The former Fosters’ Bank on Sidney Street remains one of the most engaging buildings in Cambridge

The former Fosters’ Bank in Cambridge was designed by the Victorian architect Alfred Waterhouse and built in 1890-1894 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Sidney Street in the centre of Cambridge takes its name from Sidney Sussex College, and runs from Bridge Street at its junction with Jesus Lane at the north-west end to Saint Andrew’s Street at the junction with Hobson Street at the south-east end, close to Christ’s College.

Apart from Sidney Sussex College, the notable buildings on this street include Holy Trinity Church, but the most engaging may be Lloyds Bank, built as Fosters’ Bank in 1890-1894. The bank was designed by the Victorian architect Alfred Waterhouse (1830-1905) in the Jacobethan style, with complex decoration.

The building is now the Cambridge University Branch of Lloyds TSB. It was built on an irregular site, at the corner of Sidney Street and Hobson Street, and close to the gatehouse of Christ’s College. The original name of Fosters’ Bank still survives over the doorway, a reminder of the Foster family I referred to yesterday, including George Edward Foster (1840-1906) who laid the foundation stone of nearby Saint Andrew’s Street Baptist Church in 1903.

Fosters’ Bank, a striking building in a mixture of the Jacobethan and Dutch Renaissance-style styles, was designed by Alfred Waterhousem who, financially speaking, was probably the most successful of all the Victorian architects. He is associated with Gothic Revival architecture, although he worked in other styles too. He often used eclecticism in his buildings, and the styles he used occasionally included Tudor revival, Jacobethan and Italianate.

Waterhouse was born into a Quaker family, and his brothers were co-founders of the Price Waterhouse partnership that is now part of PriceWaterhouseCoopers. At an early stage in his career he was strongly influenced by John Ruskin’s The Stones of Venice (1849) and AWN Pugin’s Contrasts (1836) and The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture (1841).

His best-known works include Manchester Town Hall and the Natural History Museum in London, the Manchester Assize buildings, and Strangeways Prison. He designed many town halls, several hospitals, churches and chapels, such as the Lyndhurst Road Congregational Church, Hampstead, banks, and university buildings in Cambridge, such as Girton College and the chapel in Gonville and Caius College, in Oxford, such as the Broad Street frontage and college dining hall in Balliol College, and in Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds.

The Congregational King’s Weigh House Chapel in Mayfair, which he designed in 1888, is now the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in London. His hospitals include being the Royal Infirmary Liverpool and University College Hospital London.

The clock tower on the right of the façade above the main entrance of the former Fosters’ Bank in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Waterhouse was commissioned to build a new bank in Cambridge by the Foster family who wanted a new location for their bank which had outgrown its original location in Trinity Street.

The builder was William Sindall; the structural steel work is by A Hanyside & Co; the stone carving, mainly around the doorway, on the clock tower and in the gables, is by Farmer & Brindley; the ceramic tiles were made by Craven Dunnill & Co; the faience is by Burmantofts; the mosaic flooring is by JF Ebner and J Rust; the decorative ironwork and light fittings are by Hart Son Peard & Co; the lighting was by Belshaw & Co; and the clock in the tower was made by John Moore & Sons of Clerkenwell.

The building exudes the grandeur and confidence of banking in the late Victorian era. It was probably designed to make patrons of the bank feel wealthy and portant there – or to attract the wealthy and important to entrust their money with the bank. Today, many tourists photograph it believing it must be part of the university

Both the exterior and interior of the bank are impressive. The exterior has a stone ground floor with decorative banded stone and red brick covering the two upper floors and the gables. There is a clock tower on the right of the façade above the main entrance, and the lettering above the door still says ‘Fosters’ Bank’.

The clock tower with an ornate clock face gives some idea of the elaborate decoration inside. The main banking hall is octagonal in shape, high and light with a magnificent domed roof. The walls and ornate columns have faience decorations, the floor is of mosaic and there are colourful, glazed, ceramic tiles. A neo-Tudor extension was added in 1935.

The lettering above the main entrance still says ‘Fosters’ Bank’ above the door (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The site of Fosters’ Bank at Nos 1 to 5 Sidney Street had once been the site of the Crown and Woolpack Inn, and until 1846 it had been the premises for the Philo-Union or Cambridge Literary Society, founded in 1826 for ‘the diffusion of general knowledge and the discussion of all subjects not of a theological nature’.

Fosters’ Bank was founded in 1804 by the Foster family, Cambridge corn millers, mainly to support their local milling workers. It was also known as the Cambridge & Cambridgeshire Bank.

The bank first opened in attractive premises in Trinity Street, Cambridge, in a building that was once the Turk’s Head coffee bar. Many of the bank’s customers were drawn from the local agricultural industry, and there were branches in St Ives (1830), St Neots (1830), Royston (1834), Ely (1835), Newmarket (1844), Bishop’s Stortford (1874), Littleport (1889), Saffron Walden (1901) and Wisbech.

By the end of the 19th century, Foster’s Bank had outgrown its Trinity Street premises and commissioned Waterhouse to design a magnificent new building. Fosters’ Bank was absorbed into the Capital and Counties Bank in 1904, which later became part of Lloyds Bank.

Both Ebenezer and Richard Foster were Mayors of Cambridge, as were their descendants Charles Finch Foster and Henry S Foster. The Foster family’s milling business continued until 1915. The Foster mill near Cambridge railway station has since been converted into luxury flats. Anstey Hall in Trumpington, once the home of the Foster family, is now a wedding venue.

Richard Foster was also the major backer of the Roman Baths, which were built in Jesus Lane. However, the baths were not a success and closed after less than a year. For many years it was the premises of the Pitt Club, the Cambridge equivalent of the Bullingdon Club in Oxford. I could see the building from my rooms in Cloister Court in Sidney Sussex College when it had become Pizza Express, and it is now Kibou Japanese restaurant.

Fosters’ Bank on Sidney Street is close to both Sidney Sussex College (above) and Christ’s College (below) (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

A Baptist Church in central Cambridge, with a story that goes back more than 300 years to 1689 or earlier

Saint Andrew’s Street Baptist Church, Cambridge, almost opposite Emmanuel College, was designed by George Baines and Reginald Palmer Baines and was built in 1903-1904 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

As I walking back through Cambridge last week, I stopped briefly outisde Saint Andrew’s Street Baptist Church, almost opposite Emmanuel College, to learn about its history and architecture and to learn little more about the story of the Baptist presence in Cambridge.

The church, built in 1903-1904 at 40-43 Saint Andrew’s Street, replaced a previous chapel that had been built in 1836. But, as a plaque on the façade recalls, there has been a place of worship of some form on the site since 1689. The church predates the street from which it takes its name, has been led by a number of long-serving, distinguished ministers, and has its roots in the mid-17th century Puritans and dissenters.

During the Cromwellian era, the Puritans were triumphant in Cambridge and Anglican organisation had broken down. A report in 1649 showed that the parish of Saint Andrew the Less was the only one in Cambridge with a serving minister, although there were preachers at Great Saint Mary’s and Little Saint Mary’s.

The Independent congregations in Cambridge began to reorganise in the aftermath of the Caroline restoration in 1660, although evidence for those early meetings is sketchy. There are records of a meeting in a Widow Wilson’s house in Saint Andrew’s Street being broken up in 1665: the congregation escaped, but Wilson and the preacher, Thomas Dac, were caught and fined.

During the short-lived indulgence of Charles II in 1672, a licence was granted for a meeting house at Saint Andrew’s Hill or Hog Hill. Three years later, in 1675, there was a meeting in the house of Robert Wilson (1627-1710) in Saint Andrew’s parish. Wilson was a music teacher and one of the original trustees of the new meeting house built on Hog Hill, now Downing Place, in 1687.

Other conventicles or dissenting meetings about that time met in Green Street, facing onto Sidney Sussex College, and Bridge Street, and there were several other smaller meetings. The labels Presbyterian, Anabaptist and Independent were used loosely in those days and at times were interchangeable.

Joseph Hussey became the first pastor of the Great Meeting on Hog Hill around 1691, when the church had 76 members and called itself Presbyterian. When the pastor advocated ‘a more democratic form of church government’ in 1694, the meeting became Congregational, and the Presbyterian minority seceded in 1696.

When Hussey retired in 1719, the church had a congregation of 1,600 and 150 members. A period of disputes and secessions followed, due to personal and economic differences rather than doctrinal disputes. About 100 of the poorer members left the congregation with Richard Davis as their minister in 1721, while the richer majority remained in possession of the building with a pastor named Throgmorton.

A similar schism took place in 1735, and harmony was only restored during the ministry of J Conder (1738-1754). An attempt at a union with the Stoneyard Baptists failed in 1766, and by 1767 the meeting had again dwindled to 100. It was revived by Joseph Saunders (1767-1788), an ally of Charles Simeon, who attended his afternoon services.

Towards the end of Saunders’s ministry, a new meeting-house was built on the old site in Downing Place. Its windows were broken by rioters in 1792. The membership dwindled to 50 or so, partly because the Stoneyard Chapel had become more attractive under Robert Hall. After almost 200 years, the Downing Place chapel closed in 1874, and it was replaced by Emmanuel Church in Trumpington Street, opposite Pembroke College.

A plaque dates Saint Andrew’s Street Baptist Church in Cambridge back to 1689 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Meanwhile, the second migration from the Hog Hill meeting had led to the foundation of a Baptist community. The 100 poorer members who left in 1721 with Richard Davis as their leader rented a stable and granary in the Stoneyard, next to Hobson’s Spinning House on Saint Andrew’s Street, and formed their own meeting with over 130 members.

There were secessions in 1723 and 1725, reflecting divisions over the question of infant baptism. The seceders of 1725 returned in 1727, and there was a temporary recovery, but the meeting was almost extinct when the Revd Robert Robinson of Norwich accepted an invitation in 1759.

Robinson found the building ‘a damp, dark, cold, ruinous, contemptible hovel’ with a congregation of 34 people. But during his ministry, the Stoneyard meeting grew, the old buildings were pulled down in 1764 and they were replaced with a chapel that could seat 600 people.

Robinson was an inspiring preacher and a hymnwriter, and on Sunday evenings he could attract congregations of up to 200. He was a friend of Charles Simeon, despite their political differences, and of Joseph Priestley, and he made an eloquent but vain appeal for reunion with the Independents or Congregationalists of the Hog Hill meeting.

The Revd Robert Hall succeeded Robinson in 1791, and soon attracted such crowds that the chapel had to be enlarged to hold a congregation of more 800. In the early 19th century, village stations or local chapels were founded by the Saint Andrew’s Street Meeting at Coton and Barton, later chapels were founded in Mill Road, Arbury Road, East Road, Cherry Hinton and Cambridge Place, and the chapel was rebuilt in 1836 on the original site.

During the Great Famine in Ireland, one Sunday collection raised £236, ‘an enormous sum for a small place like this,’ and a second collection the following Sunday raised a further £264.

Charles Spurgeon, one of the most popular preachers of his day, preached in Saint Andrew’s Street Baptist Church twice, on 6 April and 8 August 1855.

Sir Nikolaus Pevsner says the church is ‘a good specimen’ of the work of G Baines and Son (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The early 19th century chapel was replaced by Saint Andrew’s Street Baptist Church which was built in 1903-1904 at 40-43 Saint Andrew’s Street, on the site of earlier 18th and 19th century chapels.

The foundation stone was laid on 6 May 1903 by George Edward Foster (1840-1906) of Fosters’ Bank, Sidney Street. The new church was designed by the architects George Baines (1851-1934) and his son Reginald Palmer Baines (1879-1960) of G Baines and Son, who specialised in early 20th-century nonconformist churches and chapels. According to the architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner this is ‘a good specimen’ of their work.

The Baines practice designed the church in a Neo-Perpendicular Gothic style, blending in some subtle Art Nouveau details. The church has a flint-faced exterior with stone dressings. The original spire appears to have been taken down soon after the church was built.

The foundation stone was laid on 6 May 1903 by George Edward Foster of Fosters’ Bank, Sidney Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The interior retains side galleries and a prominent central oak pulpit that emphasises the traditional nonconformist focus on preaching.

The memorial window above and behind the choir stalls was erected to commemorate members of the congregation who died in World War I. The windows depict three figures from John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, symbolising three aspects of the Christian life: the centre light represents Freedom and shows Christian being set free from his burden of sin and guilt at the foot of the Cross; on the left is Truth represented by Mr Valiant-for-Truth; and on the right, Faithful is praying. The images above show the vision of the Celestial City of God, with pilgrims moving towards it.

An additional plaque records those who died in World War II.

The pews were removed and replaced by chairs in 2011 to create a more versatile space.

Inside Saint Andrew’s Street Baptist Church, Cambridge

After what have been described as a couple of recent ‘bumps in the road’, the church became mistakenly known as a ‘difficult church’. In response, the Revd Steve Langford was appointed as interim minister with the task of preparing the church for the next long-term minister.

Saint Andrew’s Street Baptist Church became involved in a ministry to the homeless, and in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the church opened its kitchens and cooked up to 100 meals a day for people living in temporary accommodation and hostels. At the same time, the church moved online and it continues to run ‘hybrid’ services.

In 2021 the church entered a partnership with Cambridge Youth for Christ to redevelop part of the church centre, known as No 40, into a drop-in and well-being centre for young people. The church ‘stepped up’ again in 2022 when it opened the church centre for English language classes Ukrainian refugees.

Saint Andrew’s Street Baptist Church is between the Mandela House City Council building and the Regal Pub/Arts Cinema, close to Downing and Emmanuel Colleges. The Revd Simon Cragg has been the Senior Minister since March 2025. He is from Cambridge and studied at the London School of Theology. The Revd Chris Duffett is the ‘Artist-in-Residence’.

Sunday services begin at 10:45 am with a time of musical worship, prayers and a sermon. There is Communion on the first Sunday of every month.

Sunday services at Saint Andrew’s Street Baptist Church begin at 10:45 am (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Downing College is the oldest of the new colleges and the newest of the old colleges in Cambridge

The Porter’s Lodge and First Court at Downing College, Cambridge, facing onto Regent Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

There are posters all over Cambridge this week and last for the Cambridge Shakespeare Festival, which began on 13 July and continues until 29 August. The festival is celebrating 39 years, and this year’s programme includes The Tempest and The Merchant of Venice in Downing College Gardens; Much Ado About Nothing and Romeo and Juliet in Saint John’s College Gardens; and A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Trinity College Gardens.

The festival was founded in 1987, and runs for eight weeks in July and August. In the past, when the festival coincided with IOCS summer schools in Sidney Sussex College, I have been were invited to a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Saint John’s College Gardens.

While I was walking around in Cambridge last week with a friend from Ireland, there were posters for the festival everywhere, and at the end of the day I decided to call into Downing College, where The Tempest (13 July to 1 August) and The Merchant of Venice (3 to 29 August ) are being staged.

The Maitland Robinson Library was designed by Quinlan Terry and opened in 1993 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Downing College was founded in 1800 and is often described as the oldest of the new colleges and the newest of the old colleges in Cambridge. It is on Regent Street, in the heart of Cambridge, and the entrance is opposite the front of the University Arms Hotel and the entrance to Parker’s Piece.

It was the only college to be added to the university between 1596 and 1869, and was formed ‘for the encouragement of the study of Law and Medicine and of the cognate subjects of Moral and Natural Science’. Downing has been named as one of the two most eco-friendly colleges in Cambridge and it has developed a reputation in both law and medicine.

It almost goes without saying that the names of Downing Street and Downing College share a common origin. Sir George Downing (1623-1684) was born in Dublin and was a Parliamentarian turned Royalist, who had been a Puritan chaplain and a Cromwellian diplomat, and later the ambassador at the Hague during the reign of Charles II.

Samuel Pepys once said Downing’s conduct was odious if useful to the king, called him a ‘perfidious rogue’ and reported that ‘all the world took notice of him for a most ungrateful villain for his pains’.

Trees lining one side of the Quadrangle at Downing College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

George Downing built Downing Street in Whitehall in the 1680s, including 10 Downing Street, later the official residence of the Prime Minister. When his grandson Sir George Downing (1685-1749) died, the family fortune and title passed to his cousin, Sir Jacob Downing (1717-1764). But the estates were to be used to found a college at Cambridge and when Sir Jacob died Downing College was supposed to come into existence.

However, Jacob’s widow Margaret refused to give up the estates and lengthy court cases followed. When she died in 1778 both her second husband, Admiral Sir George Bowyer (1740-1800), and her sister’s son continued to resist the terms of the original will until 1800, when the court decided in favour of Sir George Downing’s will. George III then granted Downing a royal charter, marking the official foundation of the college.

The trustees of the Downing estate included the Master of Clare College and Saint John’s College and the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. In 1806, they commissioned the architect William Wilkins (1778-1839) to design their new college.

Wilkins, who worked in the neo-classical architectural style, designed the first wholly campus-based college plan in the world, based on a magnificent entrance on Downing Street reaching back to form the largest court in Cambridge, extending to Lensfield Road. But this was not to be: the court cases greatly reduced the estate and the grand plans failed.

The Dining Hall and the Paddock at Downing College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Much of the north side of what was then the Pembroke Leys was sold to the university and is now home to scientific buildings at the Downing Site. Initially, only limited east and west ranges were built, and the plans for a library and a chapel on the south face of the college were shelved.

The third side of the square was only completed in 1951 when the college chapel was built. Where the fourth side would have been is now a large paddock known simply as ‘The Paddock’, with many trees. Although not fully enclosed, the court formed before Downing College is perhaps the largest in Cambridge or Oxford – a boast that is contested by Trinity College’s Great Court.

The most recent building additions are the Howard Lodge, the Howard Building and the Howard Theatre which opened in 2010. The Heong Gallery, a modern art gallery, opened in 2016, is named after Alwyn Heong, an alumnus who is a supporter of the visual arts. The conversion of a stables building by Caruso St John won an RIBA award.

The college fields teams in a range of sports, including men’s football, men’s and women’s rugby and tennis, and Downing College Boat Club is successful too.

Downing students remain prominent in the academic world and Downing has a particular reputation as the ‘Law College’. The college is renowned for its strong legal tradition, being built up by Clive Parry, his pupil and successor John Hopkins and Graham Virgo.

Legal notables associated with Downing College include the late Sir John Smith, the pre-eminent criminal lawyer of his generation; Lord Collins of Mapesbury, the first solicitor to be appointed to the Court of Appeal and House of Lords; and Sir Robert Jennings, former president of the International Court of Justice.

Downing College Chapel, behind the portico, was built in 1951 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Dean of Chapel and chaplain, the Revd Dr Keith Eyeons, is a Fellow of Downing College and the Director of Studies for Theology, Religion and Philosophy of Religion. He was a teacher in Buckinghamshire before training for ordination.

He returned to Cambridge to work part-time as chaplain at Downing College, while also working part-time on a PhD on Karl Barth and Saint John’s Gospel, supervised by Professor David Ford. He is the author of The Theology of Everything and The View from the Centre.

His current research is on the potential interactions between physics and theology, especially the ontological significance of quantum field theory and general relativity, and the fine-tuning of the cosmos.

Downing College chapel is a focus for spirituality, prayer, worship, preaching, hospitality and friendship. The services include choral services on Sundays at 6 pm and on occasional Thursdays at 9 pm, daily prayers, compline and occasional talks and discussions.

The Cambridge Shakespeare Festival began on 13 July and continues until 29 August … a poster in Downing College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Mitre in Cambridge, the meaning of a name, and restoring a forgotten woman’s name at the Eagle

The Mitre on Bridge Street, Cambridge … the name is an anomaly as there is no Bishop of Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Archbishop Sarah Mullally is only the second Archbishop of Canterbury since the 14th century to hold that office without a degree from Oxford or Cambridge. The other was Archbishop George Carey, although he later received an honorary DD from Cambridge in 2006.

Most of their post-war predecessors have had strong links with Cambridge:

• Justin Welby was educated at Trinity College, where his great-uncle, Rab Butler, was the master.

• Rowan Williams studied theology at Christ’s College, Cambridge, was a tutor, chaplain and director of studies at Westcott House, dean and chaplain of Clare College and later the Master of Magdalene College and the honorary Professor of Contemporary Christian Thought at the University of Cambridge.

• Robert Runcie studied at Westcott House, returned to Westcott House as chaplain and then as vice-principal; later he was a fellow and dean of Trinity Hall.

• Donald Coggan studied at Saint John’s College.

• Michael Ramsey was born in Cambridge, studied at Magdalene College, was the Vicar of Saint Bene’t’s Church, and for a short time was the Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge.

But despite all those Cambridge connections – and despite all the bishops associated with Westcott House I mentioned in a posting on Saturday evening – Cambridge is not a diocese. The university and the city lie within the Diocese of Ely, and while Oxford has a bishop and a cathedral there is no Bishop of Cambridge and no Cambridge Cathedral.

Which all goes to show how the name of the Mitre, a public house on Bridge Street and almost facing Saint John’s College, is something of anomaly.

The Mitre stands on the site of two former inns dating from the mid-18th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

While I was in Cambridge over a number of years following summer courses organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies and staying at Sidney Sussex College, the Mitre on Bridge Street and the Eagle on Bene’t Street where two of the places where many of us adjourned on warm summer evenings to enjoy each other’s company and to discuss and debate the day’s proceedings.

During my walking tour of Cambridge last week with a friend from Ireland who was following a short course in theology and staying at Saint John’s College, the Mitre and the Eagle were two of the pubs I pointed out.

The Mitre, a Grade II listed building at 17 to 18 Bridge Street, has a long history and stands on the site of two former inns – the Blackmoor’s Head and the Cock and Magpie. It is said the Blackmoor’s Head took its name from Robert Blackmoor, a mediaeval chantry priest in nearby Saint Clement’s Church.

A plaque outside the Mitre recalls that the earliest record of a licensee at the site was of Robert Clarke in 1752, although the date on the arch says it was founded in 1754 – another anomaly in the story of the Mitre. Later, the Cock and Magpie was run by the widowed Ann Lawrence, a successful wine merchant. She was assisted by her eight daughters, and perhaps the nine women and a constant supply of beer added to the pub’s popularity.

A plaque at the Mitre recalls the names of the previous pubs and Ann Lawrence and her eight daughters (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The arrival of the railway in Cambridge took away much of the river trade that the inns by the Cam depended on. By 1856, the 15 pubs of the parish had been reduced to just four; by 1874, the Cock and Magpie was the only pub remaining in the immediate vicinity. William Headdy was the licensee then and he was also the proprietor of the nearby Mitre Brewery. By 1878, the pub was known as the Mitre Billiard Rooms and it was renamed the Mitre by the publican Elizabeth Mays in 1881.

So, it appears the Mitre takes its name from a brewery and not from any bishop or diocese.

The large windows at the front of the Mitre look out onto Saint John’s College and the busy bus and bicycle lanes of Bridge Street. Bridge Street runs between Magdalene Street at the junction with Thompson’s Lane to the north-west and Sidney Street at the junction with Jesus Lane to the south-east. At one time, Bridge Street continued om over the Great Bridge on the River Cam, hence the name, but that part of the street is now known as Magdalene Street after Magdalene College.

A quiet corner in Portugal Place, around the corner from the Mitre (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Further along Magdalene Street, the Pickerel Inn at 30 Magdalene Street is widely regarded as the oldest continuous licensed site in Cambridge, and dates from 1608.

Around the corner from the Mitre, my friend and I briefly looked at Portugal Place and Portugal Street, which some say were named because Sephardic Jews from the Iberian Peninsula who found a welcome in Cromwell’s England first settled in this part of Cambridge.

However, although the Cambridge Synagogue is in Thompson’s Lane, close to the Mitre and to Portugal Place and Portugal Street, it seems the name only dates from the Peninsular War and houses built for officers returning from the Portugal to or the discovery of some Portuguese coins when the houses were built in the 19th century.

The Eagle is the second-oldest pub in Cambridge and began as the Eagle and Child in 1667 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Earlier in the day, we stopped on Bene’t Street, across from Saint Bene’t’s Church, to step into the Eagle, the second-oldest pub in Cambridge, which opened in 1667 as a coaching inn.

For decades, the Eagle was the local pub for scientists at the nearby Cavendish Laboratory. One lunchtime, on 28 February 1953, Francis Crick and James Watson came into the Eagle and announced they had ‘discovered the secret of life’, having finalised their model of the structure of DNA.

A blue plaque was unveiled at the Eagle in 2003. But from 2017, Rosalind Franklin’s name was often added in graffiti and removed. The plaque was replaced in 2023 with one that mentions Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins.

The names of Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins are remembered once again at the Eagle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 81, Monday 27 July 2026

‘The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened’ (Matthew 13: 33) … a variety of bread on a market stall in Buckinghamo (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church and this week began with the Eighth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VIII, 26 July 2026). Today (27 July), the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship gives thanks for the life and work of Bishop Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901), Bishop of Durham and Teacher of the Faith. He was one of the ‘Cambridge Triumvirate’ and was the founder Westcott House, the theological college in Cambridge that I visited last week and that I described in blog posting on Saturday evening.

Later this evening, I have a meeting of the trustees of a local charity in Stony Stratford. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened’ (Matthew 13: 33) … bread in a shop window in Marylebone (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Matthew 13: 31-35 (NRSVA):

31 He put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; 32 it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.’

33 He told them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.’

34 Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables; without a parable he told them nothing. 35 This was to fulfil what had been spoken through the prophet:

‘I will open my mouth to speak in parables;
I will proclaim what has been hidden from the foundation of the world.’

‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field’ (Matthew 13: 31) … the Mustard Seed is a restaurant in a country house setting in Ballingarry, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This morning’s reflections:

The Gospel reading at the Eucharist this morning (Matthew 13: 31-35) repeats part of yesterday’s Gospel reading (Matthew 13: 31-33, 44-52). I suppose it helps to be reminded this morning to be reminded how why Jesus keeps on trying to grasp at images that might help the Disciples and help us to understand what the Kingdom of God is like.

Christ tries to offer us a taste of the kingdom in this reading, as he continues to speak in parables. The two parables in today’s reading – the Parable of the Mustard Seed and the Parable of the Yeast – are really similes that must have seemed incredible in their day because of Christ’s use of exaggeration and hyperbole.

A mustard seed is very small, but it grows into a large shrub, rather than a tree. Birds do not nest in it.

Bread made with three measures of flour would feed 100 people, so once again we have hyperbole. The Kingdom of God will grow from small beginnings to something beyond our measure or imagination.

We have a romantic imagination that confuses gardens with Paradise, and Paradise with the Kingdom of Heaven. But perhaps that is a good starting point.

I was reflecting yesterday how the Kingdom of Heaven may be so like so many of those places that I see as snatches of heaven, places where I find myself constantly praising God and thanking God for creation.

But … but it’s not just that. And I start thinking that Christ does more than just paint a scene when he describes the kingdom of heaven.

I also need thanks for the small seeds or fistfuls of yeast, and share them with those I love and cherish.

You may wonder why Christ decides to talk about a mustard seed and a mulberry tree, rather than, say, an olive tree. After all, as he was talking in the incident in this morning’s Gospel reading, he must have been surrounded by grove after grove of olive trees.

But, I can imagine, he is also watching to see if those who are listening have switched off their humour mode, if they have withdrawn their sense of humour. He is talking here with a great sense of humour, using hyperbole to underline his point.

We all know a tiny grain of mustard is incapable of growing to a big tree. So, what is Christ talking about here? Because, he not only caught the disciples off-guard with his hyperbole and sense of humour … he even wrong-footed some of the Reformers and many Bible translators who make mistakes about what sort of trees he is talking about this morning.

Why did Christ refer to a mustard seed and a mulberry or sycamine tree, and not, say, an olive tree or a mighty oak tree?

Christ first uses the example of a tiny, miniscule kernel or seed (κόκκος, kokkos), from which the small mustard plant (σίναπι, sinapi) grows. But mustard is an herb, not a tree. Not much of a miracle, you might say: tiny seed, tiny plant.

But he then mixes his metaphors and refers to another plant. Martin Luther, in his translation of the Bible, turned the tree (verse 6) into a mulberry tree. The mulberry tree – both the black mulberry and the white mulberry – is from the same family as the fig tree.

As children, some of us sang or played to the nursery rhyme or song, ‘Here we go round the mulberry bush’. Another version is ‘Here we go gathering nuts in May’. The same tune is used for the American rhyme Pop goes the weasel and for the Epiphany carol, ‘I saw three ships’. TS Eliot used the nursery rhyme in his poem ‘The Hollow Men’, replacing the mulberry bush with a prickly pear and ‘on a cold and frosty morning’ with ‘at five o’clock in the morning.’

Of course, mulberries do not grow on bushes, and they do not grow nuts that are gathered in May. Nor is the mulberry a very tall tree – it grows from tiny seeds but only reaches the height of an adult person. It is not a very big tree at all. It is more like a bush than a tree – and it is easy to uproot too.

The Greek word used in verse 31 for a tree, δένδρον (dendron), appears 25 times in the New Testament as the ordinary word for a tree, not a shrub or a bush. Although generic, it carries rich theological weight. A tree stands rooted between heaven and earth, silently declaring the Creator’s power (Genesis 1-2) and inviting reflection on life, growth, fruitfulness, and judgment.

When the New Testament writers select dendron, they tap into this panoramic biblical backdrop to illuminate the message of repentance, authentic discipleship, kingdom expansion, and final judgment. In first-century Judea and Galilee, hillsides were dotted with olive, fig, date-palm, sycamore, oak, and cedar. Trees furnished timber, fuel, medicine, oil, fruit, shade, and landmarks for travellers. Their steady annual cycles made them ideal teaching aids.

However, the tree Christ names in a smiliar reference in Saint Luke’s Gospel (Luke 17: 1-6) is the sycamine tree (συκάμινος, sikámeenos), which has the shape and leaves of a mulberry tree but fruit that tastes like the fig, or the sycamore fig (συκόμορος, Ficus Sycomorus). Others think the tree being referred to here is the sycamore fig (συκόμορος, Ficus Sycomorus), a tree the same as the big tree that little Zacchaeus climbs in Jericho to see Jesus (Luke 19: 1-10).

The sycamine tree is not naturally pollinated. The pollination process is initiated only when a wasp sticks its stinger right into the heart of the fruit. In other words, the tree and its fruit have to be stung in order to reproduce. There is a direct connection between suffering and growth, but also a lesson that everything in creation, including the wasp, has its place in the intricate balance of nature.

Whether it is a small seed like the mustard seed, a small, seemingly useless and annoying creature like the wasp, a small and despised figure of fun like Zacchaeus, or a small amount of yeast used in baking bread, each has value in God’s eyes, and each has a role in the great harvest of gathering in for God’s Kingdom.

Put more simply, it is quality and not quantity that matters.

‘It … becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches’ (Matthew 13: 32) … old trees in Saint Mary Magdalene churchyard, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2066)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 27 July 2026):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 26 July to 1 August 2026 (pp 22-23), is ‘Lives in Transit’. This theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update by Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.

The USPG prayer diary today (Monday 27 July 2026) invites us to pray:

God of all peoples, we pray for migrant workers who begin each week in uncertainty and hard labour. Surround them with protection and your love.

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty Lord and everlasting God,
we beseech you to direct, sanctify and govern
both our hearts and bodies
in the ways of your laws
and the works of your commandments;
that through your most mighty protection, both here and ever,
we may be preserved in body and soul;
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Strengthen for service, Lord,
the hands that have taken holy things;
may the ears which have heard your word
be deaf to clamour and dispute;
may the tongues which have sung your praise be free from deceit;
may the eyes which have seen the tokens of your love
shine with the light of hope;
and may the bodies which have been fed with your body
be refreshed with the fullness of your life;
glory to you for ever.

Additional Collect:

Lord God,
your Son left the riches of heaven
and became poor for our sake:
when we prosper save us from pride,
when we are needy save us from despair,
that we may trust in you alone;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

Westcott House, Cambridge … the calendar in Common Worship today remembers Bishop Brooke Westcott (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

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

‘To praise Eternity contained in Time and coloured glass’: John Betjeman’s ‘Sunday Morning, King’s Cambridge’

The ‘vaulted roof so white and light and strong’ (John Betjeman) … in the chapel of King’s College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Today is the Eighth Sunday after Trinity [26 March 2026], and after my visit to Cambridge last week, including the chapel of King’s College, I have been reading once again this Sunday of John Betjeman’s poem ‘Sunday Morning, King’s Cambridge’.

Many years ago, in a book review in the Times Higher Education Supplement, Timothy Mowl of the University of Bristol described ‘Sunday Morning, King’s Cambridge’ as one of the ‘least important’ of Betjeman’s poems ‘because it is about a place, not people in a place.’

But Betjeman is at his best when he fuses together in one poem his different passions, and in ‘Sunday Morning, King’s Cambridge’ he presents a happy marriage of architectural detail, finely observed, and the sense of the worship of the eternal captured in a moment.

In ‘Sunday Morning, King’s Cambridge,’ Betjeman captures a sense of wonder in the celebration of Anglican worship as he presents the beauty and splendour of Anglican worship, ablaze with colour.

Taken together, ‘In Westminster Abbey’ and ‘Sunday Morning, King’s Cambridge’ give us a poet who has a deep Christian faith and who holds out hope for the Church of England and Anglicanism. One represents a place of public worship that closely links the Church with the political power in the nation; the other represents the very beauty of Anglican worship in a place associated not only with academic life, but also with the architectural and musical excellence of the nation.

‘In Westminster Abbey’ is one of Betjeman’s most savage satires. It is a dramatic monologue, set during the early days of World War II, in which a woman enters Westminster Abbey to pray for a moment before hurrying off to ‘a luncheon date.’ She is not merely a chauvinist but also a racist, a snob and a hypocrite who is concerned more with how the war will affect her share portfolio than anything else. Her chauvinistic nationalism leads her speaker to pray to God ‘to bomb the Germans’ … but ‘Don’t let anyone bomb me.’ Her social and ethical lapses are a product of her spiritual state, which is a direct result of a nation’s spiritual sickness.

On the other hand, in ‘Sunday Morning, King’s Cambridge,’ the moment of worship exists out of time as the living and the dead, the choir and the poet, join in the eternal praise of God. In this poem, Betjeman captures a joyful and spontaneous reaction, albeit an emotionally restrained expression, and a sense of wonder in the celebration of Anglican worship.

Stanza 1 describes the procession of the choir of the Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, and the spiritually overwhelming aesthetics of the chapel – the stalls, the stained glass, and especially the stunning fan-vaulted ceiling, ‘a shower that never falls.’

Stanza 2 sees the poet’s mind wander away from the service as he imagines being outside among the ‘windy Cambridge courts.’ Again there is a great emphasis on the vast variety of colour, but all the colours are transformed into ‘waves of pearly light’ reflected off the Cambridge stone. The image suggests that the divine is not to be found exclusively in the chapel but in the world, the space that contains both God’s works and humanity’s work.

Stanza 3 is a geographical and historical expansion of these images and ideas. Here, the white of the ‘windy Cambridge courts’ contrasts with the ‘vaulted roof so white and light and strong.’

Betjeman imagines the tombs that fill churches throughout East Anglia, with the effigies of the deceased captured for eternity in postures of prayer:

… the clasped hands lying long
Recumbent on sepulchral slabs or effigied in brass.

The prayers of these dead are a ‘buttress’ for the vaulted ceiling of the chapel at King’s, which, built near the end of the Gothic period, needs no architectural buttresses. Christianity exists not because of aesthetics but because of prayer, and the sanctuary is supported, not because of the marvels of 15th century engineering, but by a tradition of faith. In ‘Sunday Morning, King’s Cambridge,’ the moment of worship exists out of time as the living and the dead, the choir and the poet, join in the eternal praise of God.

The poem has no irony, except perhaps in the last line:

To praise Eternity contained in Time and coloured glass.

Here Betjeman illustrates the futility of our human desire to share in God’s timelessness. All of us are being confounded by our foolish need to control God and time.

It was a thought to ponder this Eighth Sunday in Lent as I read in the Gospel reading this morning of the small and easily dismissed seeds that grow into God’s kingdom: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.’ (Matthew 13: 31-32).

The Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, and the wild flowers in the meadow at Back Lawn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Sunday Morning, King’s Cambridge, by John Betjeman

File into yellow candle light, fair choristers of King’s
Lost in the shadowy silence of canopied Renaissance stalls
In blazing glass above the dark glow skies and thrones and wings
Blue, ruby, gold and green between the whiteness of the walls
And with what rich precision the stonework soars and springs
To fountain out a spreading vault – a shower that never falls.

The white of windy Cambridge courts, the cobbles brown and dry,
The gold of plaster Gothic with ivy overgrown,
The apple-red, the silver fronts, the wide green flats and high,
The yellowing elm-trees circled out on islands of their own –
Oh, here behold all colours change that catch the flying sky
To waves of pearly light that heave along the shafted stone.

In far East Anglian churches, the clasped hands lying long
Recumbent on sepulchral slabs or effigied in brass
Buttress with prayer this vaulted roof so white and light and strong
And countless congregations as the generations pass
Join choir and great crowned organ case, in centuries of song
To praise Eternity contained in Time and coloured glass.

’To praise Eternity contained in Time and coloured glass’ (John Betjeman) … stained glass in the chapel in King’s College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford 2026)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 80, Sunday 26 July 2026, Eighth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VIII)

Sunset behind the Fortezza in Rethymnon in Crete, seen from Pavlos Beach in Platanias … ‘a little snatch of heaven’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church and today is the Eighth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VIII, 26 July 2026). Later this morning, I hope to sing with the choir at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stratford.

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion Prayer of the Day.

A glimpse of Vicars Close, Lichfield, from Erasmus Darwin’s Garden, near Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Matthew 13: 31-33, 44-52 (NRSVA):

31 He put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; 32 it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.’

33 He told them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.

44 ‘The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

45 ‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; 46 on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

47 ‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; 48 when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. 49 So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50 and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

51 ‘Have you understood all this?’ They answered, ‘Yes.’ 52 And he said to them, ‘Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.’

Sunrise on the River Slaney at Ferrycarrig, Co Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections

Have you ever found yourself lost for words when it comes to describing a beautiful place you have visited?

If you have ever been to the Bay of Naples or Sorrento, how would you describe what you have seen to someone who has never travelled outside a 30 km radius from Dublin?

You might try comparing the first glimpse of Vesuvius with looking at the Great Sugarloaf … but that hardly describes the experience of climbing the rocky path, looking into the caldera, or the experience of the sulphuric smell.

You might want to compare the Bay of Naples with the vista in Dalkey or Killiney … but that hardly catches the majestic scope of the view.

You might want to compare the church domes with the great copper dome in Rathmines … but that goes nowhere near describing the intricate artwork on those Italian domes.

You might compare the inside of the duomo in Amalfi with the inside of your favourite parish church … but you know you are getting nowhere near what you want to say.

And as for Capri … you are hardly going to write a romantic song about Dalkey Island, Ireland’s Eye or Lambay, Mersea Island or the Isle of Dogs.

Comparisons never match the beauty of any place that offers us a snatch or glimpse of heaven.

And yet, we know that the photographs on our phones, no matter how good they seem to be when we are taking them, never do justice to the places we have been when we get home.

We risk becoming bores either by trying to use inadequate words or inadequate images to describe experiences that we can never truly share with people unless they go there, unless they have been there too.

I suppose that helps to a degree to understand why Jesus keeps on trying to grasp at images that might help the Disciples and help us to understand what the Kingdom of God is like.

He tries to offer us a taste of the kingdom with a number of parables in this morning’s Gospel reading:

• The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed … (verse 31).

• The kingdom of heaven is like yeast … (verse 33).

• The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field … (verse 44).

• The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls … (verse 45).

• The kingdom of heaven is like a net in the sea … (verse 47).

‘Do they understand?’ They answer, ‘Yes.’ But how can they really understand, fully understand?

Once after a late lunch in Mount Usher, I posted some photographs of the gardens. An American reader I have never met commented: ‘A little piece of heaven.’

We have a romantic imagination that confuses gardens with Paradise, and Paradise with the Kingdom of Heaven. But perhaps that is a good starting point, because I have a number of places where I find myself saying constantly: ‘This is a little snatch of heaven.’ They include:

• The road from Cappoquin out to my grandmother’s farm in West Waterford.

• The train journey from outside Ferns to Wexford, along the banks of the River Slaney.

• The view from the east end of Stowe Pool across to Lichfield Cathedral at sunset on a Spring evening, or walking around Vicars Close in Lichfield.

• The Backs in Cambridge, which is visited once again last week.

• The fields in Comberford and the banks of the River Tame.

• Sunset at the Fortezza in Rethymnon on the Greek island of Crete.

• The sights and sounds on some of the shores and beaches I once walked on regularly … Bettystown, Skerries, Loughshinny, Portrane, Donabate, Bray, Wexford, Achill, Rethymnon, Platanias, Panormos …

The Kingdom of Heaven must be so like so many of these places where I find myself constantly praising God and thanking God for creation.

But … but it’s not just that. And I start thinking that Christ does more than just paint a scene when he describes the kingdom of heaven. Looking at the Gospel reading again, I realise he is doing more than offering holiday snapshots or painting the scenery.

He tries to describe the Kingdom of Heaven in terms of doing, and not just in terms of being:

• Sowing a seed (verse 31);

• Giving a nest to the birds of the air (verse 32);

• Mixing yeast (verse 33);

• Turning small amounts of flour into generous portions of bread (verse 34);

• Finding hidden treasure (verse 44);

• Rushing out in joy (verse 44);

• Selling all that I have because something I have found is worth more – much, much more, again and again (verse 44, 46);

• Searching for pearls (verse 45);

• Finding just one pearl (verse 46);

• Casting a net into the sea (verse 47);

• Catching an abundance of fish (verse 47);

• Drawing the abundance of fish ashore, and realising there is too much there for personal needs (verse 48);

• Writing about it so that others can enjoy the benefit and rewards of treasures new and old (verse 52).

So there are, perhaps, four or five times as many active images of the kingdom than there are passive images.

The kingdom is more about doing than being.

The projects and work supported by USPG at home and around the world is not supported because it hopes to transform those places with a few, selected quick-fix solutions, but because these projects are sacramental signs of the Kingdom.

Christ’s life on earth is marked by teaching, healing, caring for children and the marginalised, feeding the hungry, proclaiming the Kingdom.

In supporting projects in this work, USPG is offering signs of the ministry of Christ as he invites us to the banquet, as he invites us into the Kingdom – works that are little glimpses of what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.

Some time ago, a viral project on social media challenged people over five days to list three positive experiences they have had each day. Today, I challenge you to think of three places, three gifts in God’s creation, that offer you glimpses of the Kingdom of Heaven, and to think of three actions that for you symbolise Christ’s invitation into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Give thanks for these pearls beyond price, and share them with someone you love and cherish.

Punters on the River Cam behind King’s College, Cambridge, last week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 26 July 2026, Trinity VIII):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 26 July to 1 August 2026 (pp 22-23), is ‘Lives in Transit’. This theme is introduced today with a programme update by Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG:

At a global summit on human trafficking and modern slavery, hosted by United Society Partners in the Gospel and the Diocese of Durgapur, two speakers illuminated the realities facing migrant workers in the Middle East: Saba, working in Lebanon and based in Jordan, and Pauline from Dubai.

In Lebanon, Saba Kerry describes the Kafala (sponsorship) system, where a worker’s legal status is tied to an employer. This can prevent workers from changing jobs, leaving the country freely, or holding their own passports, leaving them exposed and often without effective legal protection. As one migrant worker from Benin, quoted by Saba, explains: ‘In other countries, the one who has tricked you is usually the one who would be arrested, and your money would be reimbursed. But here, I’m the illegal one.’

In the city of sprawling skyscrapers, Dubai’s migrant workers face similar challenges. Many are separated from their families, carry recruitment debt, and depend on employers for legal residency.

Yet, amid these pressures, the Church often becomes a place of refuge and belonging.

At Holy Trinity Church, Dubai, and Saint Mary’s Catholic Church, Dubai, migrant communities gather for worship in many languages. These churches offer pastoral care and practical support for women in partners in global mission 22 crisis, including emergency assistance, shelter support, and help to return home safely where possible.

Across both contexts, the Church is called not only to respond to individual hardship, but also to recognise the systems that shape it. For the migrant domestic worker who longs to go home, caught within an unjust system, we now pray.

The USPG prayer diary today (Sunday 26 July 2026, Trinity VIII) invites us to pray as we read and meditate on today’s Gospel reading, Matthew 13: 31-33, 44-52.

Walking on the beach at Bako National Park, near Kuching in Sarawak (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty Lord and everlasting God,
we beseech you to direct, sanctify and govern
both our hearts and bodies
in the ways of your laws
and the works of your commandments;
that through your most mighty protection, both here and ever,
we may be preserved in body and soul;
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Strengthen for service, Lord,
the hands that have taken holy things;
may the ears which have heard your word
be deaf to clamour and dispute;
may the tongues which have sung your praise be free from deceit;
may the eyes which have seen the tokens of your love
shine with the light of hope;
and may the bodies which have been fed with your body
be refreshed with the fullness of your life;
glory to you for ever.

Additional Collect:

Lord God,
your Son left the riches of heaven
and became poor for our sake:
when we prosper save us from pride,
when we are needy save us from despair,
that we may trust in you alone;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

Walking on the North Strand in Skerries, Co Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org


Three minutes of sunshine by the River Tame in Comberford, Staffordshire (Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Visiting Westcott House, Cambridge, is like standing on the shoulders of the theological giants of Anglicanism

Westcott House on Jesus Lane is one of the two Anglican theological colleges in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

During this week’s walking tour of Cambridge, when I showed a visiting friend from Ireland around the Cambridge I have felt a part of for almost 20 years and that has been a part of me too, we visited a number of colleges, chapels and churches, including King’s College and Jesus College and their chapels, and Sidney Sussex College and Christ’s College.

One of the theological colleges we visited was Westcott House, the Anglican theological college on Jesus Lane in the heart of Cambridge, squeezed between Sidney Sussex College to the west and All Saints’ Church to the east, and across the street on Jesus Lane from Jesus College, as well as the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies and Wesley House.

When I stayed at Sidney Sussex College on courses organised by the IOCS, I became well acquainted with Westcott House, and I have often mused that it Westcott was the one theological college in England – or, perhaps, Ripon College Cuddesdon – I would like to have trained at had I not trained in Ireland.

I stayed in Westcott House once many years ago during a residential meeting of USPG trustees, and I have been there for chapel services and for seminars organised by the IOCS, when the lecturers have included Archbishop Rowan Williams, Metropolitan Kallistos Ware and Metropolitan John Zizioulas.

Westcott House on Jesus Lane, Cambridge, is squeezed between Sidney Sussex College and All Saints’ Church and across the street from Jesus College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Westcott House is one of two Anglican theological colleges in Cambridge, the other being Ridley Hall. Westcott stands in the Liberal Catholic tradition in Anglicanism, but the college accepts ordinands from a range of traditions in the Church of England and other Anglican churches. Its main activity is training men and women for ordained ministry in the Church of England, and it is part of the Cambridge Theological Federation.

The chapel at Westcott is at the heart of the community life. Its uncluttered simplicity provides ideal sacred space for a range of services from sung high mass to said Morning Prayer, from adoration of the Blessed Sacrament to ‘prayer and praise’ services.

As we strolled around the grounds of Westcott House, my friend and I compared notes about theological training in England and Ireland, the accommodation and facilities provided for ordinands and their families, the links theological colleges and students ought to be encouraged to have with the university, and the links the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein developed with Ireland thanks to his friendship with a former ordinand at Westcott, Maurice O’Connor (Con) Drury.

Westcott House was founded in 1881 by Brooke Foss Westcott, one of the ‘Cambridge Triumvirate’ of biblical scholars and theologians (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Westcott House was founded in 1881 as the Cambridge Clergy Training School. Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901), the then Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, was its first president, and he later became the Bishop of Durham.

Westcott was a distinguished New Testament scholar and one of the ‘Cambridge Triumvirate’ of biblical scholars and theologians, alongside Joseph Barber Lightfoot (1828-1899) and Dublin-born Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828-1892). Together, they produced The New Testament in the Original Greek (1881), shaping modern Bible translations, and leading to the Revised Version, the Revised Standard Version and eventually the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible.

Westcott House was the result of Westcott’s passionate concern to raise the standard of clergy education and to equip clergy to meet the challenges of parish ministry. He was also exercised by the way in which the Church of England was increasingly dominated by parties and factions, and he refused to be labelled with any factional affiliations or labels.

In its history, Westcott House has said: ‘As a scholar, educator, priest and prophet, Westcott’s legacy to the Church of England challenges sectarianism, ignorance, complacency and empty faith. This is the spirit which Westcott House seeks to honour today, drawing students from all backgrounds to prepare them for ministry in this historic centre of Christian learning.’

Visiting Westcott House is an experience that could be compared to standing on the shoulders of theological giants (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

I once described staying in Westcott House as an experience that could be compared to standing on the shoulders of the theological giants of the Church of England, and even of wider Anglicanism. Today, Westcott House describes itself as ‘the home of a diverse, inclusive and international community of people who share a vision of ministry to all society’.

The Revd Dr Helen Dawes has been the principal of Westcott House since 2021. Previous principals have included Peter Walker (1962-1972), later Bishop of Ely, Mark Santer (1972-1981), later Bishop of Birmingham, and Canon Chris Chivers, who chaired the Trustees of USPG. The first Irish-born principal was William Derrick Lindsay Greer (1902-1972), later Bishop of Manchester.

The boot scarpers at the entrance, depicting a rabbit and a pig, are a heraldic pun on the surname of Bertram Cunningham (1871-1944), who was the principal in 1919-1943.

Notable staff members have included Earl (Gregory) Collins, formerly of Glenstal Abbey and Abbot of the Dormition Abbey, Jerusalem, author of the Glenstal Book of Icons, and now Canon Chancellor of Chichester Cathedral; Canon John Collins and Dean Alan Webster, later of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London; Don Cupitt, later Dean of Emmanuel College, Cambridge; John Habgood, later Archbishop of York; Hugh Montefiore, later Bishop of Birmingham; Mary Tanner, later European President of the World Council of Churches; Canon Angela Tilby; and two former Archbishops of Canterbury, Robert Runcie and Rowan Williams.

Notable alumni include: the Revd Professor John Polkinghorne (1930-2021), theoretical physicist and theologian, who wrote extensively on quantum physics and theology; John Robinson, Bishop of Woolwich and author of Honest to God; Mervyn Stockwood, Bishop of Southwark; and Graham Ward, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford until 2024.

The chapel is at the heart of daily life in Westcott House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Dr Maurice O’Connor (Con) Drury (1907-1976), who left Westcott House after a year as an ordinand, was an Irish psychiatrist, is known for his accounts of his conversations and close friendship with the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. He studied philosophy at Trinity College, Cambridge, where his tutors included Wittgenstein. Drury and Wittgenstein remained close friend and Drury was among a group of friends present at Wittgenstein’s deathbed in 1951.

After leaving Westcott House, Con Drury studied medicine in Trinity College Dublin, thanks to financial assistance from Wittgenstein and friends, including the economist John Maynard Keynes. He took part in the Normandy landings, and later was the resident psychiatrist at Saint Patrick’s Hospital, Dublin, and a lecturer in TCD and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

His son, Dr Luke Drury, an astrophysicist, was elected president of the Royal Irish Academy in 2011. Another son, Paul Drury, who died in 2015, edited The Star, Evening Herald, Irish Daily Mail and Ireland on Sunday, and was also deputy editor of the Irish Independent.
Con Drury’s papers are held in the library of Mary Immaculate College, Limerick.

The architects of Westcott House included Temple Lushington Moore, who was born in Tullamore, Co Offaly (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Westcott House is now Grade II listed, and visually it can look like the cloisters of All Saints’ Church, which is adjacent and was designed by George Frederick Bodley (1827-1907).

The main buildings were built in 1899-1929 around an attractive Tudor-style courtyard. The north range was designed in 1899 by the architectural practice of GE Grayson (1834-1912) and Edward Ould (1852-1909), the west range in 1912 by Hartwell Simpson, the east range and south part in 1914 by the Tullamore-born architect Temple Lushington Moore (1856-1920). Temple Moore was also the architect of Pusey House, Oxford; his only son, Richard Temple Moore (1891-1918), was killed when the RMS Leinster was torpedoed and sunk off Dublin a mere month before the end of World War I.

Temple Moore has been described as ‘England’s leading ecclesiastical architect from the mid-Edwardian years’. The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner said that he was ‘always sensitive in his designs and often interesting.’ His designs reflect his Anglo-Catholic practice and values. His work can be seen across England; he is known for a series of fine Gothic Revival churches built about 1890 and 1917 and he also restored many churches and designed church fittings.

The chapel and other buildings at Westcott House were designed in 1923-1929 by the architect Percy Richard Morley Horder (1870-1944), who also worked on Chapel Court in Jesus College and designed the Jesus College boathouse (1932).

Westcott House is in an idyllic college setting in the heart of Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Since the 1985 report Faith in the City, Westcott House has retained a commitment to develop expertise and capacity in the fields of urban ministry and mission.

Through a partnership with the Diocese of Manchester, the college has pioneered patterns of context-based learning and innovative approaches to contextual theology for over twenty years. These approaches have been widely imitated and developed by other theological education institutions. The college has also developed a programme for continuing ministerial development through the Westcott Foundation.

The college provides training pathways in conjunction with the University of Cambridge and the Common Awards, validated by Durham University, as well as opportunities for independent study for undergraduate and postgraduate degrees through the wider Cambridge Theological Federation and Anglia Ruskin University.

Today, Westcott House is a collection of beautiful buildings overlooking the gardens of Old Court, and it offers a peaceful and idyllic college setting in the heart of Cambridge.

The boot scrapers at the main entrance to Westcott House, in the shape of a rabbit and a pig, are heraldic puns on the name of Bertram Cunningham (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)