High Street add to the colour and character of the street beside the hospital entrance (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Searching for the Old Rectory by Swinfen Harris among the old thatched houses in Maids Moreton

The Old Rectory in Maids Moreton, on the edges of Buckingham, was rebuilt by Edward Swinfen Harris in 1878-1879 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

As I continue my ‘field trips’ in search of buildings in this area designed by the Stony Stratford architect Edward Swinfen Harris (1841-1924), I visited the small village of Maids Moreton earlier this week.

In recent weeks, these ‘field trips’ have taken me to Roade in Northamptonshire, where Swinfen Harris designed Tylecote House (1894) for a local GP, Dr O’Ryan; Addington, outside Winslow, where he designed the Old School House (1876); and Buckingham, where the U3A (University of the Third Age) Architecture Group invited me to speak in Buckingham Library about his life and work (11 September 2025).

In Maids Moreton, the Uthwatt family commissioned Swinfen Harris to rebuild the Old Rectory (1878-1879) beside Saint Edmund’s Church, the oldest building in the village.

Corner Cottage on Duck Lane … the right-hand half is timber-framed with whitewashed plaster and brick infill and a whitewashed stone plinth, the left-hand half is of brick with rubble stone (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Maids Moreton is about a mile (1.6 km) north-east of Buckingham, on top of a plateau overlooking Buckingham, at the north end of the Vale of Aylesbury. The historic core of the village is concentrated along three principal streets: Duck Lake and Towcester Road to the north-west, Church Street to the south-east and Main Street, which runs between these two from north-west to south-east, and around Saint Edmund’s Church on Church Street, a short distance south-west of Main Street.

Modern development has made a significant impact on the setting of the village, with the growth of modern housing estates such as Manor Park, Hall Close, Church Close and Glebe Close along Main Street and Church Street. Yet, despite the expansion of Buckingham reaching the edges of the village, Maids Moreton retains its independence and a strong, separate identity.

As I strolled around Maids Moreton, I found a high concentrations of old historic buildings at the north-west and south-east ends of Main Street, with clusters of old buildings also along Duck Lake, around the junction of Duck Lake, Towcester Road and Main Street and close to Saint Edmund’s Church at the south-east end of the village.

Maids Moreton has many 17th century houses and cottages with timber frames, brick or plaster filling and thatched roofs. The Old Rectory and Maids Moreton Hall close to the church are two large 19th century buildings that are widely spaced set within substantial grounds, dating from an important period of change in the village.

The Wheatsheaf, a 17th century timber-frame public house on Main Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Archaeological evidence suggests the area around Maids Moreton was settled from at least the Iron Age. Maids Moreton itself probably began as an Anglo-Saxon settlement on the south slopes of the valley of the River Great Ouse, where the land was rich and fertile and the river provided good access to water and to transport.

The historic core of the village is found around Saint Edmund’s Church, probably the oldest part of the village and dating from the Anglo-Saxon period. The village may have assumed its current form through the coalescence of farmsteads and manors over the course of time and the gradual development of buildings along the tracks and roads interconnecting them.

At the Domesday survey in 1086, Maids Moreton is listed as ‘Mortone’. The name may mean the ‘farm on the mor or swampy ground.’ The origins of the prefix Maids is said to date back to the 15th century, and local lore says two maiden sisters of the Pever, Poevre, Poever or Peyvre family who are said to have rebuilt Saint Edmund’s Church.

The sisters are said to have been conjoined twins and that when one sister died, the other died also. Whether they are legendary or historical, the sisters are recalled in the name of Maids Morton, in a poem by the Revd J Tarver of Filgrave, and in a wall painted epitaph above the north door and brasses in Saint Edmund’s Church. But more about them in a posting next Tuesday (11 November 2025).

Holly Tree Cottage on Main Street, once the old off-licence, dates from the 17th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

There were several early manors within Maids Moreton. After the Norman Conquest, a manor at the south end of the village remained in the possession of an Englishman named Leofwin of Nuneham Courtney.

Maids Moreton became part of a royal hunting forest of Whittlewood, but was it was disafforested sometime before 1286. The earlier manor had fallen into disrepair by the 1290s and a new house was built in the 1300s, possibly on the site now occupied by Maids Moreton Hall. The manor became known as Greenham’s Manor, after the family that held it during the reign of Henry IV. It was held by the Crown for a time before it was granted to All Souls College, Oxford, in 1442. The home farm of this manor is confusingly called the Old Manor, and was once known as the Manor Farmhouse.

A manor along Main Street on the site of the Manor Park estate passed from the Clare family and the Stafford family who were Dukes of Buckingham to Christ Church College, Oxford. The Scott family farmed it for several generations.

Woodbine Cottage on Main Street, a 17th century house with a timber frame, whitewashed brick infill, a half-hipped thatch roof and an off-centre brick stack (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The earliest domestic buildings date from the 16th and 17th centuries. However, earlier fabric is often hidden behind later facades as for example at Yew Trees where a cruck-built core probably dating from the 15th or 16th century was recently found within a building that had previously been dated to the 17th century.

Timber was the main material used in the construction of buildings in Maids Moreton up to the18th century. Although there are examples where timber framing is hidden beneath render or later re-fronting of buildings, in the majority of cases the timber frame is visible.

The majority of surviving timber-dframe buildings were built in a simple box frame although there is also an example of a surviving cruck frame at Yewtrees on Duck Lake, although the cruck frame at Yewtrees is disguised beneath render and hidden from external view. The majority of the panels between the timber elements have been infilled with brick. Brick became a relatively common building material in Maids Morerton from the late 18th and 19th centuries. It was used in older timber framed buildings as an infill for the panels between the timber elements and was also used to refront or extend earlier buildings.

Maids Moreton Hall, built by the Burrows family in the 19th century, is now a care home (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Because Maids Moreton was so close to Buckingham, it became an attractive place to live in from the mid-19th century. A number of larger properties were built for more affluent families, including the Elms, now the Red House, on Main Street and Maids Moreton House, now Vitalograph.

Maids Moreton Hall was built by the Burrows family in the 19th century on the site of former manor. It is a large brick building with stone dressing, a complex roof form and prominent decorative chimneys. There are mullion and transom windows and some dormers.

The house became the centre of Buckinghamshire lace industry in the late 19th century under Miss MEB Burrows.

The Uthwatt family commissioned Edward Swinfen Harris to redesign and rebuild the Old Rectory in 1878-1879 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Uthwatt family became prominent in the village in the 19th century. They commissioned Edward Swinfen Harris, who lived and worked in Stony Stratford, to redesign and rebuild the Old Rectory. At the time the Rector of Maids Moreton was the Revd Bolton Waller Johnstone (1823-1903). His parents, the Revd John Beresford Johnstone and Elizabeth Waller of Castletown Park, Co Limerick, were married in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, and he was born in Kilkenny and educated at Trinity College Dublin.

The 2½-storey Old Rectory is built in brick, with a steeply-pitched tiled roof, a prominent chimney, and irregular fenestration with stone dressings. A stringcourse runs between the ground and first floor and on the gable end between each storey. On the gable, the stringcourse forms an arch above each window opening at the first floor level and a staggered effect below the window between the ground and first floor. This decorative effect enlivens the elevations and creates interest in the form of shadows and texture.

Due to its scale and its location close to the church, the Old Rectory is a visually prominent building that makes a strong architectural statement and a positive contribution to the character and appearance of the village.

Swinfen Harris also designed the Uthwatt’s new house, named Southfields, and he may also have designed Foscote Lodge and Foscote Rectory nearby.

The Old Rectory is a visually prominent building in Maids Moreton that makes a strong architectural statement and a positive contribution to the character and appearance of the village (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The expansion of Maids Moreton in the 20th century began when the sale of the Uthwatt’s family manor in 1928 released land for development in the village.

Maids Moreton Hall was a private residence until the time of World War II, when it became the Buckinghamshire county branch of the National Heart Hospital. Extensions were added in the 1960s, and it has been in use as an old persons home to the present day.

The village experienced a major period of growth in the 1960s when Manor Park and the new school were built. The old post office, at the junction of Main Street with the A413, closed in the mid-1990s and is now a private house.

Maids Moreton received unwanted attention in 2019 when Ben Field was jailed for the murder of a local resident Peter Farquhar in 2015. The case was the centre of the 2023 BBC drama The Sixth Commandment.

Despite its close proximity to Buckingham, Maids Moreton was once a self-sufficient community with a church, school, public houses, bakery, forge, cobblers, post office and other commercial buildings located along Main Street. Today, there are no shops surviving in the village.

The current resident population is 1,080, according to estimates, compared with 425 in 1901 and 239 in 1801. The majority of working age residents now commute from Maids Moreton to work in Buckingham, Milton Keynes, Aylesbury or even as far away as London. Today, Maids Moreton is facing how to deal with two greenfield planning applications to build 163 and 15 houses that would increasing the size of the village size by 50%.

But more about Saint Edmund’s Church tomorrow (9 November 2025), hopefully, and about the Maids of Maids Moreton in the days to come (11 November 2025).

The Whitney Box and Whitney Box Cottage, a pair of 17th century cottages on Church Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Visiting Addington near Winslow to see the former schoolhouse built in 1876 by Edward Swinfen Harris

The Old School House in Addington, near Winslow, Buckinghamshire, was designed by Edward Swinfen Harris in 1876 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

My research into the life and work of the Stony Stratford architect Edward Swinfen Harris (1841-1924), is developing and growing in many exciting new directions. There are further invitations to speak about his work and its importance, and there is talk too of a new book.

But as I write about his work I also need to see it for myself with my own eyes. Two weeks ago I went to see Tylecote House on Hartwell Road, Roade, half-way between Old Stratford and Northampton.

This week I caught a bus from Stony Stratford to Addington to see the Old School House, Addington (1876), outside Winslow, a Jacobethan-style school and schoolmaster’s house that is now a private house.

Addington is a village in Buckinghamshire, about half way between Winslow (3.2 km) and Buckingham (4.8 km), and with a population of 145 people.

Addington is first referred to in the Domesday Book (1086) as Edintone, a name that means Eadda’s Estate. At the time, the manor was in the possession of Odo, Bishop of Bayeux.

The main buildings in Addington include Saint Mary’s Church, Addington House on the site of the much older manor, and Addington Equestrian Centre, one of the prime sites for equestrian sports in the UK. The parish church is dedicated to Saint Mary the Virgin. The church has three bells, the oldest dating back to 1666, hung for English change ringing and one sanctus bell hung for chiming.

Addington is about half way between Winslow and Buckingham in Buckinghamshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

I was in Addington to see the former school and schoolmaster’s house designed by Edward Swinfen Harris and built in 1876, with its bellcote and tall ‘Jacobeathan’ chimneys. The school was the gift of John Gellibrand Hubbard (1805-1889), a London financier, Conservative MP for Buckingham (1859-1868) and the City of London (1874-1887), and later Lord Addington (1887).

Swinfen Harris designed the house in a picturesque ‘Jacobeathan’ style and it was built in red brick with bands of blue brick and stone dressings. It has a tiled roof with ornamental panelled bargeboards.

The single-storey school room to the right has two gabled bays of three-light stone mullioned windows with bonded stone surrounds, small square centre lights over and small stone roundels at the apex of gable. The elaborate external chimney stack between bays has a decorative date plaque and an octagonal stone shaft.

The door to the left has an open timber porch with a hipped roof, an ogee arch with ornamented spandrels at the front and balusters with decorative cusping to the side. An enclosed porch at the right gable is half-timbered with some herringbone brick infill and a pointed arched door.

The open bellcote over the right-hand bay has a shingled spirelet. The two-storey schoolmaster’s house in the cross wing to the left has a hipped roof and tall ‘Jacobeathan’ chimney shafts. The gable at the front has a three-light sash window with stone mullions on first floor and square bay window with similar lights and a hipped roof below.

It has been converted and extended so that today it is a detached house with four bedrooms and four bathrooms and 2379 sq ft of space, with double glazed windows and has been extended since construction before 1900. When it was on the market recently a price of £1.5 million to £2 million was quoted.

Saint Mary’s Church in Addinton may stand on the site of an earlier Anglo-Saxon church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The former manor house in Addington was used twice during the English Civil War as the headquarters of the parliamentarian forces. The Addington Manor estate was bought by JG Hubbard in 1854 before he was elected MP for Buckingham. He demolished part of the old house in 1857 and built a new Addington Manor to designs by Philip Charles Hardwick (1822-1892) in 1856-1857. Its site was near the earlier Addington House, which had belonged to John Poulett son of Vere Poulett, but had fallen into disrepair.

Hardwick is best known for designing the Doric Arch and Great Hall at Euston Station and the Great Western Hotel at Paddington Station. He designed the new manor in a French style with a large conservatory.

Addington Manor was built of brick with Bath stone quoins and dressings and heavy lead roofing, in the modified form of the French chateau style, with three lofty towers and a fine conservatory.

Round the great central tower were inscribed the words ‘Except the Lord build the house their labour is but lost that build it. Anno Domini 1857’. Over the library window, amid decorations of vine foliage and fruit, were the words ‘Dei Donum’. The third storey windows on the south and west sides of the mansion were crowned with the initials in monogram of the Lord and Lady Adlington, while on the north and south fronts of the building was the family’s heraldic emblem and the motto Alta Petens (‘Seek Higher Things’).

The ceiling of the oak hall was decorated by Owen Jones, and was said to be an exact copy of the oak ceiling in the older Addington Manor.

The Hubbard family moved into Addington Manor in December 1858 and there their distinguished visitors included the Duke of Connaught, Princess Victoria Louise, Bishop Wilberforce, members of the Gladstone family and prominent political figures.

Hubbard also built and endowed Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn, which was designed by the architect William Butterfield, and as patron appointed Father Alexander Mackonochie as the priest.

His son, Egerton Hubbard (1842-1915), 2nd Baron Addington, was MP for Buckingham in 1874-1880 and 1886-1889. He died in 1915, and during World War I the house was let as a school. Later, the house was occupied by Mrs Lawson-Johnston and family, and was then a guest house and hotel with Mrs Hocker and Mr Gordon Holmes.

Addington Manor was sold in 1926 to CB Smith-Bingham who lived nearby at Addington House. An auction sale to dispose of fittings and materials was held in June 1928 with a further auction a month later. He demolished Addington Manor in 1928 and it was rebuilt in the neo-classical style in 1928-1929, designed by the architect Michael Theodore Waterhouse (1889-1968).

During World War II, Addington Manor was a safe house from 1940 to 1945 for the Moravec, Strankmüller and Tauer families of the Czechoslovak military intelligence staff, who had their headquarters in London. František Moravec planned the assassination in Prague of Reinhard Heydrich, one of the principal architects of the Holocaust, although his killing was masterminded in London and not in Addington.

The house was eventually sold to Kenneth James William Mackay, 3rd Earl of Inchcape, who founded the Addington Equestrian Centre on the estate.

Addington House, Park House, Addington Place and Addington Grange were once one house (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Addington House, Park House, Addington Place and Addington Grange were once one house, formerly Addington House, but are now divided into four separate units. This house dates from the late 17th century and it was much altered in 1859-1860 and again in the 20th century.

The Stable Block, Vine Cottage and the Stocks are developed from a former stable block at Addington House that has been converted onto flats and workshops. The date 1642 is inscribed on a tablet re-set above central arch.

The Tythe Barn in Addington was built in the late 16th century and it too is now converted into housing.

Saint Mary’s Church was open when I visited Addington this week, and I must describe it in detail in a posting in the days or weeks ahead.

The former schoolhouse designed by Edward Swinfen Harris is now a private house (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)