A visit to Fishermead in Milton Keynes, including Trinity Church and Centre and Cornish street names

Trinity Church in Fishermead is an ecumenical partnership involving the Church of England, the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

I spent a few hours earlier this week with other clergy in the Milton Keynes Deanery area as guests of the Chinese Overseas Christian Mission in Fishermead. But before that visit, I also visited some of the other faith communities in Fishermead, including Trinity Church, and walked through the housing and shopping areas.

Fishermead is an interesting area only a 10-minute walk from the centre of Milton Keynes. The first houses were built there in 1973, and at one time Fishermead was known as one of the most notorious estates in Milton Keynes.

In the past, Fishermead suffered from high volumes of deprivation, multiple occupancy housing and street crime. Today, the area is home to one the most diverse and vibrant communities in the city. The three-storey townhouses and blocks of flats house about 1,400 households and people from many parts of the world.

Fishermead is named after a field called Fishers Mead and the street names recall Cornish fishing villages (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

I was a guest of the Chinese Overseas Christian Mission (COCM) at lunch in its headquarters at Padstow Avenue, along with other clergy in the Milton Keynes Deanery area.

Fishermead is named after a field called Fishers Mead, and the fishing theme is continued in the street naming. All the streets are named after Cornish fishing villages and terminology, such as Penryn Avenue, Towan Avenue, Padstow Avenue, Pencarrow Place, Porthleven Place and Kernow Crescent.

The original housing was grouped around squares. A particularly striking area is Kernow Crescent which was built in 1981 and which encloses the local park. The area is has grid system like many other parts of Milton Keynes, with a central boulevard that has the services running off it.

The Trinity Centre in Fishermead is both a church and a community centre (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The local facilities in Fishermead include the Trinity Centre, which is both a church and a community centre, a doctor’s surgery, a pharmacy, a Co-op shop and a variety of ethnic shops, including Sri Lankan and Chinese shops.

The estate has two schools, Jubilee Wood Primary School and the Willows School, both on Fishermead Boulevard. The Fishermead Citizens Alliance was formed to create a new broad-based alliance of faith, education and other community organisations to tackle the social issues on the estate.

Local faith groups, organisations and facilities include Trinity Church, Fishermead Mosque, Frank Howe Court, a retirement living scheme on Penryn Avenue, Pebbles Nursery, the Salvation Army, the Samaritans and the Seventh Day Adventist Church, as well as the Chinese Overseas Christian Mission. In addition, Connection Support in Fishermead offers emergency accommodation and 24-hour support to people who are sleeping rough in Milton Keynes.

Kernow Crescent was built in 1981 and enclosed the local park (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Trinity Church, Fishermead, which serves the Fishermead, Oldbrook and Eaglestone areas, is an ecumenical partnership involving the Church of England, the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church and the United Reformed Church, and is part of the Woughton Ecumenical Partnership.

The church describes itself as a family-friendly, multicultural and welcoming church. Fishermead Community Café at the Trinity Centre is open every Thursday (10:30 am to 12:30 pm) and Friday (10:30 am to 3pm).

The Revd Ian Herbert is the Rector of Woughton Ecumenical Partnership, a partnership of five ecumenical churches south of central Milton Keynes: Christ the Vine, Coffee Hall; Saint Mary’s, Woughton-on-the-Green; Saint Thomas’s Church, Simpson, Trinity Church, Fishermead; and Holy Trinity Church, Woolstone.

Fishermead is a 10-minute walk from the centre of Milton Keynes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Revd Chris Bell chairs Trinity Church Council and leads worship on the Third Sundays in the month; the Revd Didier Jaquet is the minister on the first and fourth Sundays. Sunday services are at 10 am in the Trinity Centre on the Boulevard in Fishermead, with Holy Communion on the first and third Sundays.

The Sunday congregation numbers at Trinity Church are usually between 20 and 30, with an age range from under one to over 80.

The Fishermead Trinity Centre has three large halls with wooden floors, one large meeting room with projector and Wi-Fi facilities, a kitchen and a secure gated courtyard.

The Islamic Centre Milton Keynes on Fishermead Boulevard (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The other faith communities in the area include the Islamic Centre Milton Keynes on Fishermead Boulevard, close to the Co-op shop and Trinity Church.

The mosque in Fishermead dates from 2004, when some Indian and Sri Lankan Muslims in Milton Keynes decided to set up an Islamic centre to meet the needs of the diverse mix of Muslim communities in central Milton Keynes, including people of Indian, Sri Lankan, Bengali, Pakistani, Somali and Arab origin.

Moving from welcome to belonging: enabling mission work among the Chinese communities in Britain

In the foyer of the Chinese Overseas Christian Mission in Fishermead, near the centre of Milton Keynes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

I spent a few hours today with other clergy in the Milton Keynes Deanery area as guests of the Chinese Overseas Christian Mission in Padstow Avenue, Fishermead.

Fishermead is an interesting area close to the centre of Milton Keynes. The first house was built there in 1973, and at one time Fishermead was known as one of the most notorious estates in Milton Keynes. In the past it suffered from high volumes of deprivation, multiple occupancy housing and street crime.

Now Fishermead is home to one the most diverse and vibrant communities in the city. The three-storey townhouses and blocks of flats house with about 1,400 households and people from many parts of the world.

The Chinese Overseas Christian Mission (COCM) has its headquarters at Padstow Avenue in Fishermead. COCM is an inter-denominational mission with the objective of bringing the gospel to the Chinese scattered over Europe through pioneering evangelism, church planting, training and literature work. The mission’s vision is ‘where there are Chinese, may Christ be there also’.

The Revd Henry Lu, who welcomed us to the centre, has been the general director of the Chinese Overseas Christian Mission (COCM) since he succeeded Mary Wang in 2008. He spoke of its work today, but also brought us back to its origins when the Revd Stephen Wang, a Methodist minister, moved to Britain in 1950 to study theology at Selly Oak in Birmingham.

COCM is an interdenominational mission with the objective of sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with the Chinese diaspora and local communities in the UK and Europe through multi-faceted ministries.

The Chinese Overseas Christian Mission (COCM) has its headquarters at Padstow Avenue in Fishermead (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

When COCM was founded by Stephen Wang, its vision was ‘Where the Chinese are, there Christ must be.’

In the 75 years since then, COCM has grown substantially and the scope of its work now covers the UK and countries on the European continent. Its extended vision has become, ‘Reaching the Chinese to Reach Europe.’

He described COCM’s work in helping people to build up strong and healthy churches and to serve their communities. Many Chinese churches in the UK and in Europe are in the early stages of development and rely on outside resources for their work, ministry and mission.

He spoke of the courses and training programmes COCM runs and organises, we visited the bookshop, which is one of the largest Chinese bookshops in Europe, and the chapel which is used during training programmes and courses but does not serve a regular Sunday morning congregation.

The chapel in the COCM building in Fishermead, Milton Keynes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

In much of its work, COCM acknowledges the pioneering inspiration of Bishop Frank Houghton (1894-1972), an Anglican missionary bishop in China. He was born in Stafford, educated at the University of London and ordained in 1917. He was a curate in Everton and Preston before going to China as a missionary with the China Inland Mission in 1920. In 1923, Frank Houghton married Dorothy Cassels, the daughter of William Cassels, who had been a member of the ‘Cambridge Seven’ and became a bishop in China.

Frank Houghton was the Bishop of East Szechwan from 1937 to 1940, and returned to England to work in parishes in Leamington and Banbury. He was the general director of the China Inland Mission (CIM) when the mission had to leave China in 1951. He retired in 1963 and died in 1972. The China Inland Mission was founded by Hudson Taylor in 1865. It is now based in Singapore and is an international and interdenominational evangelical missionary society known since 1964 as OMF International or the Overseas Missionary Fellowship.

Bishop Frank Houghton was the first trustee chair of COCM. He retired in 1963 and died in 1972. One of his hymns, in English and Chinese, hangs on banners in the foyer of COCM, on either side of a banner with Psalm 126.

A hymn by Bishop Frank Houghton in English and Chinese hangs on banners in the foyer of COCM, on either side of a banner with Psalm 126 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

After lunch as guests of COCM, Katie Woo spoke to us of her work with the National Church Hong Kong Communities Enabler, with the Diocese of Oxford.

She spoke of the increasing numbers of Chinese people who are coming to the UK, including Chinese students, who are both Cantonese and Mandarin speakers; families who have been moving from Hong Kong in large numbers in the last five years or so; and the English-speaking ethnic Chinese people who are the next generation who have grown up in Britain.

This third group were born here or moved here in their childhood, and speak a language native to them but foreign to their parents.

The new generation that has arrived from Hong Kong has strong, visible communities in Reading, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol and Nottingham, as well as Milton Keynes. She spoke of her work as a process that helps to move people forward from being welcomed to belonging.

During the day, I also visited Trinity Church, Fishermead, and the neighbouring mosque. But more about Fishermead and its faith communities in the days to come, I hope.

Chinese-language Bibles on the shelves of the bookship at COCM in Fishermead (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)