Dr Williams’s Library leaves Bloomsbury after serving theologians and church historians for 300 years

Dr Williams’s Library first opened in 1730 and was on Gordon Square from 1890 until it closed in 2025 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

It is always sad to see a library – particularly a library with a large collection related to theology, church history and religious studies – to close or to move away and to find it is no longer be accessible.

For over a century, Dr Williams’s Library was in Bloomsbury, where it was housed in the former University Hall on the west side of Gordon Square, beside the former Catholic Apostolic Church, now the Church of Christ the King. But the library closed within the past two years, and the collection has been moved to Manchester.

From 1890 until it closed in 2025, Dr Williams’s Library was housed in University Hall, built in 1848 to designs by the architect Thomas Leverton Donaldson (1795-1885), a pioneer in architectural education, a co-founder and President of the Royal Institute of British Architects and a winner of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal.

Donaldson was born nearby at 8 Bloomsbury Square, the eldest son of the architect James Donaldson (c 1756-1843). His maternal uncle, the architect Thomas Leverton (1743-1824), is said to have designed the south range of Bedford Square.

After attending King Edward Grammar School, St Albans, Donaldson trained as an architect and travelled widely. He found a clerical job at the Cape of Good Hope before joining an expedition to attack the French-owned island of Mauritius. He visited Italy and Greece in 1818-1823 with John Lewis Wolfe and WW Jenkins. Back in London, he joined his father’s practice and designed 4 Hamilton Place for Richard Bingham (1764-1839), 2nd Earl of Lucan, who had extensive estates in Co Mayo.

Donaldson’s first significant work was Holy Trinity Church, Brompton (1826-1829), in South Kensington. With Jacques Ignace Hittorff and Charles Robert Cockerell, he was a member of the committee formed in 1836 to determine whether the Parthenon or Elgin Marbles and other Greek statuary in the British Museum had originally been coloured.

Donaldson reworked substantial sections of the Wilkins building at University College London (UCL) and designed the Flaxman Gallery and library buildings. He also designed All Saints’ Church, Gordon Street (1842, closed 1909, destroyed by bombing 1940) and was involved in the Great Exhibition in 1851.

Donaldson pioneered the academic study of architecture and in 1841 he became the first Professor of Architecture at University College London, a post he held until 1865. He was a co-founder of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1834, was its honorary secretary until 1839, then its foreign secretary for another 20 years.

He designed the institute’s Mycenaean lions medal with the motto Usui civium, decori urbium. He was awarded the institute’s royal gold medal in 1851 and was its president in 1863-1864. He was described by the Prince of Wales in 1879 as ‘the father of the Institute and of the profession’.

Thomas Leverton Donaldson designed the former library on Gordon Square as University Hall in 1848 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Donaldson designed the one-time library on Gordon Square as a Hall of Residence for students of University College London, following an architectural competition. It was built in stone and brick in the late Gothic style in 1848-1849. It was built as University Hall to mark the passing of the Dissenters’ Chapels Act in 1844.

From 1853, University Hall was shared with Manchester New College. Henry Morley, professor of literature at University College and editor of Morley’s Universal Library was the principal of University Hall in 1882-1890.

Manchester New College acquired the lease in 1882 but moved to Oxford in 1890, the building was bought by the trustees of Dr Williams’s Charity to house their library.

The Revd Dr Daniel Williams (1643-1716), a leading nonconformist minister in Dublin and London, endowed the library in his will

The founder of the library, the Revd Dr Daniel Williams (1643-1716), was a leading nonconformist minister in both Dublin and London in the late 17th and early 18th century.

Williams was born into a Welsh family, probably in Wrexham, and his early plans to enter ministry were interrupted by the Restoration of Charles II and the Act of Uniformity (1662). After a few years preaching in England he moved to Ireland, where he was a domestic chaplain to Mary (Chambré) Brabazon, Countess of Meath in 1664-1667.

Williams was then one of the ministers of the Wood Street Chapel, near Whitefriar Street in Dublin, for 20 years, from 1667 to 1687. The chapel had its roots in early Puritans and Presbyterians and became one of the Dublin congregations that lead to the formation of the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church in Ireland and the Unitarian Church in Dublin.

As religious tensions heightened in Dublin during the reign of James II, Williams believed his life was in danger. He fled to London in 1687, and soon found an influential place amongst London Presbyterians, particularly after the death of Richard Baxter (1615-1691).

He was appointed minister to the Presbyterian congregation in Hand Alley, Bishopsgate, and despite repeated requests to return to Dublin, he remained at Hand Alley for the rest of his life. He received the degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1709 from the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow in recognition of his outstanding services to nonconformity.

Williams died at the age of 72 in January 1716 and was buried in Bunhill Fields. His congregation eventually moved towards Unitarianism, but has long since disappeared.

In his will, he left instructions for his trustees to house his collection as a public library for nonconformist ministers, tutors and students in the City of London. He also left bequests to Saint Thomas’s Hospital, the University of Harvard, and to support missionaries in Scotland, Ireland, and New England.

His trustees built and equipped a library that first opened in Red Cross Street, Cripplegate, almost 300 years ago in 1730. Over the years, the collections were enlarged with gifts of books, manuscripts and portraits. His original benefaction of about 7,600 books became a small part of a library that eventually extended beyond Puritanism to include Biblical subjects, church history, Byzantine studies, philosophy, literature and more.

The library’s original home was bought by the Metropolitan Railway Company and demolished in 1865. The library moved to Bloomsbury and was housed at No 8 Queen Square from 1865 to 1873. It then moved into premises designed by the architect Thomas Chatfeild Clarke (1829-1895) in Grafton Street, now Grafton Way, off Tottenham Court Road.

Dr Daniel Williams remembered in a plaque at the entrance to the former library (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

When Manchester New College moved to Oxford, the library’s trustees acquired University Hall, Gordon Square, in 1889 and the library moved there in 1890. The library had close ties with Unitarians and several of its first directors were ministers associated with Newington Green Unitarian Church, London's oldest Nonconformist place of worship still in use.

The Revd Robert Travers Herford (1860-1950), librarian of Dr Williams’s Library from 1914 to 1925, was a scholar of rabbinical literature, and he was one of the first Christian scholars of the Pharisees to take a neutral view between Talmud and New Testament. He is commemorated by a blue plaque on the façade of the building. His brother, the Revd Ulric Vernon Herford (1866-1938), was one of the most colourful and eccentric Unitarian ministers in Oxford. He was a Unitarian minister in Oxford in the 1890s before seeking consecration by the Nestorian Church in India as Metropolitan Mar Jacobus I in 1902, and then formed the Evangelical Catholic Church.

After a V-1 flying bomb destroyed Essex Hall, the headquarters of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, the library offered rooms to displaced workers, and they stayed there for 14 years, until 1958. In 1976, the library acquired the library of New College London, which until then had trained Congregationalist ministers.

Dr Williams’s Library closed in 2025 and its copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio was sold by Sotheby’s at auction in 2006 for £2.8 million. After a prolonged discussion, the trust agreed to house its collection in the John Rylands Library at the University of Manchester, and the Library moved to Manchester in 2024-2025.

Meanwhile, Manchester New College, which moved from Gordon Square to Oxford in 1889, later became Harris Manchester College and became a constituent college of the University of Oxford in 1996.

The Revd Robert Travers Herford was the librarian of Dr Williams’s Library in 1914-1925 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

As for the Wood Street congregation where Williams ministered in Dublin for 20 years, it was joined in 1762 by the Dissenters of Mary’s Abbey and together they moved to Great Strand Street where a new meeting house opened in 1764. They were joined there in 1787 by the Cook Street congregation.

In the 1850s, the Strand Street congregation decided that it needed a new church on a more prominent street. The Unitarian Church on Saint Stephen’s Green, Dublin, opened in June 1863, and it was joined by the Eustace Street congregation in 1867.

The Saint Stephen’s Green congregation in Dublin is part of Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland and also maintains links with Unitarians in England, Scotland and Wales through the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches.

The Unitarian Church on Saint Stephen’s Green … the spiritual heir to the ministry of Daniel Williams in Dublin in the late 17th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Hotel Russell has had a name change, but it is still an impressive Victorian presence on Russell Square

The former Hotel Russell on Russell Square in Bloomsbury was designed by the architect Charles Fitzroy Doll (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

I have been in London six or seven times already this year, and when I find myself in the Bloomsbury area I often stop in Russell Square to admire the former Hotel Russell, even though it has lost the name it was known by for more than a century and is now called the Kimpton Fitzroy London.

The hotel at 1-8 Russell Square is a Grade II* listed building and was designed by the architect Charles Fitzroy Doll (1850-1929), who was the surveyor of the Bedford Estate. It was built in 1892-1898 and opened in 1900.

It is built of red brick with terracotta dressings, distinctively clad in decorative thé-au-lait (‘tea with milk’) terracotta, and was modelled on the Château de Madrid near the Bois de Boulogne in Paris. Its roofs and turrets have striking green fish-scale tiles, and the tall Victorian chimney-stacks have horizontal brick and terracotta bands. The hotel originally had a central copper dome and lantern instead of its present tiled mansard roof, and once must have been a more impressive site.

The architect Charles Fitzroy Doll specialised in designing hotels. He also designed the dining room on the Titanic, basing it on his design for the dining room in the Hotel Russell, known until recently known as Fitzroy Doll’s.

Doll was educated in Germany, then trained as an architect under Sir Matthew Digby Wyatt, and he was involved with Wyatt in designing the India Office in London in 1866-1868.

The sculptor Henry Charles Fehr modelled the life-size statues on the façade of four queens who look down on Russell Square from above the main entrance (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Doll was appointed surveyor to the Bedford Estates in Bloomsbury and Covent Garden in 1885. When he designed the Hotel Russell with its distinctive cladding, Doll engaged the sculptor Henry Charles Fehr to model the four life-size statues of British queens who look down on Russell Square from above the main entrance.

Doll was a member of Holborn Borough Council, and was Mayor of Holborn in 1904-1905 and 1912-1913. He died in 1929 aged 79. His children included Christian Charles Tyler Doll (1880-1955), who was involved in the reconstruction of the grand staircase of the Palace of King Minos at Knossos in Crete, working alongside Arthur Evans. He also designed the Villa Ariadne, a residence for Evans at Knossos that now houses the Knossos Research Centre.

The style of the Hotel Russell is described in its listing as ‘flamboyant French Renaissance … derived from engravings of the Château de Madrid, with elaborate decorations.’ The architectural historians Bridget Cherry and Sir Nikolaus Pevsner call it ‘monumental’.

The hotel is known for its palatial design, and its fixtures and fittings included an ornate Pyrenean marble staircase and an interior sunken garden. Each room was fitted with an en-suite bathroom, quite an innovation at the time.

Doll’s façade also displays the coats of arms of the world’s nations as they were in 1898, incorporated in the spandrels of the first floor. At the centre of the principal façade facing Russell Square, above the main entrance, are life-size terracotta statues of four reigning queens – Elizabeth I, Mary II, Anne and Victoria – and columns decorated with putti, both surmounted with knights flanking floral decoration above the decorative foundation date ‘1898’.

The larger than life terracotta statues represent idealised versions of the four queens. Elizabeth I is readily identifiable because of her ruff,while Victoria is depicted as a very young woman. But there is some confusion over who is who when it comes to Mary II and Anne, while a fifth reigning English queen, Mary I, is noticeably absent.

The statues of the four queens are the work of the sculptor Henry Charles Fehr (1867-1940), also created the busts of four Prime Ministers – Lord Derby, Lord Salisbury, William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli – on the Guilford Street façade of the hotel.

Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary II among the four queens above the hotel entrance (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Fehr produced several notable public sculptures, war memorials and works for civic buildings, including sculptures for Middlesex Guildhall, Wakefield County Hall and Cardiff City Hall. His war memorials can be seen in for towns and cities throughout Britain and often feature detailed bronze statuary.

Doll also designed the Imperial Hotel (1905-1907) in Russell Square, described by the architectural historian Sir Niklaus Pevsner as a ‘vicious mixture of Art Nouveau Gothic and Art Nouveau Tudor’. The Imperial Hotel was demolished in 1967, and replaced by a contemporary, brutalist building designed by George Anthony Wilson Brandeth and where I stayed once when I was working with The Irish Times. Today it is known as the President Hotel.

Doll also designed the Flemish French-Gothic terrace of shops and apartments on the corner of Torrington Place and Gower Street. It was designed in 1907 and now includes the London University branch of Waterstones. The bookshop is in the heart of literary Bloomsbury and I, like many of my generation, still think of it as Dillon’s. Today, this branch of Waterstones claims it is the largest new and second-hand bookshop in Europe.

The Hotel Russell was one of the few hotels in this part of London not taken over by the War Office during World War II. It survived the war largely intact, but the magnificent dome was badly damaged in an air raid during the Blitz in 1941 and was never replaced.

The Hotel Russell continued to be known by that name for more than a century until 2018. After extensive renovations, the hotel reopened in 2018 as the Principal London. Three months later, it was bought by Covivio Hotels, which then transferred its management to InterContinental Hotels Group, and the hotel was renamed the Kimpton Fitzroy London later that year. The restaurant Doll designed was originally named after him but is now called Fitz’s.

Queen Anne and Queen Victoria among the four queens above the hotel entrance (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Russell Group of universities, which was formed in 1994, is named after Hotel Russell, where the first informal meetings took place, and thankfully it has not changed its name.

The Russell Group now brings together 24 British universities that are often seen as Britain’s best. Together, they receive over three-quarters of all university research grant and contract income in the UK, they award 60% of all doctorates gained in the UK, they account for 65% of all world-leading research conducted in the UK, and their research is judged overwhelmingly to be world-leading or internationally excellent. Their graduates hold 61% of all UK jobs that require a university degree, despite being only 17% of all higher education graduates.

The Russell Group first included 17 universities: Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Imperial College London, Leeds, Liverpool, London School of Economics, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Oxford, Sheffield, Southampton, University College London and Warwick.

With the exception of Warwick, which was established in the 1960s, the founder members of the Russell Group were all universities or university colleges prior to World War I, and they included most of Britain’s ancient universities and ‘redbrick universities’. Cardiff University and King’s College London joined the Russell Group in 1998.

Queen’s University Belfast became the 20th member in 2006, and four more universities – Durham, Exeter, Queen Mary University of London, and York – joined the Russell Group in 2012.

The hotel may have changed its name in recent years, but the Russell and Bedford names continue in the streets and squares of Bloomsbury, and in some places there are memories too of the philosopher Bertrand Russell. But, perhaps, more about that in the days to come.

The Russell Group of universities is named after Hotel Russell, where the first informal meetings of the group took place in 1994 (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)

Jesus College Chapel is the oldest in Cambridge and was once part of a Benedictine convent

Jesus College Chapel in Cambridge was originally a church that served the 12th century Benedictine Convent of Saint Mary and Saint Radegund (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

When I was introducing a friends from Ireland to the Cambridge I have known for almost 20 years, one of the places we received a warm welcome earlier this week was the chapel in Jesus College, where I found myself once again on what I have come to call the ‘Pugin Trail’.

Jesus College Chapel was restored by Pugin in the 1840s, and has a number of Pre-Raphaelite and Arts and Crafts treasures, including works by William Morris, Sir Edward Burne-Jones and Ford Madox Brown. It is the oldest college chapel in Cambridge, and its is unique in that it was not originally designed as a college chapel. It dates back to a time 350 years before the foundation of the college, and to half a century before the creation of the university.

The chapel was originally a large Norman church dedicated to Saint Mary and that served the 12th century Benedictine Convent of Saint Mary and Saint Radegund.

The church took about a century to build. It was begun in 1157 and was completed around 1245. At that time it was the largest church in Cambridge, about 58 metres in length and with proportions similar to those of a cathedral. It was built in the form of a cross, with aisles to the north and south of chancel and nave, and it had a high pitched roof with a belfry or steeple which was visible for miles around.

It served as the church of the parish of Saint Radegund which grew up around the convent, then a semi-rural area just outside the city of Cambridge. The belfry collapsed in 1277, and again in 1313. A fire destroyed much of the surrounding convent in 1376 but largely spared the church itself, causing only some light damage to the tower.

Jesus College, Cambridge, was founded by Bishop John Alcock in 1496 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

John Alcock, Bishop of Ely, founded Jesus College in 1496, with the formal name of the College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge. He carried out extensive building work to adapt the former convent church. Parts of the church were demolished, the rest was drastically modified, and it was then reconsecrated in the Name of Jesus. The church was previously dedicated to Saint Mary, but there may have been an altar dedicated to the Name of Jesus in the people's part of the church.

Alcock was an architect as well as a bishop and he designed many of the alterations. The changes were intended to create a chapel that was a more suitable size for a small community of scholars.

The first stages were overseen by his friend and a fellow of the college, William Plombe, in 1497-1498. After Alcock died in 1500, his work was continued by Dr William Chubbes, the first master of Jesus College, and the architects Sir John Rysley and Sir Reginald Bray.

Inside the chapel at Jesus College, Cambridge, facing the chancel and the east end (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The chancel chapels and the aisles of the nave of the church were pulled down and the cloisters were enlarged. The new cloisters were enclosed by walls that had four windows in the Perpendicular Gothic style. The dilapidated belfry was taken down and the high pitched roof was replaced by a flat roof with an oak ceiling. The lancet windows in the east wall were replaced by a plain Perpendicular style window.

Two-thirds of what had been the nave of the church was replaced by college rooms that later became part of the Master’s Lodge. The chapels on the north and south sides of the choir were pulled down and the north aisles became part of the cloister, with the original columns still embedded in the wall. The screen that once divided the congregation at the west end of the crossing was replaced by a more open screen at the east side.

The 13th century arches that divided the aisles from the nave were pulled down to make way for college rooms or were blocked off with stone and hidden behind plaster. Four arches in the chancel and two in the north transept were all filled in and covered over, and Perpendicular windows were placed in the new walls. The east arch in the south transept was also filled in and covered over, two Perpendicular windows were inserted in the east and west walls, and a large Perpendicular window was inserted in the south wall.

The south transept of the chapel, with the marble and alabaster memorial to Thomas Cranmer beneath the great window (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Thomas Cranmer was the first of four members of Jesus College to become Archbishop of Canterbury. Jesus College was his home for more than a decade, from 1517 to 1528, and as Rysley Reader in Divinity he taught theology. His connection with Jesus College is marked by a white marble and alabaster memorial in the south transept, designed by the architects Richardson and Gill and sculpted by A Bruce-Joy in 1912.

During the reign of Edward VI, six altars in the chapel and some images in the Master’s Lodge were destroyed in 1549. During the Catholic restoration in the reign of Mary I, John Fuller was appointed Master of Jesus College in 1557 and he restored the old ritual and ornaments in the chapel.

Jesus College returned to a more Protestant ethos in the reign of Elizabeth I, and the chapel services were simplified, although the college did not become Puritan. When James I visited Cambridge frequently, he often worshipped in the chapel in Jesus College.

In the chancel of the chapel in Jesus College, looking towards the screen and the west end beyond (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

When Dr Richard Sterne was the master, a new organ was bought in 1634. Two years later new furniture, plate, and candlesticks for the altar were bought in line with the High Church reforms of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury. At this time, the college was known as a High Church stronghold in Cambridge and chapel services were renowned for ‘good music, elaborate solemnity and attractive decency’.

During the Civil War, the Parliamentarians ordered all colleges in 1641 ‘to displace the Communion table from the east end of their chapels, to take away the rails and level the chancel, and to remove crucifixes, tapers, and basins from the Communion table’.

Charles I called on the fellows to raise a loan of £100 and to send pieces of the college plate to his camp in York. Part of the plate was seized by the Cromwellians before it could be sent from Cambridge, but most of it was taken to York. The Cromwellians arrested the master and the former master, Richard Sterne and William Beale, during a service in the chapel and they were taken to the Tower of London. The fellows took apart the organ and hid the pieces, and what was left of the plate is said to have been buried in the orchard.

The Puritan William Dowsing arrived at Jesus College at Christmas 1643 and ‘digg’d up the Steps there and brake down Superstitions of Saints and Angels, 120 at the least’. All but two of the fellows were ejected from Jesus College and Richard Sterne was deposed as master.

All the chapel windows were filled with stained glass in the first decades of the 16th century, but every one of them was smashed by the Parliamentarians on 23 December 1643. For the next 200 years there was nothing but clear glass, apart from a few coats of arms.

The choir, chancel and High Altar in the chapel of Jesus College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

At the Restoration, the chapel was repaired and restored in 1660-1663 by successive new masters, John Pearson and Joseph Beaumont, and the organ was rebuilt and reinstated. In the decades that followed, the chapel was paved with black and white marble, a gallery was built in the chancel, facing towards the altar, and a classical entrance was added in the south wall.

Between 1762 and 1765 the piers and arches of the cloisters were demolished and rebuilt to designs by James Essex, and the organ was dismantled and given to the parish of All Saints.

The Perpendicular east window in the chancel was rebuilt in the 1780s and a major restoration of the chapel was carried out in 1789-1792 to bring it into accord with the popular Classical ideal in architecture.

Major restoration work in the chapel in 1846-1849 was supervised by AWN Pugin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Major restoration work in the chapel in 1846-1849 was inspired by the Gothic revival and largely reversed earlier repairs. The leaders of this new restoration were the Revd John Gibson, then dean of the college, and the Revd Osmond Fisher. Their aims were to restore the architecture and the ritual of the chapel, to restore music to chapel services and to reinstate the choir. A new organ was designed and bought in 1849 by John Sutton, who formed a choir.

These repairs were supervised by AWN Pugin, the towering figure in the Gothic revival in church architecture and a close friend of John Sutton. On Sutton’s recommendation, the college employed Pugin to direct the chapel restoration.

Under the direction of Anthony Salvin, an 18th century partition wall in the chancel arch was removed, along with the gallery on its east side, a new organ chamber and vestry were built on the east side of the north transept, two arches were unblocked, and two arches were opened unto the north transept below the gallery.

The nave and west end of the chapel in Jesus College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Pugin removed both the 18th century plaster ceiling and Alcock’s low-pitched roof, which he replaced with a high pitched roof in a 13th century style. He rebuilt the choir stalls and the east wall. The reconstruction of the windows in 1846-1849 was based on good archaeological evidence and was guided by Robert Willis, working with Anthony Salvin and then with Pugin.

Pugin began in the lancets above the altar and replaced Alcock’s Perpendicular east window with three tall lancet windows in 1850 with scenes of Christ’s passion in the style of Chartres and Canterbury cathedrals, working with Hardman of Birmingham. The other windows were later glazed in the same style in 1850-1858.

The Norman windows in the north wall of the north transept were rediscovered and were preserved as recessed arches, and the whole wall was restored. New stalls and a new pavement were also supplied for the chancel, and a new organ was installed in the organ chamber. The chapel reopened with a full choral service on All Saints’ Day 1849.

Two windows by Edward Burne-Jones depicting the Incarnation (above) and Christ debating with the Doctors in the Temple (below) in the south wall of the choir (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Further repairs were carried out in 1864-1867 by George F Bodley, who was working at the time on All Saints’ Church in Jesus Lane, facing the entrance to the college, and the tower was refaced and restored.

William Morris designed decorations for the panelled ceilings of the nave and the tower and they were painted under his direction in 1867. The windows in the outer chapel were glazed in 1867-1878 with glass designed by William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones and Ford Madox Brown. The windows in the nave and transepts were glazed in 1873-1877 by Morris and Company to designs by Burne-Jones and Ford Madox Brown.

The glass in the two Perpendicular windows on the south wall of the chancel had weathered badly and were replaced in 1912 with designs by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, one depicting the Nativity and the other Christ debating with the Doctors in the Temple. Although their colour is brilliant, they broke a rule of both Pugin and Morris that the subject of each light should be complete in itself.

Two windows by Edward Burne-Jones depicting Faith (centre), Hope and Charity (above) and Patience, Obedience and Gentleness (below) in the north transept (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The windows in the north wall’s lancets depict scenes from the New Testament and Saint Radegund’s life, and those on the south show scenes from the life of Saint John.

Two windows in the north transept have figures representing the three theological virtues, Faith (standing on unbelief), Hope (standing on despair) and Charity (standing on envy); and the social virtues: Patience (standing on impatience); Obedience (standing on disobedience); and Gentleness (standing on ferocity).

The adjoining nave window symbolise the natural virtues and their corresponding vices. The other three nave windows have figures and scenes from the Old Testament.

In the four smaller south transept windows are the four evangelists and scenes from their Gospels, while the Great South window represents the Church in Heaven and on Earth.

The chapel has one of the finest collections of windows by Burne-Jones. But shortly after completing these windows he announced that he would no longer make stained glass for mediaeval churches.

The mid 19th century organ, given to Jesus College by Sir John Sutton, with panels designed by AWN Pugin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

A larger organ was bought in 1887 to complement Sutton’s organ and was installed in a new gallery at the west end of the nave. But the organ and gallery were removed from the west end in the early 20th century and the gallery may now be seen across the street at Westcott House.

Several restorations in the 20th century have revealed more of the building. A new organ by Orgelbau Kuhn of Switzerland was installed in 2006 to replace the organ by Noel Mander installed in 1971.

The chapel has a number of works of art and fine carvings. ‘The Presentation of the Christ child in the Temple’, by Jean Baptiste Jouvenet (ca 1700) in the North Transept was once used as the chapel altar-piece from 1796 to1846. In the inner chapel a large depiction of ‘The Last Supper’ is an example of the work of the Venetian School in the late 16th century and is attributed to Leandro Bassano.

The majority of the richly carved choir stalls and screen are 19th century reconstructions of the 16th century chapel furnishings, although three carved figures have survived from the 1500s. Another remnant of the chapel’s woodwork can be seen at the end of the master's stall in the inner chapel, showing Bishop Alcock at prayer.

The bronze Pietà in the north transept is by the sculptor Gillian Kaufman and was added to the chapel in 2014.

The bronze Pietà in the north transept is by Gillian Kaufman (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The chapel, Cloister Court, and the names of some rooms, such as the Prioress’s Room, are reminders of the links between Jesus College and the 12th century Benedictine Convent of Saint Mary and Saint Radegund.

As we emerged from Cloister Court to First Court it seemed like Barry Flangan’s ‘Bronze Horse’ was waiting in the late afternoon sunshine to greet us.

Some years ago, one of my photographs of the boathouse of Jesus College Boat Club was used in a funraising appeal brochure launched by the club in 2014. It was good to reacquaint myself with Jesus College once again on a summer afternoon.

Barry Flangan’s ‘Bronze Horse’ in First Court seen from Cloister Court (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

• The Revd Dr James Crockford has been the Dean of Chapel since 2019. During term time the Sunday services are: 10 am, Choral Eucharist, 6 pm, Choral Evensong with address from a guest speaker; Saturday services, 6 pm, Choral Evensong; weekday services, 9 am, Morning Prayer, Monday to Friday, 6:30 pm, Choral Evensong, Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Cloister Court in Jesus College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Finding a Pugin link with Buckingham in a former Franciscan college and chapel on London Road

The former Franciscan seminary and church on London Road, Buckingham, are now part of the University of Buckingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

I spent time in both Ireland – mainly in Co Wexford – and in Staffordshire visiting and tying to catalogue churches and college chapels designed by AWN Pugin (1812-1852), the towering figure in the Gothic Revival in English and Irish church architecture.

The Pugin trail resumed recently in Buckingham, when I had a brief visit to the Verney Park campus of the University of Buckingham on London Road to see a collection of Gothic-style buildings designed by the Pugin family. They were built in 1892-1894 by the Franciscans, and include a former chapel, bell turret and college designed by Pugin & Pugin as a junior seminary for the Franciscans.

Aside from being notable buildings in the Victorian Gothic style, they are part of the social history of the development and expansion of Buckingham at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and are part of the history of educational provision in the town.

At the end of the 19th century, Father Thaddeus Hermans, a Belgian Franciscan friar, wanted to open a college for young men wishing to become Franciscans. He arrived in Buckingham in 1892 and rented a cottage in Elm Street, where he said the first Mass, finally settling on 9 Chandos Road to set up his first chapel.

Hermans then obtained a site on London Road and the ractice of Pugin & Pugin was commissioned to design a new chapel and college.

The former seminary and church on London Road, Buckingham, were designed by Pugin & Pugin and built in 1892-1894 and 1912 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Pugin & Pugin was a London-based family firm of church architects that worked from about 1873 until about 1958. The origins of the partnership lay with the practice of Edward Welby Pugin (1834-1875). He had worked in the London office of his father, AWN Pugin, who died when Edward was 18. Following his father’s death in 1852, EW Pugin was involved in completing some of his works in Ireland, including the cathedral in Killarney, Co Kerry.

Edward Welby Pugin formed two successive partnerships with Irish architects: the first with James Murray, as Pugin & Murray from 1857 to 1858; and Pugin & Ashlin in 1860 with George Coppinger Ashlin, who married his sister Mary in 1867. The partnership of Pugin & Ashlin was dissolved in late 1868.

EW Pugin’s works in Ireland include Saint John’s Covent, Birr, Co Offaly; the Presentation Convent, Waterford; the chapels for the Cliffe family at Bellevue, Co Wexford, and the Power family at Edermine, Co Wexford; Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church, Cork; the Convent of Mercy, Nenagh, Co Tipperary; Saint Brigid’s Church, Crosshaven, Co Cork; and a convent in Fethard, Co Lane.

Saint Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh, the Church of Saint Augustine and Saint John, Thomas Street, Dublin, often known as John’s Lane Church, and Saint Kevin’s Church, Harrington Street, Dublin, are among the many works by Pugin & Ashlin.

After EW Pugin was bankrupted by a business venture in 1873, his firm’s work in England and Scotland was continued by his brother Cuthbert Welby Pugin (1840-1928) and their half-brother Peter Paul Pugin (1851-1904), and the practice became known as Pugin & Pugin.

The foundation stone of the seminary was laid by Bishop Arthur George Riddell of Northampton in 1894 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Pugin & Pugin worked exclusively in the Gothic Revival style, and produced many buildings, alterations and furnishings for the Catholic Church. They include the sanctuary of the Sacred Heart Church, Liverpool; Sacred Heart Church, Kilburn; the English Martyrs Church, Tower Hill; Saint Mary’s Church, Morecambe; the presbytery of the Sacred Heart Church, Bridgeton, Glasgow; and Saint Mary’s Church, Stirling. The firm designed the high altar of Saint John Cantius and Saint Nicholas Catholic Church in Broxburn, West Lothian, in Caen stone and marble.

There are reputedly about 100 buildings by the firm in Australia, built from the mid-1850s onwards, and one building in New Zealand, the Bishop’s Palace (1894) in Saint Mary’s Bay, Auckland, commissioned by Dom John Edmund Luck (1840-1896), Bishop of Auckland.

The foundation stone of the new seminary in Buckingham, under the patronage of Saint Bernardine, a Franciscan saint, was laid by Bishop Arthur George Riddell of Northampton in June 1894. When the Franciscan college opened, there were few Catholics living in Buckingham, and the registers record 12 baptisms in 1900. The parish of Saint Bernardine was set around the college, and the college chapel designed by Pugin & Pugin was blessed and opened for public worship in 1912.

The college chapel was blessed and opened for public worship in 1912 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The parish grew quickly after World War II, and the college continued as a boarding and day school. In the post-war years, the friars were asked to open Mass centres in nearby towns and villages, including Brackley.

However, with changing circumstances, the college closed in 1968 and the buildings were sold to Buckingham County Council. However, the friars were allowed to continue to use the chapel until the parish could build its own church. Eventually it was decided to build onto the new friary in Chandos Road where the friars had set up their first chapel.

After the college buildings were bought by Buckinghamshire Country Council, they were used as an annex to the Buckingham School. The buildings were bought in 1977 by the University of Buckingham, the first independent university in the UK. Initially they were used as residential accommodation for both staff and students, and the former chapel is now part of the University of Buckingham library services.

Meanwhile, the Franciscans who had relocated to Chandos Road, built a new church, which I wrote about in a blog posting some months ago (6 November 2025). Many of the internal features and furnishings in Saint Bernardine’s Church came from the earlier college chapel in Buckingham, including statues of Saint Anthony, Saint Francis and Saint Bernardine, the font, the church bell, the organ and the organ pipes, the pews and the octagonal stone font (1946).

Today, Saint Bernardine’s Church is part of the joint Parish of Buckingham and Brackley and continues to serve the Catholic community in the area.

The former college and chapel are now part of the University of Buckingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Old School in Oxford has survived as part of the bus station, and as a pub and restaurants

The Old School on the north side of Gloucester Green in Oxford was designed by the architect Leonard Stokes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

IWe have been in Oxford for much of the day. But a few days ago I found myself stuck at the bus station in Gloucester Green in Oxford for over an hour, waiting for a bus to Buckingham: one bus was cancelled, and the next one was over 20 minutes late. In summary, it meant I missed the last bus from Buckingham to Stony Stratford and had to travel on to Milton Keynes.

Had I realised I was going to eventually lose an hour and a half in such a way last week, I could have planned to stay on and found a college chapel in Oxford to go to Choral Evensong. Bus stations are never sightly places to wait around in, although there are many good coffee shops close to Gloucester Green.

At the north side of Gloucester Green, the Old School until recently housed Sichuan Grand, a Chinese restaurant that closed two months ago. But from 1902 to 1934 this was the Central Boys’ School and it remains an interesting building.

The school was built in 1901 when some picturesque old cottages were demolished in order to make room for the new building designed by the architect Leonard Aloysius Scott Stokes (1858-1925) of Westminster and built by John Wooldridge of Oxford at a cost of about £5,700.

Leonard Stokes trained as an architect in London and travelled in Germany and Italy. Most of his designs were for Roman Catholic buildings, including churches, convents and schools. His first work was Sacred Heart Church, Exeter. He also designed Saint Joseph’s Church, Maidenhead (1884), Saint Clare’s Church, Liverpool (1890) and Saint Peter and All Souls Church, Peterborough (1896). He also designed country houses and telephone exchanges. He was President of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1910-1912.

The carvings over the main front entrance show Saint Anne on the left reading to four girls, which seems odd, as this was a boys-only school, and King Alfred on the right facing four boys.

The origins of the school go back to 1871, when the Congregationalists opened the first and earlier Central Boys’ School in a building to the east of Gloucester Green behind their church in George Street. It was a nondenominational school with no compulsory religious education, and by 1889 the attendance was 192.

Both this boys’ school and the girls’ school in the former Wesleyan Chapel in New Inn Hall Street were taken over by the Oxford School Board in 1898. Both buildings were condemned immediately, the board agreed to replace them on two new sites in central Oxford, and the Gloucester Green site was bought from Alderman Robert Buckell for a boys’ school in 1899.

The school designed by Leonard Stokes was built on the north side of Gloucester Green between 1899 and 1900. At the same time, a new girls' central school, also designed by Leonard Stokes, was built on New Inn Hall Street.

The school had a central circular lower hall, on to which converged various classrooms, lavatories, cloak rooms, master’s private room, board room and playgrounds. A separate building at the back of the school had an upper floor with a large classroom for manual training in technical education. It was reached by a spiral staircase. The roof had an ornamental bell turret, and the classroom ceilings were uniformly 15 ft in height.

Both the Central Boys’ and the Central Girls’ Schools were formally opened in 1901 by Sir William Anson (1843-1914). He was Vinerian reader in English Law at Oxford, a Fellow of All Souls’ College, and from 1881 Warden of All Souls.

Anson was also Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University in 1898-1899, Chancellor of the Diocese of Oxford in 1899, and MP for Oxford University from 1899. He took an active part in the foundation of a school of law at Oxford, and taught law to undergraduates of Trinity College, Oxford, from 1886 to 1898. He died in 1914.

In all, 54 boys from the school died in World War I, and the school’s war memorial was moved to Oxford Spires Academy. The school closed in 1934, when the former Central Boys’ School merged with the Municipal Secondary School – the former City of Oxford Technical Day School – to form Southfield Grammar School. With further mergers, it became Oxford Boys’ School in 1966, later Oxford Community School and then, in 2011, Oxford Spires Academy.

Meanwhile, after its closure in 1934, the school building on Gloucester Green was used for many years as bus offices and a waiting room. It was given Grade II listed status in 1972.

From 1994 to 2003, the building housed Oxford City’s Information Centre on the west side and the Old School pub on the east side. The pub survived until about 2006, and in 2007 the whole building became a the Spice Valley Bangladeshi and Indian Restaurant, and it has remained a restaurant until about two months ago (April 2026).

The carvings over the main front entrance show Saint Anne (left) and King Alfred (right) each teaching four boys (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Milton Keynes has a new statue to celebrate Jenny Lee and the White Paper in 1966 that set up the Open University

The fibreglass model of Andy Edwards’s bronze statue of Jenny Lee outside Milton Keynes station (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

A fibreglass model of a new statue honouring Jennie Lee, the driving force behind the creation of the Open University, has been drawing a lot attention in Station Square in Milton Keynes, since was unveiled two months ago on 24 March.

The full-size fibreglass model was created by the sculptor Andy Edwards and is on display in Station Square to gather public feedback before the final bronze artwork has its permanent installation later this year (2026), celebrating the 60th anniversary of Jennie Lee’s 1966 White Paper that led to the establishment of the Open University in 1969.

The early fibreglass model of the bronze sculpture has been placed in Station Square to ensure it has maximum visibility among residents and visitors to Milton Keynes. The initiative, led by Milton Keynes City Council and the Open University, honours her legacy in transforming education for over 2.3 million students world-wide.

The artist Andy Edwards is using the fibreglass model to collaborate with local people to fix on the final placement of his statue in Station Square. He engaged in similar exercises in the past with other high-profile commissions, such as his Beatles sculpture in Liverpool.

The Open University was established in Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, in 1969. Since then it has taught more than 2.3 million students worldwide, and has around 200,000 students today.

The installation celebrates the 60th anniversary of Jennie Lee’s 1966 White Paper that led to the establishment of the Open University (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Jennie Lee (Baroness Lee of Asheridge) was a trailblazing politician who championed universal access to education and the arts. The statue honours her role in founding the Open University in Milton Keynes and her lifelong commitment to the arts, education and public service.

Jennie Lee was born in Fife, Scotland, in 1904, and was elected MP for North Lanark in 1929. She was one of the first women to be elected to the House of Commons and at the age of 24 was also the youngest member of the House at the time. Later she sat as MP for Cannock in Staffordshire (1945-1970).

In 1934, Jennie Lee married the left-wing Welsh Labour MP Aneurin Bevan, who died in 1960. She became Minister for the Arts in Harold Wilson’s government in 1964. Her White Paper for the Arts in 1965 insisted that the arts should be central to everyday life and publicly supported for the benefit of all, cementing the establishment of a national cultural policy through the Arts Council.

She produced the landmark White Paper on the University of the Air in February 1966, laying the groundwork and effectively founding the Open University. She fought for a university that was both open to everyone and that operated to the highest standards. She died in November 1988.

The sculptor Andy Edwards is founding director of Cornovii Edwards. He was selected to make this statue because of his outstanding portfolio of previous commissions, including the Beatles and Bob Marley in Liverpool, former Manchester United football manager Sir Alex Ferguson in Aberdeen, David Bowie and Queen Elizabeth II, as well as his knowledge, passion and enthusiasm for the opportunity to celebrate the life and work of Jennie Lee.

Andy Edwards said that without Baroness Lee and the Open University, he would not have followed a career as a sculptor.

He said his sculpture shows Jenny Lee ‘at the height of her powers’ and added: ‘I had that image of her addressing people in my mind and that is a prime part of this likeness, which also reflects Jenny throughout the ages.’

The leader of Milton City Council at the time, Councillor Pete Marland, unveiled the fibreglass version of the statue at Station Square on 24 March 2026. The final bronze statue will be installed at Station Square later this year, and the fibreglass version will remain on display at the Open University campus.

The Jennie Lee Archive collection is based at the Open University, and the archive team is working closely with Andy Edwards on developing the commission. The project is being funded through contributions from housing and infrastructure developers.

The final bronze statue will be installed at Station Square later this year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The ‘30 million-word-gap’, $30 million for the rich few, 30 million tourists in Greece, and 30 million blog readers

Professor Dana Suskind, the founder and director of the Thirty Million Words Initiative … this blog had an accumulated a total of 30 million hits by late yesterday afternoon

Patrick Comerford

The viewing and reading figures for this blog continue to surprise me, and these figures passed the 30 million mark by lunchtime this afternoon (29 March 2026).

This is the fifth time this month alone that the million figure in readership numbers has been passed: 29 million four days ago (25 March), 28 million on 20 March, 27 million on 12 March, and 26 million at the beginning of the month (1 March). The number of hits on two days this month have been the highest daily figures I have ever recorded: 323,156 on Friday (27 March 2026) and 318,307 on 1 March.

This year so far has seen a phenomenal amount of traffic on this blog, reaching a volume of readers that I never have expected when I first started blogging 16 years ago. Half the total hits (15 million) have been within little more than eight months, since 25 July 2025. The total hits last month (February 2026) had been the highest monthly total ever (3,386,504), but that figure has already been outpaced this month, with a total of over 4.2 million by early this afternoon.

At the end of last year, this blog had 21 million hits (31 December 2025). So far this year, there have been more than 9 million hits or visitors in 2026.

I first began blogging in 2010, and it took almost two years until July 2012 to reach half a million readers – a number reached eight times this month alone. Half of the 29.5 million hits have been within the last nine or ten months, since mid-July.

Throughout this year and last, the daily figures have been overwhelming on many occasions. Of the 12 days of busiest traffic on this blog, six were this month (March), three were in February, one was in January, and two were in January 2025:

• 323,156 (27 March 2026)
• 318,307 (1 March 2026)
• 314,018 (28 February 2026)
• 301,449 (2 March 2026)
• 289,076 (11 January 2025)
• 285,366 (12 January 2025)

• 280,802 (26 February 2026)
• 273,022 (27 February 2026)
• 270,983 (25 March 2026)
• 261,422 (13 January 2026)
• 234,737 (26 March 2026)
• 228,931 (18 March 2026)

The number of readers continues to be overpowering and the daily averages are currently running at almost 145,000 hits a day so far this month. Ten years ago, the daily average was around 1,000.

The west façade of the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela … Galicia in Spain covers 30 million square metres or 30,000 sq km (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

To put today’s figure of 30 million in context:

In her book Thirty Million Words: Building a Child’s Brain, Professor Dana Suskind, the founder and director of the Thirty Million Words Initiative, explains why the most important yet simple thing a parent can do for a child’s future success in life is to talk to him or her. Her book, first published in 2015, looks at the recent science behind this truth, and outlines how parents can best put it into practice.

She argues that academic achievement begins on the first day of life with the first word said by a mother just after birth.

A study by Betty Hart and Todd Risley in 1995 found that some children heard 30 million fewer words by their fourth birthdays than others. The children who heard more words were better prepared when they entered school. These same children, when followed into third grade, had bigger vocabularies, were stronger readers, and got higher test scores. This disparity in learning is referred to as the achievement gap.

Professor Dana Suskind learned of this 30 million word gap in the course of her work as a cochlear implant surgeon at University of Chicago Medical School and began a new research programme along with her sister-in-law, Beth Suskind, to find the best ways to bridge that gap.

The Thirty Million Word Initiative has developed programmes for parents to show the kind of parent-child communications that enables optimal neural development and has tested the programmes in and around Chicago across demographic groups.

They encourage parents to follow the three Ts:

• Tune in to what the child is doing;

• Talk more to the child using lots of descriptive words;

• Take turns with your child as you engage in conversation.

She shows parents how to make the words they serve up more enriching. For example, instead of telling a child, ‘Put your shoes on,’ one might say instead, ‘It is time to go out. What do we have to do?’ The lab’s five-year longitudinal research programme received funding so they can further corroborate their results.

The neuroscience of brain plasticity could contribute to some of the valuable and revolutionary research in medical science today. It enables us to think and do better and is making a difference in the lives of people both the old and young.

The term ‘30-million-word gap’, often shortened to ‘word gap’, was originally coined by Betty Hart and Todd R Risley in their book Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children and later reprinted in the paper ‘The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap by Age 3’. In their study of 42 Midwestern families in the US, Hart and Risley recorded an hour’s worth of language in each home once a month over 2½ years.

Prior to the 30-million-word-gap study, extensive research had noted strong institutional variation in student success on standardised tests. Sperry, Sperry, and Miller (2018) replicated Hart and Risley's study and found that the number of word gaps varied within the same backgrounds of socioeconomic status. Garcia and Otheguy (2016) were interested in the origins and validity of the Language Gap, and how the preconceptions of it impact bilingual and bidialectical children, specifically from Latino and Black backgrounds.

Hart and Risley’s research has been criticised by scholars. Paul Nation criticises the methodology, noting that comparing the tokens (words produced) and number of types (number of different words) in unequal samples is not comparing vocabulary sizes. Other critics theorise that the language and achievement gaps are not a result of the amount of words a child is exposed to, but rather alternative theories suggest it could derive from the disconnect of linguistic practices between home and school.

A recent replication of Hart and Risley’s study with more participants has found that the ‘word gap’ may be closer to 4 million words, not the oft-cited 30 million words previously proposed. Hart and Risley’s research has also been criticised for a perceived racial bias, with the majority of the welfare families and working-class families being African American, or that it ignores the fact that language and culture are taught differently.

Nonetheless, the 30-million-word gap has received widespread attention. The Clinton foundation’s ‘Too Small to Fail’ initiative which hosted the White House Word Gap event in 2014, resulted in the US Department of Health and Human services funding remedial efforts to address the Word Gap.

The University of Chicago, School of Medicine's Thirty Million Words Initiative provides intervention for caregivers and teaches to show them how to optimise their talk with their children. The Word Gap theory can be seen as part of a larger development in modern educational reform and movement: the Achievement Gap discourse.

The effects of the Achievement Gap Discourse cause several cultural phenomena – ‘cultural gate-keeping’, in which policy makers and education reformers decide and label students as more or less capable and worthy than others. The achievement gap became an especially strong interest for study at the turn of the century, and the early 2000s when a plethora of studies looked at factors such as standardised test scores, presence in class, GPA, enrolment, and dropout rates in secondary and post-secondary education.

The Oxford Word Gap is used to describe the word gap found between ethnic groups and socioeconomic classes in the UK.

Meanwhile, in other measurements, according to the 2024 Knight Frank Wealth Report, there are about 225,000 individuals in the US with net assets of $30 million or more, just 0.07% of the population. Yet, about a third of Americans cannot cover a $500 emergency, and more than 11% – almost 38 million people – live in poverty in the US. Meanwhile, a tiny fraction of individuals control more wealth than entire nations.

This imbalance destabilises democracy, distorts our economy, and limits human potential. A recent report in Time magazine points out that far from expanding opportunity, this excessive wealth locks millions out of the chance to innovate and build, weakening growth for all. The report says a simple wealth tax of 50% annually on household wealth above $30 million would not dismantle ambition. Instead, it would convert excessive wealth for the very few into opportunity for all.

Countries with populations of about 30 million people include the Ivory Coast and Nepal. Greece is one of the world's most popular tourist destinations – more than 30 million visitors travel there every year. But a report by ABC in Australia last month suggests the population of Greece is in freefall, with predictions it will drop by 20 per cent by 2050.

30 million square metres is 30,000 sq km, or the size of Lesotho, a country that is landlocked in Southern Africa and the largest of only three sovereign enclaves in the world, the others being San Marino and Vatican City, which are surrounded by Italy. It is also the approximate size of Armenia and of Galicia in Spain and Normandy in France.

30 million minutes is 57 years and 14 days. In other words, if this blog was getting only one hit a minute, it would take 57 years, from March 1969, to reach this latest figure of 30 million.

It is four years since I retired from active parish ministry on 30 March 2022. These days, though, about 100-120 people on average are reading my daily prayer diary posted on this blog each morning. A similar number have been reading my recent series of postings on the churches and chapels of Walsingham over the past two weeks. I imagine many of my priest-colleagues would be prayerfully thankful if the congregations in their churches totalled 700-800 or more people each week.

This afternoon, I am very grateful to the real readers among those 30 million hits on this blog to date, and in particular I remain thankful to the faithful core group of about 100-120 people who join me in prayer, reading and reflections each day.

Greece has more than 30 million visitors travel there every year, but an Australian news report suggests the population of Greece will drop by 20 per cent by 2050 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)