A return to Headington, where I find the story of an anti-war protest behind the ‘Headington Shark’

The Headington Shark is a sculpture of a large shark embedded head-first in the roof of a terraced house at 2 New High Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Headington is a suburb in east Oxford, at the top of Headington Hill overlooking the city in the Thames valley below, with Marston to the north-west, Cowley to the south, and Barton and Risinghurst to the east. When I first visited Oxford in my teens, around 1969 or 1970, I stayed in Headington at the youth hostel in Cowley House on Jack Straw’s Lane, which closed in 2001.

I have been through Headington many times in recent years, on my way to and from the hospitals. But an appointment earlier this week at John Radcliffe Hospital and a follow-up visitlater in the week, offered opportunities and time to walk around Headington, and to see the ‘Headington Shark’, the area’s most celebrated landmark and an anti-war protest. There was time too to see Saint Andrew’s Church, Holy Trinity Church and some other churches in the area; to see the ‘Black Booy’ – a pub with a controversial name; and to look into some of Headington’s literary, academic and cultural connections, including links with CS Lewis and Isaiah Berlin.

The commercial and shopping life of Headington and traffic through the area focuses on London Road, the main road between London and Oxford. But Headington also has not one but two High Streets, New High Street and Old High Street. And it was on one of those streets that I found the ‘Headington Shark’ and other noticeable sites.

The Headington Clock in the centre of commercial and shopping life and traffic on London Road in Headington (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Headington Shark – properly named ‘Untitled 1986’ – is a sculpture of a large shark embedded head-first in the roof of a terraced house at 2 New High Street. It began as protest art, installed 40 years ago by Bill Heine and John Buckley, without planning permission and as an anti-war protest, symbolising bombs crashing into homes and buildings.

The shark was installed on 9 August 1986 on the roof of the home of Bill Heine, an American-born radio presenter. Heine and Buckley came up with the idea of the shark while they were drinking wine on the street, and imagined the shark as a metaphor for bombs falling from the US warplanes that flew overhead on their way to bomb Libya.

The shark is in deliberate contrast with its ordinary suburban location. It was designed, created and installed by the Leeds-born sculptor John Buckley with his friend Anton Castiau, a local carpenter. ‘The shark was to express someone feeling totally impotent and ripping a hole in their roof out of a sense of impotence and anger and desperation’, Heine said. ‘It is saying something about CND, nuclear power, Chernobyl and Nagasaki’.

The painted fibreglass sculpture weighs 200 kg (450 lb), is 7.6 metre (25 ft) long, and the title ‘Untitled 1986’ is written on the gate. It took three months to build the installation, and it was put in place on the 41st anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945.

The Headington Shark began as anti-war and nuclear statement by John Buckley and Bill Hein (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Over time, there were complaints about the conditions of the sculpture and the house, so to mark the shark’s 21st anniversary it was renovated by Buckley in 2007. Magnus Hanson-Heine, bought the house in 2016 to preserve the shark, before his father Bill Heine died on 2 April 2019. The house has been an Airbnb guesthouse since 2018.

The shark was controversial and was the subject of a six-year battle between Oxford City Council and Bill Heine. The council tried to remove the shark on the grounds of safety and because it did not have proper planning permission. However, the shark had much local support. The Department of the Environment ruled on planning grounds in 1992 that the shark could remain in place because it did not harm a visual amenity.

Oxford City Council had the shark listed with Historic England in 2016 and designated the sculpture a heritage site in 2022, despite objection from Magnus Hanson-Heine, who said, ‘Using the planning apparatus to preserve a historical symbol of planning law defiance is absurd.’

Saint Andrew’s Lane in Old Headington … people have lived in Headington ever since the Stone Age (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

People have lived in Headington ever since the Stone Age, and excavations in Barton Lane suggest a date in the 11th century BCE, while pottery found on the Manor Ground is evidence of an Iron Age settlement in the 7th century BCE. The site of a Roman villa and Roman kilns from about 300 CE have been found, and Anglo-Saxon burial remains from about 500 CE have been discovered.

The name Headington comes from the Old English Hedena’s dun, meaning ‘Hedena’s hill’, and it was the site of a palace or hunting lodge of the Kings of Mercia. Æthelred the Unready, in a charter in 1004, gave land in Headington to Saint Frideswide’s Priory, including the quarry and the area around it.

Henry I granted a chapel at Headington to the Augustinians of Saint Frideswide’s Priory when the priory was founded in 1122. Saint Andrew’s Church, the oldest surviving building in Headington, was built in the mid-12th century, enlarged in the 13th century, the bell tower dates from the 13th or 14th century and the Gothic Revival architect JC Buckler restored the church and lengthened the nave in 1862-1864.

Stone from Headington Quarry was used to build Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1474, and was later used to build Cardinal College, later Christ Church.

Headington Football Club, later Headington United, was formed in 1893 and eventually became Oxford United.

Headington developed rapidly in the early 20th century, with new housing around the mediaeval village, now known as Old Headington, around Saint Andrew’s Church. New Headington, south side of London Road, dates from the late 19th century, and other neighbourhoods include Highfield, Quarry and Headington Hill.

Today the main employment sectors are medicine, education and research. The area includes the main campus of Oxford Brookes University, Ruskin College, which moved to Headington in 2012, and Oxford’s main hospitals, including the John Radcliffe, Nuffield and Churchill.

A plaque at the gate of the Headington House commemorates Sir Isaiah Berlin, who lived there from 1956 until he died in 1997 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Headington’s notable residents have included the poet Elizabeth Jennings; CS Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia, who lived in the area until he died in 1963 and who is buried at Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry; JRR Tolkien, author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, who lived in Headington from 1953 to 1968; the author Elizabeth Bowen; the newspaper publisher Robert Maxwell; and Lord Nuffield (William Morris).

Oxford academics who have lived in Headington include Sir Anthony Kenny, who died earlier last month (3 August 2026), and Sir Isaiah Berlin, who married Mrs Aline Halban of Headington House in 1956, and lived there until he died in 1997. The comedian David Mitchell, star of the BBC series Ludwig, grew up in Headington.

Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo (1886-1978), a Spanish writer, diplomat, writer, historian and pacifist and Professor of Spanish at Oxford University, lived in Headington before and after the Spanish Civil War, in 1929-1931 and 1940-1973. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Nobel Peace Prize, received the Charlemagne Prize in 1973.

The house in Headington where Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo lived before and after the Spanish Civil War (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The original, 17th century Black Boy stood from 1667 or earlier at the corner of Barton Lane and Old High Street. The board above the door showed a black boy-servant, a sign commonly hung outside coffee houses in the 17th century. The pub was rebuilt on the site as the present Black Boy on Old High Street in 1937.

The rebuilt pub used to have a sculpted figure of a black servant in the niche above the entrance, but this was smashed in 1990 and was replaced by the painting of a chimney-sweep’s boy, which was supposedly more politically correct. Even so, in 1997 there was an unsuccessful attempt by Oxford students to get the pub’s name changed on the grounds that it was offensive.

The niche remained empty from about 2008, but now a black horse decorates the façade as a new story is told about the pub taking its name from a racehorse. Watching school children walk by in the afternoon September sunshine, I wondered what any black child in Headington would think of the name of the pub, no matter what explanation or excuse is offered.

The Black Boy at the corner of Barton Lane and Old High Street was rebuilt on the site in 1937 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

I have yet to be convinced by those explanations or excuses. Instead, I visited the White Hart at 12 St Andrew’s Road, across the street from Saint Andrew’s Church. The White Hart dates from the late 17th century, and is believed to have been the inn once known as ‘Joan of Headington’s’. It is a listed building, and retains some of its original panelling and doors.

In the 17th century, Headington was a favourite destination of Oxford academics taking a walk into the country. As the present main road through the centre did not exist at the time, after reaching the top of Headington Hill they would continue along Cuckoo Lane to the alehouse where the Joan of Headington apparently offered more than ale. By 1750, the inn had become more respectable and it was given a new name as the White Hart.

The White Hart was the annual meet for the South Oxfordshire Hounds, and was also a centre for the mummers. A 26 ft-deep well was discovered in the courtyard in 1976, but was covered for safety reasons.

As for the former youth hostel, which I stayed in when I was 17 or 18, it was renamed Dorothea Beale House after one of the founders of St Hilda’s College, its address is now 32B Jack Straw’s Lane, and it is a children’s nursery.

But more about Saint Andrew’s Church and some other churches in Headington, Jack Straw’s Lane and the connections with CS Lewis in the days to come, hopefully.

The White Hart at 12 St Andrew’s Road, across the street from Saint Andrew’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Holy Trinity Church, Oxford, the church on Blackfriars Road lost in 1950s slum clearances

Blackfriars Road, Oxford … Holy Trinity Church was built in 1845 and demolished in 1957 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

As I made my way from the Grandpont area of south Oxford, crossing the River Thames and Gasworks Pipe Bridge to search for the site of the former Greyfriars at Westgate, I could not but notice the ecclesiastical tone to many of the street names between the river and Westgate Oxford: Friars Wharf, Preachers Lane, Blackfriars Road, Trinity Street …

This southern part of Saint Ebbe’s parish was once known as the Friars, recalling the Greyfriars or Franciscans and Blackfriars or Dominicans who settled in Saint Ebbe’s in the early decades of the 13th century.

The two friaries were abolished in the 1530s at the dissolution of the monastic houses during the Tudor Reformation, and most of their buildings were demolished. But their memory lived on in the local placenames such as Greyfriars, Friars Wharf, Preachers Lane, Trinity Street and Blackfriars Road.

That part of Saint Ebbe’s parish changed dramatically in the early decades of the 19th century when the gasworks opened on the north bank of the River Thames in 1818. As the population of Saint Ebbe’s increased, a schoolroom was licensed for services in 1842 and a new parish – Holy Trinity – was formed from the southern part of Saint Ebbe’s parish, with a stipend of £150 provided for the incumbent.

Holy Trinity, Blackfriars Road, Oxford ca 1910 … opened in 1845 and closed in 1954 (Photograph © Oxfordshire History Centre, Oxfordshire County Council)

The new parish church, Holy Trinity Church, was designed in Early English style by the Oxford-based architect Henry Jones Underwood (1804-1852). It was built on the corner of Blackfriars Road and Trinity Street in 1844-1845 and opened in 1845.

Around the same time, a similarly-named Holy Trinity Church was being built in the village of Headington Quarry, Oxford, in 1848-1849. That church was designed by the architect George Gilbert Scott and later became known for its associations with CS Lewis.

Henry Jones Underwood, the architect of Holy Trinity Church, Blackfriars Road, was a brother of the architects Charles Underwood and George Allen Underwood, and spent most of his career in Oxford. He trained in London as a pupil of Henry Hake Seward and then joined the office of Sir Robert Smirke.

Underwood moved to Oxford in 1830 to work on alterations to the Bodleian Library. Much of his subsequent work involved designing churches and educational buildings as the city and the university expanded and the Oxford Movement increased in influence. He designed the library of the Oxford Botanic Garden (1835), and Saint Paul’s Church, Walton Street (1836), the first new parish to be created in Oxford and the first new church to be built in Oxford since the Reformation. Both were built in the Greek Revival style, but Underwood is best known for his work in the Gothic Revival style.

Underwood also designed Saint Mary and Saint Nicholas Church in Littlemore for John Henry Newman in 1835, and it became a model for his other churches. The church was originally built as a chapel of ease to the parish of the University Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, Oxford. Littlemore became its own parish in 1847 and in time the church became a centre of Anglo-Catholicism.

Underwood’s other works in Oxford included Saint John the Baptist Church, Summertown (1831, demolished 1924); buildings for Exeter College on Turl Street and Broad Street (1833-1834); rebuilding Cardinal Wolsey’s Almshouses to make a grander entrance for Pembroke College (1834); and the north aisle of Saint Thomas’s Church (1846). Underwood died by suicide in 1852 at the White Hart Hotel, Bath, and JC Buckler completed his extension to Oxford Prison, now the Malmaison Hotel.

A legacy photograph of the interior of Holy Trinity Church, Blackfriars Road (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Holy Trinity parish was in one of the poorest quarters of Oxford and the church was built from cheap materials. There were two services each Sunday in 1854 and a monthly Communion service. The parish was a densely populated and very poor area to the south of the city centre. Great poverty, many beer shops, Sunday work in the colleges, ‘unbelieving masters’, and people tainted with ‘Calvinism and infidelity’ were blamed for what were regarded at the time as small church attendance figures.

By 1869, there were four Sunday services, with Holy Communion every Sunday and on holy days, and daily Morning and Evening Prayer. At the request of the churchwardens and ‘principal parishioners’ a surpliced choir had been introduced, all indicating the influence of the Tractarian movement and early Anglo-Catholicism.

Daily Morning Prayer was abandoned in 1872, but the number of Easter communicants rose steadily from 135 in 1872 to 199 in 1884. The patronage of Holy Trinity belonged alternately to the Crown and the Bishop of Oxford until 1881, when the Revd Edward Penrose Hathaway (1818-1897) bought the advowson and vested it in the Oxford Churches Trust.

Hathaway was a former barrister and ‘an austere old-fashioned evangelical’ who founded the Oxford Churches Trust in 1864 to appoint evangelical clergy to local parishes and to counter the increasing influence of the Tractarian movement and early Anglo-Catholicism. Through his zeal, he played a central role in establishing a strong evangelical tradition at several Oxford churches, including Saint Ebbe’s, Saint Aldate’s, Saint Clement’s, Holy Trinity, and Saint Peter-le-Bailey, and his trust appointed him the Rector of Saint Ebbe’s from 1868 to 1874.

Hathaway paid £1,000 for the advowson of Holy Trinity in 1881 and this was used to increase the stipend. A further augmentation was made in 1890 to meet the gift of a house for the living. The net income of the benefice in 1898 was £228.

Attendance figures at Holy Trinity remained steady or even increased until World War I, when most of the adult parishioners were either in the army or employed in war work. During World War I, 90 men from the parish died in the war and they were later commemorated on the Holy Trinity War Memorial.

The Oxford Churches Trust, founded by Hathaway in 1864, exchanged the advowson of Holy Trinity with Simeon’s Trustees in 1914 for that of Saint Matthew’s, Grandpont, and Simeon’s Trustees remained patrons of Holy Trinity until Holy Trinity was united with Saint Aldate’s in 1956.

Photographs of Holy Trinity Church, inside and outside, ‘appear to be rarer than rocking horse droppings’

Some of the poorer houses in the area were cleared in the 1930s, but a major redevelopment plan was delayed by World War II.

By 1951, the fabric of Holy Trinity Church was in poor condition. Meanwhile, the population of the area was declining as slum clearance programmes gathered pace. Holy Trinity Church was closed in 1954 and the parish of Holy Trinity was united with Saint Ebbe’s in 1956. The building was deemed unsafe, and with encroaching urban clearance the church was demolished in 1957.

The 1914-1918 war memorial was removed from the church during demolition. It was later discovered in the 1980s resting against a wall in the rear garden of the former Holy Trinity Rectory. The memorial was eventually moved to Saint Aldate’s Parish Centre in Pembroke Street, and was later stored in a wooden case at Saint Ebbe’s Church. The memorial has since been removed from its rotten mounting and is said to be in a poor condition, covered in patina or crust.

Eventually, over 900 properties in the area were demolished, the last – 84 Blackfriars Road – in 1978. Many streets were wiped from the map or renamed. The records of Holy Trinity Church were deposited with the Bodleian Library in 1975 by the then Rector of Saint Aldate’s, and were transferred to Oxfordshire Archives in the 1980s. Further records were deposited in 2019.

No trace remains today of what was perhaps one of the shortest-lived churches in Oxford. One site says photographs of Holy Trinity Church, inside and outside, ‘appear to be rarer than rocking horse droppings’. The name of the church survives in the full name of Saint Ebbe’s Parish, which is formally Saint Ebbe with Holy Trinity and Saint Peter le Bailey, while the names of Friars Wharf, Preachers Lane – once known as Gas Street – Blackfriars Road and Trinity Street are reminders of the ecclesiastical communities that were once part of life the area.

Preachers Lane … a reminder of the ecclesiastical presence in the area in the past (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Daily prayer in Lent 2026: 29, Wednesday 18 March 2026

‘The Father raises the dead and gives them life’ (John 5: 21) … ‘Traumatised People come out of the Caves’ and ‘Dead Men’s Bones Rise from their Graves’, two images in ‘The Pricke of Conscience’ window, All Saints’ Church, York (Photographs: Patrick Comerford; click on images for full-screen viewing)

Patrick Comerford

This week began with the Fourth Sunday in Lent (Lent IV) and Mothering Sunday, and the calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Cyril (315-386), Bishop of Jerusalem and Teacher of the Faith, who developed catechetical instruction and liturgical observances during Lent, Palm Sunday and Holy Week.

Later this evening, after four-week absence – with two weeks in Kuching and the best part of a week in Walsingham – I hope to return to the choir rehearsals in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford.

Today also marks the fourth anniversary of the stroke I had on 18 March 2022. So, 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, 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.

‘The hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live' (John 5: 25) … ‘Day in Truth shall Stars fall from The Heaven’ and ‘The Death of all Living Things’ … the ‘Pricke of Conscience’ window in York (Photographs: Patrick Comerford; click on images for full-screen viewing)

John 5: 17-30 (NRSVA):

17 But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is still working, and I also am working.’ 18 For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.

19 Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. 20 The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished. 21 Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomsoever he wishes. 22 The Father judges no one but has given all judgement to the Son, 23 so that all may honour the Son just as they honour the Father. Anyone who does not honour the Son does not honour the Father who sent him. 24 Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgement, but has passed from death to life.

25 ‘Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26 For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself; 27 and he has given him authority to execute judgement, because he is the Son of Man. 28 Do not be astonished at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and will come out – those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.

30 ‘I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge; and my judgement is just, because I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me.’

‘The hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and will come out’ (John 5: 28-29) … ‘The End of the World, Consumed by Fire’ in ‘The Pricke of Conscience’ window in York (Photograph: Patrick Comerford; click on images for full-screen viewing)

Today’s Reflections:

In the Gospel reading at the Eucharist yesterday (John 5: 1-3, 5-16, 17 March 2026), we read about the Third Sign in Saint John’s Gospel. Jesus comes to Jerusalem, visits a pool know as Bethesda, where many sick people come to be healed. There he heals a man who cannot walk, and in doing so is accused of violating two laws: working on the Sabbath; and blasphemy by equating himself to God; both said to be punishable by death.

The third discourse in the Fourth Gospel (John 5:17-47) comes in response to that controversy and is essentially Christ’s response to his accusers. Jesus replies to his accusers that he is appropriating nothing to himself, for he only does what he sees his Father doing. He presents his case almost entirely in the third person. I can imagine those who were listening wondering and asking: ‘Who is this Son of God? Is he talking about himself?’ In the dramatic style of Johannine presentation, Jesus keeps them in suspense until the end, when he removes all doubt by switching to the first person (verse 30).

This passage is crucial in understanding the Fourth Gospel. Here, Jesus does not say ‘Yes, I am equal to God.’ Nor does he say, ‘No, I am not equal to God.’ But with accuracy and clarity, he describes the relationship between the Father and the Son, so that in the light of what he reveals, the word ‘equals’ disappears.

Jesus establishes his union with God and states that he can do nothing independently of God. The Son imitates the Father. And Jesus answers the charge of blasphemy by asserting that he is, in fact, the Son of God.

First, Christ argues that, as the Son of God, his actions are only imitating his Father (verse 19). Where he says ‘Very truly’, or ‘Truly, truly’ (ἀμὴν ἀμὴν, amēn amēn), the Hebrew amen is repeated for emphasis (see also verse 24). This phrase appears only in Saint John’s Gospel, yet in this Gospel it appears 25 times.

Christ solemnly tells his listeners that, as a good Son, he does not act independently, but acts as he sees the Father acting. This could be said of all the persons of the Trinity. The Son does not act independently of the Father; however, the Father does not act independently of the Son; neither does the Holy Spirit act independently of the Son or the Father. There is total harmony within the Trinity.

We see this at Christ’s baptism: And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased’ (Matthew 3: 17). Later, at the Transfiguration, we are told, ‘a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”’ (see John 1: 32-34; Matthew 17: 5; see also II Peter 1: 17).

The Greek word translated ‘beloved’ in these places is always a variation on ἀγάπη, agapē (see my additional note on the Four Loves below). However, the love that the Father has for the Son in John 5: 20 is the Greek φιλία, philia, which normally means to consider someone a friend, to have a special interest in someone or something.

In John 3: 35, we read: ‘The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.’ The Greek word there is ἀγαπᾷ (agapa), which means ‘to have a warm regard for and interest in another, cherish, have affection for, love.’

The Father cherishes the Son in a loving relationship of the highest order. Therefore, he has given everything to him. Nonetheless, it is the close association that the Father has with the Son that is the foundation of their co-operative work.

Jesus added that greater works would be forthcoming, works that would amaze. Greater things than the signs that he has already performed are coming, such as his death and resurrection, and even the general resurrection and the final judgment. The Greek word translated as ‘astonished’ or ‘marvel’ (θαυμάζητε) means ‘to be extraordinarily impressed or disturbed by something’ (see also verse 28).

The Son is powerless; he cannot do anything out of himself and, as we shall see later, cannot say anything out of himself. He simply looks at the Father, and whatever he sees the Father doing he does himself. But, on the other hand, the Father so loves the Son that he gives everything to him and reserves no power to himself. He does not hold back anything, but reveals to the Son everything that he is doing, and gives him authority to do it.

The Father, who is the source of everything on heaven and on earth, loves and reveals. In him, there is no holding onto power. And, as the Son lets go of everything, he receives back from the Father his power, his authority and the light of his glory. The Father lets go, and receives back from the Son.

Christ explains that the Son imitates God the Father by giving life. God told Moses: ‘See now that I, even I, am he; there is no god besides me; I kill and I make alive’ (Deuteronomy 32: 39). John told us that in Christ ‘was life, and the life was the light of all people’ (John 1: 4). And Christ says: ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live …’ (John 11: 25).

When Jesus speaks of the dead, he uses the word in two senses: at a physical level, those who are dead are corpses buried in graves; at a spiritual level, those who are dead appear to be alive outwardly, but are dead inwardly. But Christ has the power to raise the dead to life.

Similarly, the word judgment has a two-fold meaning: God did not send his son into the κόσμος (kosmos) to judge the κόσμος in the sense of condemning it (John 3: 17), yet judgment inevitably follows from his coming.

The Greek word for judgment, κρίσις (krisis), gives us English words such as crisis, critic, critical, criminal and discriminate. The Son does not condemn anyone, just as the Father does not condemn. But the Father has given him all judgment, in the sense of discrimination, for the coming of the Light in Christ discriminates or distinguishes one thing from another, showing each up for what it really is.

Jesus explains that the Son of God will be the judge at the final judgment. At the final judgment, it will be Christ seated upon the Great White Throne who is the judge (Revelation 20: 11-15). Jesus equates himself directly with God, clearly identifying who he is with the full knowledge that this will infuriate his accusers.

Honouring the Son is honouring the Father. Jesus explains that God the Father’s purpose in ordering things this way was to bring honour to the Son. The word translated ‘honour’ means ‘to show high regard for,’ while the word translated ‘even as’ means ‘just as’ and is used to indicate ‘of extent or degree to which, as, to the degree that.’ God the Father has decreed that the Son is to be revered in the same way and to the same degree as the Father.

Seeing and believing, hearing and believing, are key themes throughout the Fourth Gospel. Jesus implores his accusers to ‘hear’ his truth and that this is the key to salvation.

Jesus claims that judgment and life belong to the Son. Everyone who believes the Son does not come into judgment (verse 24). Then Christ defends his equality with God, claiming that judgment and life are his to give.

The word πιστεύων, translated ‘believes’, means to consider something true and worthy of one’s trust. Faith is not simply about both belief and trust. And so at Baptism, Conformation and at the renewal of baptismal vows, we ask: Do you believe and trust ...?

Verses 26-30 appear to be a variant form of the speech that went before in verses 19-25, with the emphasis on the future judgment and life given on the last day (parousia eschatology). Compare this with how Daniel prophesies about the Son of Man (see Daniel 7: 13-14).

Both eschatological views became a part of later Christian theology, for the life of grace we receive on earth is the beginning of the life of beatific vision to be possessed in heaven. The Son is the source of life, and will be the agent of divine judgment in the resurrection. The Son is the source of life in the resurrection.

Christ then announces solemnly that the Son of God will call the dead back to life in the resurrection. The Greek word θαυμάζητε, translated ‘astonished’ or ‘marvel’, means ‘to be extraordinarily impressed or disturbed by something’ (see also verse 20).

Jesus points to the evidence in the scriptures and of John the Baptist and Moses as proof of who he is. He says that if we do not believe this evidence we are not only denying him but also denying God.

A note on the ‘Four Loves’ by CS Lewis

In his book, The Four Loves, CS Lewis explores the nature of love from a Christian perspective dividing love into four categories, based on the four Greek words for love: affection, friendship, eros, and charity.

Affection (στοργή, storge) is fondness through familiarity, especially between family members or people who have otherwise found themselves together by chance.

Friendship (φιλία, philia) is a strong bond existing between people who share a common interest or activity. Lewis explicitly says that his definition of friendship is narrower than mere companionship; friendship in this sense exists only if there is something for the friendship to be ‘about.’

Eros (ἔρως) is love in the sense of ‘being in love.’ But this love is distinct from sexuality, which Lewis calls Venus, although he does spend time discussing sexual activity and its spiritual significance in a pagan or a Christian sense. He identifies eros as indifferent.

Lewis identifies charity (ἀγάπη, agapē) as the love that brings forth caring regardless of circumstance. This he recognises as the greatest of loves, and this he sees as a specifically Christian virtue. His chapter on agape in The Four Loves focuses on the need of subordinating the natural loves to the love of God, who is full of charitable love.

What can we learn from Jesus response to his accusers and how can we apply this in our own spiritual walk?

Christ does not act independently from the other persons in the Trinity; there is total harmony and co-operation within the Trinity. How do we revere and honour the Son in the same manner and to the same degree as the Father?

Christ is the source of eternal life, both now and in the resurrection. How do you relate that to issues such as death and devastation in Myanmar and Thailand following the recent earthquake, or to the continuing wars and conflicts in Russia and Ukraine, or throughout the Middle East today?

How do we distinguish between different feelings of love?

Christ will be the judge at the final judgment. How do we relate that to corporate and social sin?

‘The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing’ (John 5: 20) … an icon of the Holy Trinity in the Church of Saint Nektarios in Tsesmes, near Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 18 March 2026):

The theme this week (15-21 March 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Lament and Hope’ (pp 38-39). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update by Kennedy Jones, Church Engagement and Fundraising Officer, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Wednesday 18 March 2026) invites us to pray:

We pray for courage to speak out against injustice. May our words and actions reflect Christ’s compassion and commitment to truth, mercy, and equality.

The Collect:

Merciful Lord,
absolve your people from their offences,
that through your bountiful goodness
we may all be delivered from the chains of those sins
which by our frailty we have committed;
grant this, heavenly Father,
for Jesus Christ’s sake, our blessed Lord and Saviour,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Lord God,
whose blessed Son our Saviour
gave his back to the smiters
and did not hide his face from shame:
give us grace to endure the sufferings of this present time
with sure confidence in the glory that shall be revealed;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Merciful Lord,
you know our struggle to serve you:
when sin spoils our lives
and overshadows our hearts,
come to our aid
and turn us back to you again;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of Saint Joseph of Nazareth:

God our Father,
who from the family of your servant David
raised up Joseph the carpenter
to be the guardian of your incarnate Son
and husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary:
give us grace to follow him
in faithful obedience to your commands;
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.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem (18 March) … developed our liturgical observances of Lent, Palm Sunday and Holy Week

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 planning decision in Oxford this week revives hopes that the Eagle and Child of the Inklings could reopen soon

The Eagle and Child in Oxford, now covered in cladding, was once a regular haunt of CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien and the Inklings (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

The Eagle and Child in Oxford is one of the celebrated literary pubs in England. It was once a regular haunt of CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien, two of the best-known writers of the 20th century, and other member of the Inklings.

The Eagle and Child closed during Covid in 2020. But plans to reopen it were unveiled this week, and planning permission has been given to restore the Grade II-listed building on St Giles, across the street from Saint Giles Church, the Lamb & Flag and Saint John’s College, Oxford.

The Eagle and Child was built ca 1840 but dates back to 1650. Today, it is owned by the Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT), which in turn is owned by the US tech billionaire Larry Ellison. But it is best known as the meeting place for the literary circle known as the Inklings, including Lewis, Tolkien and other academics. They regularly meet at the Eagle and Child, nicknamed it the Bird and the Baby, and a plaque inside commemorated their gatherings.

The latest plans to restore the pub were drawn up by Foster + Partners, who say they are taking a ‘conservation-led approach to restore and preserve as much of the original building as possible after years of dormancy’. They describe their proposals as ‘light-touch interventions,’ and include restoring the Rabbit Room, where the Inklings once met.

Their plans include a new dining room, while the lower levels of two adjacent buildings – No 50 and 51 St Giles – will become a café. Floor space above the pub and café would become workspace for EIT scholars, staff and fellows. The planning application approved this week includes a change of use of upper floors of 49-51 for private meeting space, part demolition of the two-storey rear extensions, the demolition of a boundary wall, the erection of a single-storey rear extension, alterations to the windows, roof and render, and the installation of insulation.

Next door to the Eagle and Child, Green’s Café had cramped floorspace over two storeys and a dedicated following for its homemade fare. EIT plans to reinstate a café with a basement bakery and a rear garden with additional seating.

Gerard Evenden of Foster + Partners is quoted as saying the design ‘preserves the unique character of the Eagle and Child and respects its many layers of history.’

He added that their ‘sensitive interventions’ are being ‘stitched together by a newly landscaped garden and restored passageway between the café and the pub – new social spaces that transition effortlessly from day to night.’

The Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT) says it is ‘committed to reopening’ the pub, but also says there is a ‘pressing need’ to protect both the pub and surrounding buildings, which were in an ‘extremely poor’ state.

EIT says it is committed to carrying out sensitive repairs that allow the heritage values of the buildings to be celebrated, and to reopen them for residents, tourists and the wider community. When EIT bought the building, it said it wanted to establish a campus in Oxford and announced it would ‘refurbish and reopen the iconic venue’.

The company’s founding director and CEO, Dr David Agus, said: ‘The Eagle and Child pub is a truly historic venue that has hosted some of the greatest minds Oxford has had to offer for over 300 years. We are humbled and proud to be able to safeguard this treasured pub’s future and continue its legacy as a place for brilliant people to come together, including for our Ellison scholars.’

Plans for the Eagle and Child include a restored pub, café and bakery, acaemic workspace and private meeting space (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Plans were previously approved to turn the place into a hotel, but several operators came and went and it shut during the Covid pandemic. Until recently, the pub was owned by Saint John’s College. At times, the college said it would retain the upper rooms for its own use for the time being, ‘although we are still hopeful of being able to continue with the original plan when the economic conditions allow.’

Back in 2022, Saint John’s College said: ‘Following consideration of options, the college instructed Savills to market the pub on a stand-alone basis with the current planning consent in place … enabling the pub to open again following refurbishment.’

Shaun Gunner, chair of the Tolkien Society, said then he was ‘encouraged’ that the college was ‘on the case’, but that the pub needed to ‘reopen as soon as possible … There's so many people who love that pub.’

Dave Richardson of the Oxford branch of the Campaign for Real Ale, said the pub was in bad condition: ‘The cellar needs a total revamp, there’s quite a lot of rot, there’s a bit of a rodent infestation … we are a bit concerned about this and we would like something to happen sooner rather than later.’

Saint John’s College also owned the Lamb & Flag across the street, another pub favoured by the Inklings. It too closed during Covid, but reopened recently more than two years after being taken over by a community group.

There has been a pub on the site of the Eagle and Child since 1650, it was used as a playhouse for Royalist soldiers during the English Civil War, and it was a popular haunt of the diarist Anthony Wood in the 17th centuryr

The first record of the pub’s present name is in 1684, when Richard Platt was granted a licence to hang out a sign depicting the coronet with an eagle and child that appears on the crest of the Earl of Derby.

The Eagle and Child was a modest beerhouse, rather than an inn like the Lamb & Flag across the road, and landlords in 19th century usually had a second occupation, probably, leaving much of the work of running the beerhouse to their wives.

From the 1930s, the Inklings met in the ‘Rabbit Room’ at the back of the pub. They included CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield and Hugo Dyson. From late 1933, they met on Thursday evenings at Lewis’s rooms in Magdalen College, where they would read and discuss various material, including their unfinished manuscripts.

Their meetings were accompanied with more informal lunchtime gatherings at various Oxford pubs, and these became regular lunchtime meetings on Monday or Tuesday at the Eagle and Child, which they dubbed ‘the Bird and Baby’, in a room at the back known as the ‘Rabbit Room’.

The Thursday meetings petered out in October 1949, but the meetings at the Eagle and Child continued, and it was at one of those meetings in June 1950 that CS Lewis distributed the proofs for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

The membership of the Inklings changed over the years. Tolkien drifted away in the late 1950s, while Lewis was a central figure until he died in 1963. When the Eagle and Child was modernised in 1962, the Rabbit Room lost its privacy and the Inklings changed their allegiance to the the Lamb & Flag on the other side of St Giles. The meetings in the the Lamb & Flag were abandoned soon after Lewis died in 1963.

The name of the Eagle and Child is linked with a legend associated with the Stanley family (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The first record of the pub’s name is from 1684, and is variously said to originate in the legend of Ganymede being abducted to Mount Olympus by the eagle of Zeus, or in the heraldic crest of the Stanley family, Earls of Derby, and a story of a baby found in an eagle’s nest.

One legend tells of Sir Thomas Lathom who greatly desired a male heir, but whose wife was elderly and their only child was a daughter Isabel. One day, while he and his wife were walking in the woods on his estate, they heard the cry of an infant. Servants were sent to investigate and returned with a young child they found lying in the grass below an eagle’s eyre. In another version, the child was found in an eagle’s nest. The child was well dressed, and Sir Thomas and his wife decided to bring him up as their own son, naming him ‘Oskatel’.

The tradition of finding a child unharmed in an eagle’s nest is found in folklore in many parts of Europe. King Pepin was said to have found a child in similar circumstances, while Alfred the Great hears a child crying while he was hunting, and his servants found a male child in an eagle’s eyre, dressed in purple with gold bracelets, signs of Saxon nobility. The king had the child baptised with the name ‘Nestingium’ and had him educated.

Perhaps these tales gave Sir Thomas Lathom his idea in the first place. Having despaired of ever having a son, he had an affair with a younger woman who became pregnant. He wanted his wife to accept the son without her uncovering his infidelity, so he arranged the ‘discovery’ of the child. However, on his deathbed, Lathom confessed that Oskatel was his son, and Isabel, as his only legitimate heir, inherited the estate.

Isabel Lathom married Sir John Stanley, ancestor of the Earls of Stanley, who adopted as their crest an eagle looking down on the child as if about to devour him, emphasising the triumph of the legitimate heiress.

The Stanleys became one of the most powerful families in England: John Stanley’s great-grandson, Thomas Stanley (1435-1504), 1st Earl of Derby, changed the course of the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 and was the stepfather of Henry VII through his marriage to Lady Margaret Beaufort in 1472.

The descendants of John Stanley and Isobel Lathom also included William Stanley (1474-1552) who lived at Comberford Hall, near Lichfield and Tamworth after he married the much younger Margaret Comberford (1494-1568), daughter of Thomas Comberford of Comberford. She was a sister of Humphrey Comberford, of Comberford Hall and Master of the Guild of Saint Mary and Saint John the Baptist, Lichfield, in 1530; Richard Comberford, putative ancestor of the Comerfords of Kilkenny and Wexford; Henry Comberford, Precentor of Lichfield Cathedral; and John Comberford of Wednesbury.

The descendants of these lines of the Stanley and Comberford families continued to live in the Lichfield area for many generations. William Stanley’s will, made in 1552, is in a collection in the Bodleian Archives and Manuscripts in Oxford.

Today, there are about 25 other pubs in England called the Eagle and Child, most of them in places associated with the Stanley family. Despite this week’s announcement, the Eagle and Child in Oxford is not expected to reopen before 2027. With the Lamb & Flag now open on one side of St Giles and the Eagle and Child reopening on the other, the street could find even more coaches parked there as tourists hop off for ‘selfies’ with the Inklings on both sides of St Giles.

The Eagle and Child before it was covered in cladding (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Finding Irish links and links with CS Lewis in a plaque in the cloisters in Durham Cathedral

The monument to Archdeacon George Hans Hamilton in the cloisters in Durham Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

As I was walking through the cloisters in Durham Cathedral during my recent visit, I noticed a plaque commemorating George Hans Hamilton (1823-1903), who was Archdeacon of Lindisfarne (1865-1882), Archdeacon of Northumberland (1882-1905), and a Canon of Durham Cathedral.

The plaque caught my attention because his name indicated and the fading coat-of-arms on the memorial indicated, to me at least, not only that Archdeacon Hamilton was Irish but that he was part of the Hamilton family who are closely identified with both Balbriggan and Skerries in north Co Dublin.

I have been familiar with both towns since my schooldays, until recently I regularly went for walks on the beach in Skerries, and I often did Sunday duty in Holmpatrick Church, Skerries, and Saint George’s Church, Balbriggan.

There is a large monument to one branch of the Hamilton family in the centre of Skerries, and some memorial tablets from an older church that have survived in the new church when it was being built in the 1860s.

One curious monument to the memory of James Hamilton of Sheepshill and Holmpatrick reads in part: ‘A gentleman who during a long and most active life displayed that zealous energy and ingenious integrity that forms a useful and virtuous man … He died the 20th of October 1800, in the 73rd year of his age … Of the uncommonly numerous offspring of thirty six children he was survived by eight sons and eight daughters.’

James Hamilton’s descendants include Richard Branson. However, with 36 children born over 200 years ago, Hamilton must be the ancestor of thousands upon thousands of people today. But … 36 children? A most active life that displayed zealous energy indeed! Useful and virtuous? What about his poor wife or wives?

Archdeacon Hamilton, on the other hand, is directly related to the Balrothery and Balbriggan branch of the Hamilton family, and my search for his family background led to the discovery that he was also related to interesting Irish literary figures too.

The future archdeacon was born on 21 January 1823, the third son of Henry Hamilton (1780-1854) of Tullylish, Co Down, and a grandson of Hugh Hamilton (1729-1805), Bishop of Clonfert and Kilmacduagh (1795-1799) and then Bishop of Ossory (1799-1805).

Bishop Hugh Hamilton was born in Balrothery, near Balbriggan, Co Dublin, in 1725. He was an older brother of Judge George Hamilton (1732-1793) of Hampton, Balrothery, who was MP for Belfast and a Baron of the Exchequer. Judge Hamilton is remembered mainly for developing the town of Balbriggan. As part of the development of Balbriggan, he sold the Lower Mill to the business of Comerford and O’Brien in Balbriggan in the early 1780s. His son, the Revd George Hamilton built Saint George’s Church, Balbriggan, in 1813.

The most elaborate memorial in Saint George’s Church recalls George Alexander Hamilton, who died on 17 September 1871. His wife Amelia Fancourt Hamilton is remembered on a similar memorial that says: ‘Her clothing and coal clubs were for many years a great benefit to the poor of this neighbourhood.’ It also mentions that she set up an infant school in 1836 at Hampton Gates.

The elaborate memorial to George Alexander Hamilton, who died in 1871 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Hamiltons were a clerical family with seemingly innumerable priests in the Church of Ireland. Bishop Hamilton was a Professor of Philosophy in Trinity College Dublin, Vicar of Saint Ann’s, Dublin, and Dean of Armagh before he became a bishop. Three of his sons were priests: Hans Hamilton of Knocktopher, Co Kilkenny, who fled Co Kilkenny during the ‘Tithe War’ in the 1830s; George Hamilton (1783-1830), of Killemogh, Co Laois, a Biblical scholar; and the Revd Hugh Hamilton (1790-1865) of Innishmacsaint, Co Fermanagh.

Another son of Bishop Hamilton, Henry Hamilton (1780-1854), grew up in Dublin, but lived much of his life in Tullylish, Co Down. As well as the archdeacon who is commemorated in Durham Cathedral, Henry Hamilton was the father of two other priests: the Revd Hugh Hamilton (1811-1884) of Dublin, and Canon William Alfred Hamilton (1824-1897), Rector of Taney, Dundrum, Co Dublin. His daughter Sarah was a doctor’s wife who lived in the family home, Hampton Hall, Balbriggan; her son, the Revd Rowland Scriven (1859-1944), was a curate in Balbriggan from 1898 until 1920, when he moved to England.

The Hamilton family was intermarried with many of the great literary figures in Ireland, and both John Millington Synge and CS Lewis are direct descendants of Bishop Hamilton.

Archdeacon George Hans Hamilton was a first cousin of the Revd Thomas Robert Hamilton, the first Rector of Saint Mark’s, Dundela, in Belfast, and the grandfather of CS Lewis.

In the cloisters in Durham Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The future archdeacon, George Hans Hamilton, was born on 21 January 1823, He was educated at Shrewsbury School and Trinity College, Dublin and was ordained in 1847.

After a time as a curate in Sunderland he became chaplain of Durham Prison and then Vicar of Berwick. He was chaplain to the High Sheriff of Durham in 1884.

Hamilton first married Arabella Sarah (Bella) Best on 9 May 1848. Her father John Best (1791-1825) was an accountant with the East India Company in Bombay; her mother Arabella née Robinson (1795-1855) was from Sunderland. Best seems to have spent much of his time travelling between Bombay and Sunderland. When he died in Bombay at the age of 33, he left a pregnant widow in India with four other children under the age of 10.

Bella Hamilton died in January 1868. She was the mother of two sons and a daughter: Hans Alfred Hamilton (born 1849), who seems to have been the ‘black sheep’ of the family; and Henry (Harry) Best Hans Hamilton (1850-1935); and Eliza Arabella Sarah (1858-1919), known as Ella.

Soon after Bella’s death, Hamilton married his second wife Lady Louisa Frances Clements (1843-1939) in 1869. She was a sister of Robert Bermingham Clements (1847-1892), 4th Earl of Leitrim. The couple were the parents of another daughter and three more sons: George Francis Clements Hamilton (1870-1900); Robert Charles Clements Hamilton (1871-1901), a refrigeration engineer, who was killed in an explosion on the first refrigerated ship bringing bananas to Britain from the West Indies; Sir Collingwood George Clements Hamilton (1877-1947), an electrical engineer and Conservative politician; and Louisa Lindisfarne Clements (Hamilton) Maitland (1878-1952).

Hamilton was a great advocate of prison reform. His character was drawn upon by Charles Reade in It Is Never Too Late to Mend (1856). He was Archdeacon of Lindisfarne (1865-1882), Archdeacon of Northumberland (1882-1905), and a canon of Durham Cathedral. He died on 23 September 1905 – he was 80 and still in office; his widow, Lady Louisa Hamilton, died on 31 August 1939.

As for Archdeacon Hamilton’s first cousin, the Revd Thomas Hamilton, he baptised his grandson, Clive Staples Lewis, in Saint Mark’s Church, Dundela, on 29 January 1899.

A portrait in Saint Mark’s Church, Dundela, of the Revd Thomas Hamilton, grandfather of CS Lewis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Lamb and Flag, once a temporary home in Oxford of the Inklings, got a new lease of life since Covid

The Lamb and Flag, beside Saint John’s College, Oxford, has been recued by a community interest group calling themselves the Inklings (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I have been discussing a number of well-known pubs in Oxford in recent weeks, including the King’s Arms facing the Bodleian’s Weston Library, and the Port Mahon and the Oranges and Lemons, both in St Clement’s. Sadly, the Eagle and Child on Saint Giles’, the pub where the Inklings once met, has been closed for many years, and is still suffering a lengthy refurbishment.

But before I caught bus back from Oxford to Milton Keynes earlier this week, I stopped once again in the Lamb and Flag, across the street from the Eagle and Child and a place that was saved from a threatened closure in recent years.

The Lamb and Flag, beside Saint John’s College on Saint Giles’, closed briefly after takings fell during the Covid-19 pandemic. But it was speedily saved by a community interest group calling themselves – appropriately – the Inklings, and was soon reopened.

The Lamb and Flag dates from 1566, and moved to its present location in 1613 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Lamb and Flag is owned by Saint John’s College, and is just north of the main college entrance. Lamb and Flag Passage runs through the south side of the pub, linking St Giles’ with Museum Road, and there is an entrance to Keble College behind the pub.

The name of the Lamb and Flag derives from the symbol of Christ as the Lamb of God (Agnus Dei) in Saint John’s Gospel and the Book of Revelation, carrying a banner with a red cross. This is also a symbol of Saint John the Baptist and the rebus of Saint John’s College, and so the emblem signified how the college has owned the pub.

The Lamb and Flag dates back to at least 1566, when the first pub stood just south of Saint John’s College. An earlier Tudor building on the site of 12 St Giles’ belonged to Godstow Abbey, but Saint John’s College owned the site by 1573. The college moved the pub to that site on 1613, and the old site of the pub is now the Dolphin Quadrangle.

Henry Harbert or Harbard, who had run the earlier hostelry on the south side of Saint John’s as the Lamb, opened the inn at the site of 12 St Giles’ in 1613, and he took the name with him. The new site was further away from the main buildings of the college, but many years later, when the Sir Thomas White and Kendrew quadrangles were built in the 20th and 21st centuries, the pub found it was close to Saint John’s once again.

The Lamb and Flag, the rebus of Saint John’s College, seen on the altar front in the college chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The pub is Listed Grade II and is in three parts: the oldest at the rear is mediaeval; the middle section is around 400 years old; and the front part is Georgian.

Originally the Lamb and Flag Inn only occupied No 12, the large building on the right. But in 1960 it expanded into the ground floor and basement of No 13, the taller narrow building to the left. Since then it has occupied both properties.

Hall’s Brewery took a lease on the pub from Saint John’s in 1829. By 1861, it was described as an hotel.

The Lamb and Flag is Listed Grade II: the oldest part at the rear is mediaeval; the middle section is around 400 years old; and the front part is Georgian (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

No 13, the tall narrow house next door to the pub, had a very narrow frontage of 3 yards 2 feet 2 inches in 1772, but was described as ‘a newly-built dwelling house with a commanding shop front’ in 1870, and was held on a lease from the Master and Scholars of Balliol College, Oxford.

Father John O’Fallon Pope, who was the master of the predecessor to Campion Hall at 11 St Giles’, bought No 13 Saint Giles’ in 1903. Father Joseph Rickaby, the chaplain of Campion Hall, was living there in 1921 with three boarders – a Belgian missionary and two students – and a butler and a footman.

No 13 was bought by Saint John’s College when Campion Hall moved to Brewer Street in 1936, and from 1937 to 1955 No 13 was the office of the Registrar of Births and Deaths for Oxford.

Lamb and Flag Passage runs through the south side of the pub, linking St Giles’ with Museum Road and Keble College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Lamb and Flag at No 12 expanded in 1960 to include the ground floor and basement of No 13, and has occupied both Nos 12 and 13 since then, some times with student accommodation upstairs.

The pub may have inspired Thomas Hardy when he was writing Jude the Obscure, although others say the Lamb and Flag in Jude the Obscure was actually the Turf Tavern. Graham Greene drank in the pub while he was a student at Balliol College. The Lamb and Flag is also mentioned by PD James in The Children of Men and it features frequently in episodes of the ITV detective drama Inspector Morse.

Meanwhile, the Inklings had been meeting at the Eagle and Child across the street on the other side of St Giles in the 1930s and 1940s. They included CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien, but also met in other places in Oxford, including Magdalen College. When the Eagle and Child was ‘modernised’ in 1962, the Inklings started meeting at the Lamb and Flag. However, these meetings came to an end after CS Lewis died in 1963.

Lamb and Flag Passage offers a glimpse of the Eagle and Child across the street on the other side of St Giles’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint John’s College took back the licence of the pub in 1997, and, after initially threatening to close it, ran it as a free house. The upstairs rooms were converted into student accommodation, and DPhil students were offered financial support from the pub’s profits through Lamb and Flag studentships worth up to £12,000 a year.

But the Lamb and Flag suffered a loss of revenues during the Covid-19 pandemic and the Lamb & Flag (Oxford) Ltd, a company owned by Saint John’s College, announced on 31 January 2021 that it would close.

Although the pub closed temporarily, it remained in college ownership, and the lease was bought in September 2021 by a Community Interest Company called the Inklings, and the Lamb and Flag reopened in October 2022.

The character of the Lamb and Flag has been preserved in the latest refurbishment (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Inklings Group – named after the original literary circle that included JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis and others – is a diverse and eclectic mix of Oxford people, past and present, scientists and entrepreneurs, writers and artists, town and gown, as well as local businesses and suppliers.

They brought together several hundred people to save the Lamb and Flag. Saint John’s College shared their vision and supported the relaunch of the pub, aimed at local philanthropy and positive impact rather than profit.

The character of the Lamb and Flag has been preserved, with only light redecoration and refurbishment. Lamb and Flag ‘merch’ is on sale, at the bar including pins, mugs, patches, tote bags and T-shirts.

An invitation over the door in Lamb and Flag Passage is said inscribed in ‘Elvish’, the dwarf runes adopted by Tolkien from Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian scripts, and says: ‘Speak, Friend, and Enter’.

The Lamb and Flag reopened on St Giles’ in October 2022 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)