Exploring the stories of Askeaton Castle and the legacy of the FitzGeralds of Desmond

Askeaton Castle is perched on a rocky island in the middle of the River Deel and is the focal point of the town (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Patrick Comerford
I got back to Askeaton in the mid-afternoon today [10 February 2017] after working in Dublin for the last two or three days. As I walked into Askeaton from the rectory, facing towards a sky filled with a beautiful red sunset, the skyline was dominated by the majestic ruins of Askeaton Castle in the centre of the town. The castle is perched on a rocky island or outcrop in the middle of the River Deel and is the focal point of the town.

I understand that at the moment the site is only open to the public by appointment on Saturdays and Sundays in the summer months. Much of it is hidden from view behind corrugated gates and fencing. Continuing restoration and repair work make it unsafe for visitors, and as I looked at it this afternoon, I imagined this essential work may last many more years.

The castle dates back to 1199, when Askeaton and the surrounding area were granted to Hamo de Valoignes, who was the Justiciary of Ireland from 1197 to 1199. However, the Annals of Inisfallen record that William de Burgo was granted the castle and estates of Askeaton by Dónal Mór O’Brien, King of Thomond. Other accounts say Askeaton Castle was built in 1199 by William de Burgo and that the original castle was rebuilt in the 13th century.

By the end of the 13th century, Thomas de Clare (1245-1287) was the owner of the castle. On 26 January 1276, he was granted the Lordship of Thomond by King Edward I, and he spent the next eight years attempting to conquer it from the O’Briens of Thomond. Thomas de Clare died in 1287, and eventually, in 1318, Edward II granted the castle to Thomas de Clare’s son-in-law, Robert de Welles.

I was interested to note that Thomas de Clare was an uncle of Lady Elizabeth de Clare, who gave her name to Clare College, Cambridge, where I stayed last year [August 2016]. She was a granddaughter of King Edward I and the heiress to large estates and tracts of land in Ireland, through her descent from Strongbow and her marriage into the de Burgo family, Earls of Ulster and ancestors of the great Burke families.

Robert de Welles died in 1320, and the Earls of Desmond made Askeaton Castle their main seat of power after 1348, when Maurice FitzGerald, 1st Earl of Desmond, paid 40 shillings for the Barony of Lystifti. The castle that stands in the River Deel today dates from this time, and the FitzGeralds of Desmond made the castle one of their principal residences for two centuries.

The Earls of Desmond were a powerful presence in mediaeval Munster, and they held Askeaton Castle for over 200 years. They made it their power base, and from here they ruled most of Munster for generations.

Sunset in Askeaton seen from the Rectory this evening (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Askeaton Castle was the powerful stronghold of the tragic Gerald FitzGerald (ca 1533–1583), 15th Earl of Desmond, also known as the Rebel Earl. He succeeded his father in 1558 and a year later, in 1559, he rebelled against the policy of surrender and regrant imposed on Irish lords. The Desmond Rebellion turned into a war across Munster.

Desmond strengthened the defences of Askeaton Castle in 1574, and Sir Nicholas Malby was unsuccessful when he attacked the castle in 1579. In his anger and his frustration, Malby then attacked the neighbouring Franciscan Abbey and destroyed the town of Askeaton.

During a second attack on Askeaton on 3 April 1580, Desmond and his dwindling band of followers slipped out of Askeaton Castle, and as they made their departure they blew up part of the outworks. What was left of the castle was easily captured the next day, it was garrisoned, and Captain Francis Berkeley was put in command as warden of the castle and appointed Provost Marshall of Connaught and Thomond.

Berkeley continued to hold Askeaton Castle throughout the remainder of the Desmond rebellion, despite opposition from the President of Munster, Sir John Norreys. Desmond’s followers would abandon him, however, and as he fled with just four loyal retainers he was slain on 11 November 1583 by Moriarty of Castledrum, at Glenagenty, five miles east of Tralee. The Lord Justice, Sir William Pelham, who had proclaimed Desmond a traitor in 1579, then took possession of Askeaton Castle. It was the beginning of the end of the FitzGerald reign in Munster.

Askeaton Castle then came into the ownership of Francis Berkeley, who also received a grant of 7,000 acres of confiscated Desmond land in the area. Although technically the castle was now in the hands of the Crown, he received a grant for the new Manor of Rock Barkley and settled 56 new families on the estates. In 1596, he married Jane Loftus of Rathfarnham Castle, a daughter of Adam Loftus, Archbishop of Dublin. In 1597, he was appointed the Governor of Limerick Castle.

Askeaton Castle and the mediaeval bridge seen from the quays on the banks of the River Deel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

In 1598, the tenants of Berkeley’s manor, 500 men, women and children, sought refuge in Askeaton Castle as it came under siege. Most of the people who were hiding in the castle were taken to safety on boats at the quay on the River Deel and were brought up the River Shannon to Limerick. The town of Askeaton was pillaged and the siege turned into a blockade.

When a relief of the castle was organised in June 1599, the besieging forces were encouraged by the new claimant to the title of Earl of Desmond, James FitzThomas FitzGerald, known as the ‘Sugán Earl.’

The siege had lasted 247 days when Lord Essex and his troops arrived at Askeaton on Sunday 10 June 1599. Berkeley was knighted, and later as Sir Francis Berkeley he took a leading role at the Battle of Kinsale in 1601. Some years later, the ‘Sugán Earl’ died in the Tower of London ca 1607 or 1608. His brother, John FitzThomas FitzGerald, married a daughter of Richard Comerford of Danganmore Castle, Co Kilkenny, and the couple escaped to Spain, where he was known as the Conde de Desmond. He died a few years afterwards in Barcelona. FitzGerald His son Gerald, also known as the Conde de Desmond, entered the service of the Emperor Ferdinand, and was killed in 1632.

Meanwhile, in 1610, Berkeley proposed walling the town of Askeaton and strengthening the castle at his own cost. James I granted him the castle for life, the grants to the Manor of Rock Barkley were confirmed. Askeaton became a parliamentary borough, sending its own MPs to Irish House of Commons, and a new town council was formed in 1612, with Edmond Drew as the first provost or mayor of Askeaton.

Francis Berkeley died at Askeaton on 20 December 1615. His interests in Askeaton passed to his sons, first Maurice Berkeley (1598-1622) and then Henry Berkeley (1606-1625). But they had no children, and Askeaton Castle and the Berkeley manor were then inherited by the descendants of their sister Gertrude, who married John Taylor.

During the civil wars in the 1640s and 1650s, Askeaton Castle was occupied by Lieutenant Patrick Purcell of the Confederate Catholic forces. Askeaton was attacked and destroyed by the Cromwellian Captain Daniel Axtell in 165, and he hanged Patrick Purcell. Axtell had been the captain of the parliamentary guard at the trial of King Charles I in 1649, and shortly after the Restoration in 1660 he was hanged, drawn and quartered as a regicide.

After the restoration, the ruined Askeaton Castle and the estates were recovered by the Taylor family. Robert Taylor was the MP for Askeaton in 1715, Berkeley Taylor was MP in 1723-1727, and Edward Taylor was MP in 1727.

William Taylor’s daughter Catherine married Hugh Massey, 2nd Lord Massey, in 1760, and so Askeaton Castle and the estates passed to the Massey family, while her sister Sarah married Henry Butler, 2nd Earl of Carrick. Both Lord Massey and Lord Carrick received substantial financial compensation when the ‘rotten borough’ of Askeaton was abolished at the Act of Union in 1800.

The castle that was dismantled by Axtell and his Cromwellian forces remains as it must have looked in 1652 and was slowly crumbling away until the present restoration work began.

Askeaton Castle, the Banqueting Hall and the former Hellfire Club form one integrated archaeological and architectural site (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

In the grounds of the castle, the Great Hall is one of the finest examples of its kind in Ireland. It was built ca 1440-1459 by James FitzGerald, 6th Earl of Desmond or ‘Usurper’ Earl, who died in 1463. It served as a place of feasting, where the Earls of Desmond entertained their allies and welcomed their guests.

The hall was 72 ft long by 30 ft wide, and is one of Ireland’s finest examples of a banquet hall. It has a fine groin-vaulted chamber on the first floor that is part of an earlier hall built on the same spot. The three blind arcades and carved windows on the south wall are of exceptional design. They are said to have been built by the same craftsmen who built the nearby Franciscan friary, and they are of the same design.

The architectural details of the Banqueting Hall have been compared with the nearby Franciscan Friary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Underneath the hall are said to be wine cellars and kitchens dating from the 13th century, although I have yet to see these. A small mediaeval church attached to the rear of the hall is largely featureless with only one window remaining.

Castle Gate is an 18th century landmark building at the entrance to the castle. It has surviving mediaeval fabric, spans one branch of the River Deel at this point, and probably served as the gate lodge of the castle. It is a Protected Structure and is listed on the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage.

Next to the castle, the infamous Hellfire Club was built in 1740, the same year that the friary was finally abandoned by the Franciscan friars. It is built built of a mixture of red brick and stone. The Hellfire Clubs of the time, which were found throughout Ireland and Britain, were gentlemen’s clubs where rich men met to drink, play cards and consort with prostitutes. Many stories of the occult and appearances of the Devil surround these Hellfire Clubs, and they may have been circulated to deter prying intrusions by inquisitive neighbours anxious to find out about the club activities.

The club in Askeaton had closed by 1800, and the façade of the building collapsed in the 1990s.

Askeaton Castle is a National Monument in State ownership, but it remains closed to the public as structural renovations continue. But the influence of the castle on the layout of the town is still discernible. Askeaton is unusual to this day in having two town squares – the East Square and the West Square located on either side of the Castle Island.

Castle Gate is an 18th century building with mediaeval fabric and spans one branch of the River Deel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

A summer retreat in a unique monastery in the Essex countryside

A stroll through the Essex countryside in late summer … or was it early autumn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

Over the past decade, I have spent a day almost each summer on a retreat in the Monastery of Saint John the Evangelist in Tolleshunt Knights in Essex.

The monastery is about 75 km south-east of Cambridge, and these annual visits have been organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies as part of the patristics summer school held each year in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.

Enjoying the footpaths and country lanes of Essex in the summer sunshine (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The journey from Cambridge brings us through the East Anglian countryside and through pretty towns and villages with names such as Saffron Walden and Bishop’s Stortford Braintree, Coggeshall and Tiptree. The area is well-known for fruit farming and jam making, and Tolleshunt Knights is close to Tiptree, which grew up around the Wilkins Jam Factory, built in 1885.

Tiptree is known today because of the jam factory established in 1885 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Three neighbouring villages with the name Tolleshunt emerged in early Norman England – Tolleshunt D’Arcy was acquired by the D’Arcy family, Tolleshunt Major came to the Le Majeur family, and Tolleshunt Knights belonged to the Le Chevallier family, although it may once have belonged to the Knights Templar, who had considerable holdings in Essex.

Mediaeval parish church

All Saints’ Church, the former parish church of Tolleshunt Knights, is a mile or two from the present village (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The old Church of England parish church, All Saints’ Church stands a mile or two from the heart of the present village of Tolleshunt Knights, which suggests the village shifted with changing farming practices over the centuries, or moved to escape the shifting coastal marshes to the south.

There is no evidence of an earlier Saxon church, and All Saints’ Church dates back to the 1140s. One of the tombs in the church is reputedly that of Sir John atte Lee, dated from 1380, and has connections with the legends of Robin Hood.

The south porch of the church dates from the 15th or early 16th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

With increasing affluence brought to the area by the wool trade, the church was enlarged in the 14th and 15th centuries. Inside the church there is a 13th century piscina and a 15th century chancel arch. The 15th century south doorway, with partly restored moulded jambs and a two-centred arch, has a moulded label with head-stops of two bishops, one of which is defaced. The south porch dates from the 15th or early 16th century.

In 1768, the church had a timber belfry with two bells and a shingled spire. However, the bell dated 1575 has been stolen, and the other bell has been removed to safe-keeping in the monastery, which also keeps the now-broken font.

All Saints’ Church was altered and repaired in the 19th century. But by the 1920s, it had fallen into disrepair, and by the 1930s it was no longer in use as the parishioners attended the newly-built Saint Luke’s Church in neighbouring Tiptree. The closure of the village school followed in 1935. Tolleshunt Knights gradually lost its other services too, including the railway station, the post office, the village shop and its own local garage. Even the number of pubs has been reduced from five or four to one.

Although funds were raised to repair the church in the late 1930s, with the outbreak of World War II this money was donated to the Spitfire Fund in 1940. By the early 1950s, All Saints’ Church was almost derelict. The final blow came with the great gale in 1953, which brought down a section of the roof. It was clear the restoration of the church was beyond the means of the local community.

Founding a monastery

The Old Rectory and monastic buildings at the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Tolleshunt Knights (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

In 1958, the Church of England agreed to sell All Saints’ Church and the rectory to the Orthodox Church. Since then the church has been carefully restored and is now attached to the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist, which is built around the former rectory in Tolleshunt Knights.

The mixed community of monks and nuns and is the oldest Orthodox religious community in Britain. It was founded by Elder Sophrony (Sakharov) with an initial membership of six drawn from a number of countries.

The monastery at Tolleshunt Knights was built around the old rectory (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Father Sophrony (1896-1993) was originally a painter who developed a longing to devote his art to exploring the nature of Divine reality. He was born Sergei Symeonovich Sakharov in Moscow 120 years ago on 23 September 1896, the son of Russian Orthodox parents.

As a child, he prayed daily, later recalling that he would pray for 45 minutes without stress. Even as a child, he claimed to have experienced the Uncreated Light, but thought casually that every other child had similar experiences.

He studied first at the Academy of Arts, and then at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. But as he came to see the Christian focus on personal love as finite, he fell away from the faith of his childhood and began to explore Eastern mysticism.

A six-winged seraph in a fresco on a ceiling in the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Tolleshunt Knights (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

In 1921, he left Russia and moved first to Italy, then to Berlin, before arriving in Paris in 1922, where his exhibitions attracted much attention from the French media.

In Paris, he realised that ‘I’ in God’s call to Moses (‘I am who I am’) and the Gospel command to love God, were a call to personal relationship. One cannot love a concept, and he found that love is relational. He came to realise that Christ’s precept to love God totally is not psychological but ontological, and that the only way to relate to God is personal, and that the necessity of love is personal.

Following this experience, he returned to the Christianity and the Orthodoxy of his childhood at Easter 1924. He began studying at Saint Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris, where his lecturers included the theologians Sergius Bulgakov and Nicholas Berdyaev. In 1925, he left Paris for Mount Athos, where he entered the mainly Russian Monastery of Saint Panteleimon.

Father Sophrony was ordained a deacon in 1930, and soon became a disciple of Saint Silouan the Athonite, although the saint had no formal theological education and was never ordained a priest. When Saint Silouan died in 1938, he entrusted his papers to Father Sophrony. On his instructions, Father Sophrony left the monastery to live first at Karoulia, then at a cave near Saint Paul’s Monastery on Mount Athos. There he came to realise the interdependence of all humanity. In 1941, he was ordained priest, and he soon became a spiritual father to many monks on Mount Athos.

The end of World War II and the catastrophe of the Greek Civil War left Father Sophrony in a difficult position as a non-Greek on Mount Athos. In 1947, he returned to Paris, where he moved into a Russian old people’s home in St Genevieve-des-Bois as the assistant chaplain and a father confessor. There his work led to the formation of a small community that centred its prayer life on the Jesus Prayer.

In 1948, he produced his first edition of Staretz Silouan outlining Saint Silouan’s principles, including prayer for the whole world, God-forsakenness and the idea of all humanity being connected. In Paris, he also worked from 1950 to 1957 with Vladimir Lossky who influenced his thinking on many contemporary issues, and his Trinitarian thought and its application to the Church and humanity.

Inside the original monastic chapel in the former Rectory in Tolleshunt Knights (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In 1952, Father Sophrony produced a second edition of Staretz Silouan, which brought Saint Silouan to the attention of a wider public. Meanwhile, the small community he had gathered around wanted to explore the monastic life. With the help of Rosemary Edmunds, they bought the Old Rectory at Tolleshunt Knights in 1958, and the Community of Saint John the Baptist was formed within a year.

From the beginning, this was a mixed community, and the first six members were both monks and nuns. Father Sophrony continued to publish extensively and his books included a translation of Monk of Mount Athos (1973), Wisdom of Mount Athos (1975), His Life is Mine (1977), and We Shall See Him As He Is (1985).

The tomb of Father Sophrony in the crypt in Saint John’s Monastery in Tolleshunt Knights (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Meanwhile, a problem emerged for the community when the monastery was told that it could only bury its members there if an underground crypt was built. Father Sophrony said he would not die until the crypt was ready. When he died on 11 July 1993, he was buried in the crypt.

Icons in the monastery

The iconstasis and doors in the original chapel in Tolleshunt Knights are the work of Leonid Ouspensky and Father Gregory Ivanovich Krug (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The original chapel was laid out in the Old Rectory by Father Sophrony. The iconostasis or icon screen in this chapel is the work of two of the most important Russian émigré icon writers of the last century, Leonid Alexandrovich Ouspensky (1902-1987) and his friend and colleague, Father Gregory Ivanovich Krug (1908-1969).

The doors of the iconstasis are the work of Leonid Ouspensky (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Ouspensky, who painted the royal doors in the iconostasis, is known as an important artist and iconographer of the 20th century, and for his seminal books on the theology of icons, written with Vladimir Lossky, including The Meaning of Icons and The Theology of the Icon. These books introduced Western readers to the spiritual and theological understanding of icons.

The monastery refectory has frescoes in the style of Ouspensky (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The influence of Ouspensky and Father Gregory is also seen on the walls of the refectory in the monastery. These are decorated with frescoes and murals using oil and turpentine on plaster, to look like Byzantine frescoes, under the direction of Sister Maria, who had studied iconography in Paris with Ouspensky.

The monastic community today

The Visitation of Abraham ... a fresco on a wall in the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Tolleshunt Knights (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The Monastery of Saint John the Baptist has been under the authority of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople since 1965. The main spiritual practices are the repetition of the Jesus Prayer for about four hours a day and the serving of the Divine Liturgy three or four times a week, practices that were inspired by Father Sophrony’s experiences on Mount Athos.

The Hegumen or Abbot, Archimandrite Kyrill, is originally from Australia. The community consists of about 40 men and women – the majority are nuns, with a smaller number of monks, and they come from about 14 nations. In the words of one nun, it is ‘a melting pot.’

Patrick Comerford with Father Nikolai Sakharov, a monk of the monastery

Father Nikolai Sakharov, who was a student of Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, has a doctorate from Oxford for his thesis, which was published as I Love Therefore I am: The Theological Legacy of Archimandrite Sophrony (2003).

Sister Magdalen, a member of the community, is known throughout the Orthodox world for her work with children and for her books, including Conversations with Children: Communicating our Faith and Children in the Church Today.

During each visit, there has been time for walks in the monastery orchards and gardens, which look out onto the sea and across to Bradwell, or through some of the beautiful countryside surrounding the monastery.

August was turning to September when I went for a walk during this year’s visit, from the monastery to All Saints’ Church and through the green and golden Essex countryside. As I walked back to the monastery, the blackberries were already ripening in the brambles along the side of the road. It was a taste of summer, and it was a taste of autumn, a memory or summer and a promise of autumn.

Memories of summer and promises of autumn in the Essex countryside (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Canon Patrick Comerford lectures in the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This feature was first published in the ‘Church Review’ (Dublin and Glendalough) and the ‘Diocesan Magazine’ (Cashel, Ferns and Ossory) in October 2016.

Returning from Cambridge with gains and successes after rummaging and browsing

Four books bought in Cambridge earlier this month (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

One the advantages of spending a week’s study leave in Cambridge is being able to enjoy the benefit of the many bookshops in the heart of the university city. The way Ryanair has eased restrictions on cabin baggage makes it easier to bring back books on flights home, and has increased the temptation to go browsing and rummaging in new and second-hand bookshops.

Waterstone’s on Sidney Street is just a few steps from Sidney Sussex College, where I was spending a week and the Cambridge University Press around the corner claims to stand the oldest site of any bookshop in England. David’s, in a side street near King’s College, is probably the best second-hand and antiquarian bookshop anywhere in the English-speaking world.

I brought back some more books from Cambridge earlier this month, including two new books and two second-hand books for my own pleasure.

In The Great Cities in Europe, John Julius Norwich paints a portrait of world civilisation by telling the stories of the world’s greatest cities from ancient times to the present.

This book, which was published in paperback this year by Thames and Hudson (London, 2016), was first published in hardback in 2009. John Julius Norwich is best-known for his works on the Byzantine empire, mediaeval Sicily and Venice, and he has produced 30 historical documentaries for BBC television.

We live in a world where, for the first time in history, the majority of people in the world live in cities. The implications and challenges associated with this fact are enormous. But how did we get here?

From the beginnings of urbanisation in Mesopotamia to the global metropolises of today, great cities have marked the development of human civilisation. The Great Cities in History tells their stories, starting with the earliest, from Uruk and Memphis to Jerusalem and Alexandria.

Next come the fabulous cities of the first millennium: Damascus and Baghdad, Teotihuacan and Tikal, and Chang’an, capital of Tang Dynasty China.

The mediaeval world saw the rise of powerful cities such as Palermo and Paris in Europe, Benin in Africa, and Angkor in south-east Asia
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In the third section of the book, we are brought through the early modern world, including Isfahan, Agra, and Amsterdam. Here Thomas Pakenham looks at ‘Dublin and early Georgian elegance.’

In the last section, we travel to the contemporary city: London and New York, Tokyo and Barcelona, Los Angeles and São Paulo.

I found myself looking for places I have been to – including Athens, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Constantinople, Damascus, Cairo, Paris, Venice, Florence, Lisbon, Rome, Istanbul, Beijing, Kyoto, Prague, Amsterdam, London, Stockholm, Dublin, Copenhagen, Vienna, Edinburgh, Paris, London, Budapest, Barcelona, New York, Tokyo and Shanghai.

Yes, London is there twice, and so too is Istanbul, or Constantinople, but I was surprised there was no Oxford, no Cambridge, no Madrid, no Ephesus and no Thessaloniki. Another editor would have produced a very different, perhaps not as equally imaginative, list of cities.

And I found myself in places I plan to visit, including Krakow, and many more I dream of visiting.

As well as Tom Pakenham on Dublin and John Julius Norwich on Constantinople, Palermo and Venice, the collection of contributors includes Jan Morris (New York with Alexander Bloom), Michael D Coe (Angkor), Simon Schama (Amsterdam and Washington DC), Orlando Figes (Moscow), Felipe Fernandez-Armesto (Mexico City and Buenos Aires), Misha Glenny (Vienna and Budapest), Susan Toby Evans (Teotihuacan and Tenochtitlan) and AN Wilson (the two entries on London). In about four pages for each vignette, the contributors evoke the character of each place ― people, art and architecture, government ― and explain the reasons for its success.

The book is generously illustrated with 280 colour and 50 black and white illustrations, including photographs, maps and plans.

There are maps-aplenty too in Tim Marshall’s Prisoners of Geography, first published in hardback last year [2015] and published in paperback this year (London: Elliott and Thompson).

Marshall is a widely-travelled author, journalist and blogger. He is a former Diplomatic Editor at Sky News, and has worked as a journalist in conflicts in Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Israel.

In 10 chapters, covering Russia; China; the US; Latin America; the Middle East; Africa; India and Pakistan; Europe; Japan and Korea; and the Arctic, he uses maps, essays, and occasionally his personal experiences, to look at the past, present and future and to offer an essential insight into one of the major factors that determines world history.

All leaders are constrained by geography. Their choices are limited by mountains, rivers, seas and concrete. To follow world events, we need to understand people, ideas and movements. But if we do not know geography, we can never grasp the full picture.

Here he tries to answer why Putin is so obsessed with Crimea, whether the US was destined to become a global superpower, or why China’s power base continues to expand ever outwards.

This is a lucid yet at times entertaining guide to geopolitics with a compelling and fresh look at maps, not as aids to orientation or works of art, but as guideposts to the tense relations between nations.

He shows how geography shapes our history, our political destiny and the choices of world leaders and how politics is nothing without geography.

David’s, dating from 1896 and hidden away in a side alley, is my favourite second-hand bookshop in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I have often read other people’s copies of John Ruskin’s The Stones of Venice, but I never had my own copy until I picked up one in a second-hand bookshop in Cambridge earlier this month.

This slim edition, edited by JG Links, the author of Venice for Pleasure was published in 2001 in London by Pallas Athene.

The Stones of Venice was originally a three-volume work on Venetian art and architecture by John Ruskin (1819­-1900), and was first published from 1851 to 1853, and this is the most-widely approved edited and abridged edition, first published in the US in 1960. Had I studied architecture rather than theology, this would have been on the essential reading list.

Ruskin was the greatest writer on art, literature and architecture Victorian England’s. He first described architecture as poetry in 1839, and later wrote: ‘To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion, ― all in one.’ Later, Ruskin would describe the Church of Saint Augustine and Saint John the Baptist or John’s Lane Church in Thomas Street, Dublin, designed by Edward Welby Pugin, as ‘a poem in stone.’

Ruskin regarded himself as an adopted son of Venice, and his feelings for the city are expressed exquisitely in The Stones of Venice. He wrote in 1851, ‘Thank God I am here, it is a Paradise of Cities.’

The Stones of Venice has been described as the greatest guidebook ever written. It was read by all who went to Venice and thousands who did not. It opened Victorian eyes to the glories of a city under threat even then, and transformed the study and practice of architecture forever. It took Ruskin almost half a million words to launch this devastating attack on the Renaissance, and to explain how to see and make true architecture.

This edition includes Ruskin’s famous essay ‘The Nature of Gothic,’ which strongly influenced the Gothic revival in architecture on these islands from the mid-19th century on.

Ruskin’s passionate exposition of the Gothic, which he saw as perfected in Venice, was linked to his commitment to socialism and to his love of literature.

Alongside John Julius Norwich, JG Links (1904-­1997) was one of the great exponents of Venice of the 20th century. Lings designed this edition to convey all the excitement, urgency, and love of Venice to a new generation of readers, and described it ‘as a book for the lover of architecture, the lover of Venice, the lover of lost causes … but, perhaps, above all, for the lover of fine writing.’

I also returned with Steve Jones’s In the Blood, God, genes and destiny, which was published 20 years ago in 1996 (London: Harper Collins). This book is about human origins, and draws on what was then the latest knowledge from anthropology and archaeology, through genetics and evolution, to psychology and medicine, and tackles issues such as hereditary genes in criminal behaviour and homosexuality. He separates genetic fact from genetic fiction and tries to set a balance that is often lost in debate.

This not just a lay persons introduction to scientific thinking about DNA and genetics ― indeed, much of what Jones writes may need updating today ― but is an essential corrective to the reasons people engage in genealogical pursuits. As he points out, most readers, more likely than not, are descendants of William the Conqueror.

Summer turns to autumn as the buddleia begins to fade

Fading buddleia in Churchtown this week … reminders of a priest who died over 300 years ago (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

There are two sayings in Ireland that mark the changes in the seasons. Some time around the end of March or the beginning of April, people begin to say, ‘Sure, there’s a grand stretch in the evenings.’ And then, around this time of the year, they begin to say, ‘You’d notice the evenings begin to close in, wouldn’t you?’

If you had any doubts that summer was trying to linger a little longer this week, then it came to an end today with the heavy rains and the high waves along the seafront in Bray, Co Wicklow, when I tried to go for a walk along the shore at the end of a long working week.

The rain and the Dublin bus strike colluded to make the end-of-week traffic between Dublin and Bray exceptionally heavy this afternoon, and it took a full hour and a half to travel at snail’s pace between Churchtown and Bray this afternoon. I took pity on those poor people who were trying to make it even further to Co Wexford for what they may have hoped was going to be the last weekend of the summer season by the sea.

I had hoped to use this week, before academic demands return with a demanding impact, to keep up my walking distances. The counter on my phone seems to act as some sort of incentive, but never quite produced the results I expected.

Why is it that I seem to manage to walk greater distances each day when I am in England than when I am in Ireland? Perhaps that is the secret cultural divide between the two countries.

My walking averages this week are low, at about 3.5 km a day, despite walking back to work after lunch each day, and having a long walk by the River Dodder on the way home on Monday, when my daily total came to almost 7.5 km.

On the other hand, when I was in Cambridge last week, I was managing to reach 13 and even 16 km a day as I went for lengthy walks by the river and the boathouses, and had brisk early morning walks each day, as well as some wandering walks in the Essex countryside during the day I spent visiting Saint John’s Monastery in Tolleshunt Knights.

Lingering images of summer on the lawns this week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

One of the signs of the passing of summer is the fading of the flowers, including the roses on the lawns at CITI and the buddleia or butterfly bushes that grow wildly by the roadside.

Only recently did I realise the buddleia takes its name from an Anglican priest. The Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus named it in honour of the Revd Adam Buddle (1662-1715), an English botanist and priest, at the suggestion of Dr William Houstoun, who sent the first plants to England from the Caribbean about 15 years after Buddle’s death over 300 years ago.

Adam Buddle was born the son of a prosperous hemp-dresser in Deeping Saint James, a small village near Peterborough, and was educated at Saint Catharine’s College, Cambridge (BA, 1681, MA, 1685).

His life between graduation and ordination remains obscure. During that time, he lived near Hadleigh, Suffolk, where he became an authority on bryophytes. He was one of the first Englishmen to study mosses and liverworts as bryology began to be taken seriously in England during the late 17th century.

He was a Fellow of Saint Catharine’s College, Cambridge, until 1691, but like many others was then ejected after refusing to pledge his oath to the new king, William III.

He married Elizabeth Eveare in 1695, and they had two children.

By 1702, Buddle had sworn allegiance to King William, and he was in Ely Cathedral. In 1703 he became rector of North Fambridge, near Maldon in Essex, and 16 miles south of Tolleshunt Knights. He compiled a new English Flora in 1708, but this was never published.

He also accepted the post of Reader (or vicar) at the Chapel of Gray’s Inn, London. He died there and was buried at Saint Andrew’s Church Holborn, on 15 April 1715. His widow Elizabeth survived him until at least 1724.

Buddle’s memory has faded too, but I still thought of him this week as I looked at the buddleia in Churchtown this week. I knew summer was passing, and this afternoon’s rains and high waves in Bray late this afternoon seemed to confirm this.

The evenings begin to close in by the waves in Bray this evening (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The Irish priest, the wafer and ‘the truly aggrieved’ who were ‘left as sheep without a shepherd’

Father Richard Enraght (Wikipedia, reproduced by kind permission of the Principal & Chapter of Pusey House Oxford; Hall Collection 3/13, Pusey House Oxford)

Patrick Comerford

Last week, while I was staying in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, I wrote [31 August 2016] about the Revd Thomas Pelham Dale (1821-1892), a pioneering 19th century Anglo-Catholic who had been a Fellow of Sidney Sussex and was who was jailed for his ‘ritualistic’ high church practices.

A friend from Lichfield Cathedral, Stephen Wright, commented on my Facebook link: ‘Possibly worse was the case of Fr Richard William Enraght of Holy Trinity Bordesley Birmingham. This was known as the Bordesley Wafer Case. The follow-on from this case, where the wafer was evidence, is particularly interesting from the ritualistic angle.’

Then, four days later, as I travelled through Moneymore, Co Derry, on Sunday afternoon [4 September 2016], from the ordination of the Revd Suzanne Cousins in Saint Columb’s Cathedral, Derry, to the ordination of three deacons in Saint Gobhan’s Church, Seagoe, Co Armagh, I was reminded once again of the story of Richard Enraght and the ‘Bordesley Wafer Case.’

The Revd Richard William Enraght (1837-1898) was an Irish-born Anglican priest and one of the Anglo-Catholic priests who were prosecuted and jailed in the 19th century for their ritualism. Like Thomas Pelham Dale, Richard Enraght was prosecuted by the Church Association’s lawyers and jailed by Lord Penzance. He refused to attend his own trial on grounds of conscience, was found guilty under the Public Worship Regulation Act and received the maximum penalty: arrest, imprisonment and dismissal from his parish.

Saint John’s Church, Desertlynn, where the Revd Matthew Enraght was a curate (Photograph: Kenneth Allen/Wikipedia)

Enraght was born on 23 February 1837 at Moneymore, Co Derry, where his father, the Revd Matthew Enraght (1805-1882), was the Curate of Saint John’s, Desertlynn.

Matthew Enraght was born in Limerick, while Richard’s mother Sarah was the daughter of Henry Thomas Houghton of Kilmanock House, Arthurstown, Co Wexford. Soon after Richard’s birth, Matthew Enraght moved from the Diocese of Armagh to Dublin, where he became the curate of Donnybrook and Booterstown. Richard’s mother died while he was still an infant, and his father married Maria Massey in 1843.

When Matthew Enraght later moved to England, to parishes in the dioceses of Canterbury and Chichester, Richard remained in Ireland and in 1860, at the age of 23, he graduated BA from Trinity College Dublin. He then moved to England, and in 1861 he was ordained deacon in Gloucester Cathedral by the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. He became a curate at Saint Bartholomew’s in Corsham, Wiltshire, and was ordained priest in 1862.

After three years, Enraght moved to Saint Luke the Evangelist in Sheffield in 1864. There he showed his Anglo-Catholic sympathies in a pamphlet, To The Poor The Gospel is Preached, in which he criticised the pew rent system for barring the poor from churches and criticised a ‘Bible-Ritualism’ that over-relied on scriptural authority for what is permissible in liturgical ceremonial.

He moved to a parish in Lincolnshire for a year in 1866, and then in 1867, he moved to Brighton as curate to the Revd Arthur Wagner, the Tractarian vicar of Saint Paul’s and the ‘Father’ of the Catholic Revival in Brighton.

Wagner held Tractarian views since his student days at Cambridge. He built churches and schools in Brighton and also built 400 houses for the poor, all at his own expense. But he was criticised in the House of Commons for his liturgical practices and for appointing Anglo-Catholic priests as vicars in the five churches he had financed.

In 1873, the Brighton Gazette reported that Father Wagner had refused to answer questions in court that would ‘involve him to breach the confessional.’ Following this report, Wagner was assaulted on the streets of Brighton. At another Brighton parish, Father John Purchas of Saint James’s was prosecuted for using vestments and the eastward position, but he refused to attend his trial or to pay the costs of £2,096 the court awarded against him.

At Brighton, Enraght shared his Anglo-Catholic views in two pamphlets, Who are True Churchmen and Who are Conspirators? and The Last Settlement of English Reformation in 1662.

In 1871, Enraght was appointed priest-in-charge of Saint Andrew’s Church, Portslade-by-Sea, with Saint Helen’s Church, Hangleton. Portslade was just three miles from Brighton and Enraght was able to continue his role in the Brighton branch of the Society of the Holy Cross, to publish pamphlets and to write letters to the Brighton Gazette. His pamphlets there included Catholic Worship and The Real Presence and Holy Scripture.

The Brighton Gazette accused Enraght of Puseyism and of trying to turn Saint Nicholas Church School in Portslade into a Puseyite school, and attacked his plans for a retreat at Lancing College. When the Disraeli Government passed the Public Worship Regulation Act in 1874, the Brighton Gazette called for his prosecution.

Holy Trinity Church, Bordesley (Photograph by Phyllis Nicklin 1954, from the University of Birmingham ePapers; reuse permitted under Creative Commons licence Attribution)

Later that year, Enraght moved to Birmingham as Vicar of Holy Trinity, Bordesley, where he succeeded the Rev Dr Joseph Oldknow, Birmingham’s first Anglo-Catholic priest, and he found friends in two neighbouring Irish-born priests in the Anglo-Catholic tradition, the brothers James and Thomas Pollock, both graduates of TCD and both priests at Saint Alban the Martyr in Highgate.

An indication of Enraght’s popularity was the attendance at the Sunday Eucharist, with a congregation of between 400 and 500. The Sunday Evensong with sermon regularly attracted 700 to 800 people. With his parish’s support, Enraght introduced weekday celebrations of the Eucharist. His practices at Holy Trinity included the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, candles on the altar, wearing a chasuble and alb, using wafers at the Eucharst, mixing water with the wine, making the sign of the Cross, bowing during the Gloria, and allowing the choir to sing the Agnus Dei.

On 9 February 1879, one of Enraght’s churchwardens, John Perkins, came forward for Holy Communion but took a Consecrated Wafer to use as an exhibit in court as evidence of the use of wafer-bread. The incident created intense horror and indignation as it became known.

Henry Philpott, Bishop of Worcester, had prohibited the actions, but Enraght refused to attend his own trial on 12 July 1879. He claimed Lord Penzance and the Court of Arches derived their authority not from ‘this Church and Realm’ but from an Act of Parliament, and so had no ‘spiritual jurisdiction over me …’

The Consecrated Wafer Perkins had taken deceptively was produced in court as evidence, marked with pen and ink and filed as an exhibit. The case became known nationally as the ‘Bordesley Wafer Case.’

In his absence, Enraght was convicted on 9 August 1879 on 16 counts. On 31 August 1879, he denounced Perkins from the altar. At the next vestry election, the indignant parishioners rejected Perkins when he was nominated as churchwarden.

A cartoon in the Birmingham ‘Daily Post’ on 26 November 1880 showing Richard Enraght entering Warwick Prison in chains

Eventually, Enraght was arrested at his vicarage on 27 November 1880 and he was taken to Warwick Prison to serve his sentence. Four other priests in England were jailed around the same time under this legislation: Arthur Tooth, Thomas Pelham Dale, Sidney Faithorn Green and James Bell Cox.

Meanwhile, thanks to the English Church Union, the Consecrated Wafer was recovered from the court and given into the care of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who reverently consumed the host in his private chapel at Addington on 12 December 1879.

During the two months Enright spent in prison, there were protests throughout England and in the US. Edward Bouverie Pusey wrote to The Times in defence of Enraght and others: ‘They have not been struggling for themselves but for their people. The Ritualists do not ask to interfere with devotion of others … only to be allowed, in their worship of God, to use a Ritual which a few years ago no one disputed.’

Enraght spent that Christmas in prison. He was released after 49 days when the Court of Appeal ruled on a technicality in the writ for committal. The prosecutor tried to have Enraght returned to jail, but the English Church Union forestalled this attempt with its own legal actions.

When an appeal to the House of Lords failed in May 1882, Enraght was liable to another term in prison, and the parish of Holy Trinity, Bordesley, was declared vacant three months later. Meanwhile, Enraght’s father, the Revd Matthew Enraght, died at Clifton in Bristol on 13 August 1882.

In March 1883, Bishop Philpott revoked Enraght’s licence and appointed another priest to the benefice, against the wishes of the congregation. When Bishop Philpott preached at Holy Trinity two months later on 6 May 1883, the churchwardens handed him a formal protest, saying: ‘We, the truly aggrieved, have been left as sheep without a shepherd.’

However, a Royal Commission report that year marked a turning point, and the repression of ritualism in the Church of England was soon abandoned.

After Enraght was evicted from Holy Trinity, Bordesley, he worked for the next nine years in East London at Saint Michael’s, Bromley-by-Bow (1884-1888) and Saint Gabriel’s, Poplar (1888-1895). In this period of hardship, the Church Union’s Sustentation Fund supported the Enraght family.

In 1895, he was presented to Saint Swithun’s Church, Bintree, and he ended his ministry and life in that quiet country parish in Norfolk. He died on Saint Matthew’s Day, 21 September 1898, and was buried at the south-east end of Saint Swithun’s churchyard, Bintree.

Richard and Dorothea Enright were the parents of seven children. Their second son, Canon Hawtrey Enraght, was ordained priest in Norfolk in 1896, and their son-in-law, the Revd Edgar Reeves, became the Vicar of Walsingham.

Ten years ago, in February 2006, Brighton and Hove City Council erected a blue plaque at his former home in Station Road, Portslade, to honour Richard Enraght as a ‘Priest, fighter for religious freedom.’ Later that year, Brighton and Hove Bus and Coach Company named one of its new fleet buses, No 905, after Father Richard Enraght. Holy Trinity Church in Bordesley has long been closed, and the building was sold by the Diocese of Birmingham.

The missing sailor in Cambridge signals a threat to English foods

The sailor selling Cornish pasties has gone from his balcony in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Cambridge is an inland city, and the nearest beaches are 50 or 60 miles away, near Clacton-on-Sea. Although there are glimpses of the south Essex coast from some vantage points near the monastery in Tolleshunt Knights, I was conscious of being far from the sea while I was in Cambridge this week.

For many years, a mannequin Cornish sailor stood on a balcony on the corner of Rose Crescent and Market Street in Cambridge. The grizzled sailor, and the over-dressed pirate he replaced, seemed quite incongruous, given how far inland Cambridge is. But they had simply advertised the shop on the ground floor that sold Cornish pasties.

The West Cornwall Pasty Company closed shop last year because the landlord, a London-based property firm, Electricity Supplies Nominees, wanted to turn the upper floors into flats.

The empty balcony on the corner of Rose Crescent and Market Street in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The shop served traditional Cornish pasties, as well as more exotic ones, including a steak and Stilton version. It boasted its pasties were made in the traditional fashion, ‘with fresh diced beef skirt layered over freshly chopped potatoes, swede and onion sprinkled with our own blend of salt and peppers.’

The same company still has an outlet at Cambridge train station, but many Cambridge miss the pirate and the sailor who looked down benignly on the Market Stalls below in Market Hill.

As a vegetarian all my adult life, I cannot remember ever tasting a Cornish Pasty. But in European law, the name Cornish Pasty has Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status, covers products whose ‘production, processing or preparation’ takes places in a specific area, although the products can still be finally baked outside of the designated production area.

Under EU regulations, the name Cornish Pasty is limited to products produced in Cornwall using a traditional recipe, with at least 12.5% beef and 25% vegetable content.

The EU regulations work throughout the European Union: feta cheese must be made in Greece, and the Waterford Blaa can only come from Waterford. Other well-known designations include Gorgonzola, Parmigiano-Regiano, Camembert and Roquefort. It is similar to the regulations for wine names: who would want to drink Chianti that is not from Tuscany or want to find what they thought was Champagne was a sparkling wine from Austria?

Newcastle Brown Ale became a problem a few years ago when the brewery moved to Gateshead, which is a separate town.

Many English cheeses are known by the name of their place of production (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

In some cases, names have become generic and cannot be protected. Cheddar cheese originates in the Somerset village of Cheddar, but is produced in so many countries that the ‘Cheddar’ could not be protected, although the more specific ‘West Country Farmhouse Cheddar’ is.

The system works within the European Union, but cannot be enforced outside. So, for example, Buffalo Mozzarella is protected in Europe, but the name is used without restrictions by cheese producers in the US and other countries.

When the British Government triggers the ‘Brexit’ process, the protection these European regulations provide for traditional food products is going to fall by the wayside. Not only may you find your Cornish Pasty is uniquely English or that Cheddar is no longer made in Somerset, but Scotch Eggs, Welsh Lamb, Melton Mowbray Pork Pies, and even Cornish Clotted Cream come from anywhere in the European Union.

Pimms is firmly associated with summer in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

There was a feeling in Cambridge this week that summer was still lingering, and Pimms was still on sale in large jugs in many of the city centre pubs and in places by the river. But, while the English have never prided themselves in the quality of their drink products more than their foods, there is no doubt that the standards of English cuisine have improved notably in recent years, and the menus in many pubs are as good as if not better than the variety of beers and ales on offer.

Harriets Café Tearooms offers a ‘Truly English Experience’ in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Harriets Café Tearooms opened four years ago in cobbled Green Street, running from Gonville and Caius College in Trinity Street to Sidney Street and the front gate of Sidney Sussex College. All this week, a sign in the window advertised a ‘Truly English Experience.’

The new Fitzbillies in Bridge Street also sells the ‘famous Chelsea buns’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Fitzbillies, the iconic Cambridge café on Trumpington Street, was rescued from closure four years ago, and became so successful once again that it opened a new lookalike branch in Bridge Street, three minutes’ walk from Sidney Sussex, in May.

When I dropped in on Thursday [1 September 2016], the new café was abuzz and offering a similar selection of food and drink to the flagship shop on Trumpington Street, including their celebrated Chelsea buns.

But while Chelsea Buns and Eton Mess have no protection geographic designation, under EU laws many of the products on the stalls in the Market are going to loose their EU protection once Brexit is triggered.

The name Stilton is limited under EU regulations (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

At present, the name Stilton, white or blue, is limited to cheese produced, processed and prepared in Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, using traditional methods. The product must normally be made using full-fat pasteurised cows’ milk from cows grazed in the designated area.

However, if this is not readily available, this may be sourced from the surrounding counties of Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Greater Manchester, Cheshire, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. Both cheeses must have a minimum fat content of 48%.

In the same way, Yorkshire Wensleydale must be cheese produced in Wensleydale, North Yorkshire, using whole milk from cows grazed in the designated area, and can be pasteurised or unpasteurised.

It is highly unlikely that once Brexit is triggered any producer is going to try to use once-protected designations such as English Wine or Welsh Wines. But cheese producers may soon regret the day Britain voted to abandon the European Union.

One cheese I did not try in Cambridge this week … it owes it label to Monty Python and not to any place of origin? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Signs of the times on the old houses in Portugal Place

Portugal Place is a pretty street in Cambridge, running from Saint John’s College and Bridge Street to Portugal Street and Jesus Green (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

Portugal Place is a much photographed street in Cambridge and it features in many guide books and on postcards and calendar. For people who know Cambridge, this is a popular link between the heart of the city and Jesus Green and beyond. Yet many visitors pass it by on their way from the centre of Cambridge to the punts for hire at Magdalene Bridge.

The short, narrow street runs east from Bridge Street to Portugal Street and on to Jesus Green and the River Cam, and faces back towards the chapel of Saint John’s College at the east end. It is just a two-minute walk from Sidney Sussex College, and I walked along it many times this week during breaks at the summer conference organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies.

I decided to walk back along Portugal Place after a morning walk along the River Cam and by the boat clubs yesterday [1 September 2016] before I left Cambridge this week following the summer conference in Sidney Sussex College organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies.

Portugal Place is ‘an attractive antidote to the adjoining commercial streets’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Portugal Place is a narrow, picturesque street and is fully pedestrianised. It has been described as ‘an attractive antidote to the adjoining commercial streets.’ It consists mainly of residential properties, although there are some low-key commercial and retail units.

It is said that some of the most interesting and most colourful characters in Cambridge have lived here in houses that date mainly from the 18th and 19th century. More recently, No 19 was the home of Francis Crick (1916-2004), the molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist, most noted for being a co-discoverer of the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953 with James Watson.

Portugal Place leads north-east from the main Roman and mediaeval route through this part of Cambridge. In its earliest form, this was a lane along the side of Saint Clement’s Churchyard. The date of foundation of Saint Clement’s Church is disputed. It may be a Scandinavian dedication and so belong to the short-lived Danish occupation of Cambridge (ca 886-917).

However, there is no independent evidence that the church predates the Norman conquest, and most of the street is much later in date, with gradual extensions northwards in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.

Most of the properties on Portugal Place are set on the edge of the footpath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Most of the properties on Portugal Place are set on the edge of the footpath, and there is a feeling of a small square at a kink in the lane just east of the church. The south-west vista is closed by North Court with views of the chapel beyond at Saint John’s College.

To the north-east, the vista is blinkered and leads to Portugal Street and Jesus Green and beyond. Nearby is a multi-storey car park, but the tall holly tree in Saint Clement’s churchyard adds some greenery at the west end of Portugal Place.

The iron railings and balustrades in front of the houses are a key feature, and the variety of roof heights and chimneys provide the skyline with some interesting and eye-catching details. Street lighting is provided by reproduction heritage columns.

A recent report recommended repaving throughout in York stone and repairing the railings would improve the street scene, and suggested that interest could be added to the street by providing details of some of the former residents.

Allama Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938), poet and philosopher lived at No 17 Portugal Place (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

A sign at No 17, one of the pretty houses ‘Allama Muhammad Iqbal, Born 1877 Died 1938 Poet-Philosopher of Pakistan lived here 1905-6 while at Trinity College.’ It is an interesting anachronism, for although he is often described as t‘ Spiritual father of Pakistan,’ the state of Pakistan was not formed or delineated for more than a decade after his death.

A representation of the Double Helix … a reminder that Francis Crick (1916-2004) once lived at No 19 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

This narrow street turns right at this point, and No 18 is the Hawks Club. Next door, Nos 19 and 20 share a number plate and an eye-catching sculpture above the doors is a representation of the Double Helix, a reminder without any accompanying words that Crick once lived here.

However, like most people, I imagine, I more inclined to associate Crick, James Watson and the Double Helix with the Eagle in Bene’t Street.

A sign at No 12 Portugal Place makes errors in not just one but two classical languages (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Whatever about the potential of more signs like this, a sign placed on railings on No 12 Portugal Place last year upset many classicists in Cambridge. Reports said the owners of the building were so perturbed by the number of bicycles left chained to the railings by students that they erected this angry sign in both classical Greek and Latin.

The notice is intended to warn cyclists that all bicycles will be ‘removed or destroyed.’ However, it seems the sign-writer might have benefitted from some further tutoring. Despite appearing to be the work of a well-educated person, critics quickly pointed out that the wording includes a number of mistakes.

Dr Rupert Thompson of Selwyn College, a classics lecturer, said: ‘It’s trying to say, “bicycles left here will be destroyed”.’ But he pointed out that the second word on the sign, ληφθεντεσ, actually means ‘taken’ not ‘left.’ In other words, bicycles taken here will be destroyed.

‘It’s definitely trying to be ancient Greek but it’s not quite,’ he said, the BBC quoted him as saying. He said both lines of the Greek inscription use the wrong letters. ‘I don’t know what to make of it really, but it’s very amusing and it’s absolutely great to see this in the city.’

Professor Mary Beard of Newnham College, a leading Cambridge and international classicist, said the Latin – Duae rotae hic relictae perimentur – may be correct, but she pointed out that it translates literally as ‘two wheels left abandoned here will be removed.’

Students were critical too and said the sign for being pompous, elitist and patronising. All this week, I noticed a bicycle chained to the railings in defiance – or in ignorance – of the intended meaning of the sign.

A chained bicycle that defies the sign on the railings at No No 12 Portugal Place (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Others might have pointed out that Greek speakers were available in plentiful supply: Saint Clement’s hosted the Greek Orthodox parish for many years, or that Sidney Sussex College, the annual venue for the summer school of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, is just two or three minutes walking distance.

Sidney Sussex College has its own ‘Bridge of Sighs’ on Sussex Street

The Sidney Sussex Bridge on Sussex Street … one of the newest bridges in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

The bridges on the River Cam are an important part of the tourist trail in Cambridge. The classical bridge at Clare College is said to be the oldest bridge spanning the River Cam. The bridges at Silver Street and Magdalene College are popular gathering places for people hiring punts. The Mathematical Bridge at Queens’ College is surrounded by myth and legend about its building. And the ‘Bridge of Sighs’ at Saint John’s College is one of the most photographed bridges in London, alongside Tower Bridge and London Bridge.

The ‘Bridge of Sighs’ at Saint John’s College, was described by Queen Victoria as the most ‘pretty and picturesque’ feature of Cambridge University. But, despite its appearances of antiquity, it dates only from 1831.

But Sidney Sussex College, where I have been staying this week during the summer conference of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, also has its own ‘Bridge of Sighs,’ albeit one that is 160 years younger than its counterpart in Saint John’s College.

The bridge at Sussex Street is only a quarter of a century old, which may explain why it goes without comment in most guide books. But antiquity never explains popularity. Although I may have taken this bridge for granted for too long, I have passed under it almost every day I have been in Cambridge for the past decade.

This enclosed footbridge crossing Sussex Street was built in 1991 to connect the historic site of Sidney Sussex College on the north side of the street with new residential accommodation built in the inter-war years at Sussex House on the south side.

Although this bridge lacks the antiquity of most of the better-known bridges that cross the River Cam, it is a pleasant and eye-catching late 20th century addition to the streetscape of Cambridge and it blends in well with the neo-Georgian 1930s buildings on each side of Sussex Street.

The buildings lining Sussex Street were built for Sidney Sussex College in 1928-1939 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The buildings lining Sussex Street are a planned mixed-use development and were built for Sidney Sussex College in 1928-1939. They include a shopping arcade, offices and college accommodation.

The south side dates from 1928-1932, and is three storeys with dormer attics. The wall materials are red brick with a stone arcade.

The ground floor consists of an open-bowed or crescent-shaped colonnade or arcade of 11 bays, the cornice supported on unfluted Roman Doric columns. The range of shops includes late 20th century plate-glass display windows.

The upper arcade is reached by balustraded stone staircase on the east and west side that provides access to offices, the top storeys and the dormer attic.

The lower floor has 12/12 homed sashes, the upper floor has 8/8 homed sashes, and there are hipped roofs with dormers. The comers of elevation have rusticated quoins.

The north side of the street was completed in 1938-1939, and the building line is along the back edge of the pavement. Here there is a 10-bay arcade of Roman Doric columns supporting offices lit through 12/12 homed sashes to the first floor and 8/8 homed sashes to the second floor. The hipped roofs have two tiers of dormers.

The college accommodation to the rear is reached by a terrace and stair. There are additional four-storey and dormer attic corner blocks to each side at the east and west ends of the street.

Nikolaus Pevsner describes Sussex Street as the ‘best piece of pre-war urban planning in Cambridge’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The architect for this development was ER Barrow, who also designed the Royal Masonic Trust for Girls in Great Queen Street, Covent Garden, London, in 1923. He later used his ideas in Sussex Street for a classical colonnade combined with Jacobean mullions and gables when he was commissioned by Saint John’s College, Oxford, to design Belsyre Court in North Oxford in 1935.

The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-1983) describes Sussex Street as the ‘best piece of pre-war urban planning in Cambridge.’

Sussex Street runs between Sidney Street to the south-west and the junction of King Street and Hobson Street to the north-east. To the south and parallel with Sussex Street is Hobson’s Passage.

Historically, the line of this street dates back to at least mediaeval times, and it is thought there may be archaeological deposits at a depth of 1.5 to 2 metres. Stray finds of Roman pottery and coins as well as pottery from later periods have been made in the vicinity, but the potential for prehistorical finds is low and for Roman finds is rated as moderate.

Montagu House on the corner of Sidney Street and Sussex Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

However, the potential for mediaeval finds is regarded as high and there is evidence for mediaeval occupation at the west end of the street. In the Middle Ages, Sussex Street was known as Little Walles Lane. It marked part of the southern boundary of the Franciscan or Grey Friars Priory, and the street ended at the King’s Ditch, a less elegant name that has since been transformed into Hobson Street King Street.

The Franciscan Friary was established on this site around 1325. Sidney Sussex College, which was founded in 1596 by Lady Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex, stands on the site of the mediaeval Franciscan house.

No 1-20 Sussex Street are now listed as Grade II buildings and they have names that reflect key people associated with the history of Sidney Sussex College: Montagu House, Sidney House, Kent House, Harrington House and Sussex House, with, appropriately, Sidney House and Sussex House at each end of the south side of the street. These two blocks of buildings also include No 29 and 31 Hobson Street, and No 23, 24 and 25 Sidney Street.

Sidney House on the corner of Sidney Street and Sussex Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The ‘Bridge of Sighs’ at the east end of Sussex Street is a late 20th century addition linking the two blocks of college residences and offices, and is dated 1991. The bridge was designed by the Cambridge architectural practice, Pleasance Hookham and Nix, who have offices near Sidney Sussex, on a corner close to Magdalene College.

The bridge opened on 3 September 1991 and links Stairs X, Y and Z on Hobson Court, South Court and Staff Court with the offices, rooms and accommodation above the colonnade and shops on the south side of Sussex Street.

The keystone on the west side is decorated with the Sidney Sussex College arms (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The bridge has two keystones, one on either side of the bridge. The keystone on the west side is decorated with the Sidney Sussex College coat of arms, in their unique shape of lozenge rather than a shield, and with the date 1991 beneath.

The the keystone on the east side is decorated with the porcupine that features as logo in many parts of Sidney Sussex, and that is derived from the supporters on he coat of arms of Lady Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex, the founder of Sidney Sussex College in 1596.

The keystones were designed and carved by the Cardozo Kindersley Workshop in Cambridge. The letter-cutter and sculptor David Kindersley (1915-1995) was apprenticed to Eric Gill in 1934-1936 before starting his own workshop near Cambridge in 1946. He was joined in 1976 by Lida Lopes Cardozo, beginning a partnership that lasted until David’s death. The workshop moved to its present address in Victoria Road, Cambridge in 1977.

The keystones were carved and painted, using platinum rather than silver leaf, which would turn black. The unusual Guiting stone is from Gloucestershire.

The keystone on the east side is decorated with the porcupine that features as logo in many parts of Sidney Sussex (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Five years later after the bridge was built, the buildings were listed and Sussex Street was fully pedestrianised in 1996, the 400th anniversary of the foundation of Sidney Sussex College.

Sussex Street is now an attractive neo-Georgian shopping street. It is popular and busy stret, lined with specialist shops and cafés on the ground floors and offices and student rooms above.

The colonnade features a wide variety of specialist shops in beautiful surroundings. Here too are shops with everything for the musician with pianos, instruments and sheet music, a bridal and ball gown shop, hair and beauty salons, a lingerie and swimwear shop, a leather goods shop and the Cambridge Toy Shop.

A recent report recommended some minor improvements to street furniture on Sussex Street, particularly at the Sidney Street end. It identified a key challenge as the attempt to reduce the occasional night vandalism without recourse to ugly shop security measures or unsightly street furniture. It also suggested formal cycle parking may help to reduce the incidences of cycles being chained to railings.

The shop windows remain open and bright even at night time, but.

The landscaping of Sussex Street is restricted to two silver birches in the centre of the street. Between them, an obelisk with attached street lighting was erected in 1996 to mark the pedestrianisation of the street 20 years ago.Tthe bicycle parking proposals have still not been put in place

A set of architectural walking tours of Cambridge can be downloaded here.