Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 96, Tuesday 11 August 2026

‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven’ (Matthew 18: 3) … a stained-glass window in the Comberford Chapel in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Tenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity X).

In the calendar in Common Worship, the Church of England today remembers Saint Clare of Assisi (1193-1253), founder of the Minoresses (Poor Clares), and Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890), Priest, Tractarian and newly-proclaimed Doctor of the Church. As this day 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.

The Preaching of the Kingdom of God … an icon in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 18: 1-5, 10, 12-14 (NRSVA):

1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ 2 He called a child, whom he put among them, 3 and said, ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

10 ‘Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones; for, I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven.

12 ‘What do you think? If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? 13 And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. 14 So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.’

‘Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven’ (Matthew 18: 4) … a stained-glass window in the Chapel in Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

All of us are disturbed in recent years months abobyut the terrors that are being rained down on children in the world today, in the war in the Gaza Strip, the war in Ukraine, the US bombing of Iran, and among the children who are part of the plight of refugees and migrants in small boats on the seas.

I say ‘children’ and not ‘innocent children,’ because there is no such being as a guilty child – there are only innocent children.

And the suffering and plight of children is all the more distressing when is caused by the calculations of adults who dismiss this suffering as merely the collateral damage brought about by war or because these children are dismissed as foreigners or outsiders.

For Christians, this distress must always be acute, must always demand our compassion, must always call for our response.

Surely it should never matter what label is placed on these children – whether the suffering Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip are Christians or Muslims; whether the children kidnapped from a kibbutz in Israel are from secular or religious Jewish families; whether the 120 children bombed to death in a school in Minab in southern Iran come from families that support or oppose the regime; whether the children on boats in the English Channel are from Africa, Asia or the Middle East; whether the refugee children Charlotte and I visited across Europe on behalf of USPG three years ago are Ukrainian or Russian.

The disciples ask Christ in today’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Matthew 18: 1-5, 10, 12-14): ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ He responds by calling a child, puts the child among them, and tells them: ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.’

We are not told whether this child is a boy or girl, Jew or Samaritan, Greek or Roman, a street urchin or the child of one of the Disciples.

Indeed, in all likelihood, the Disciples never noticed, for at that time a child was of no economic value and a burden on families until the child could earn his or her own way, or become the equivalent of a pension scheme for parents.

But Christ tells us: ‘Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones; for, I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven … it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.’

The Kingdom of Heaven is like little things. The Gospels remind us time and again that the Kingdom of Heaven is like small things:

• Sowing a seed;

• Giving a nest to the birds of the air;

• Mixing yeast;

• Turning small amounts of flour into generous portions of bread;

• Finding hidden treasure;

• Rushing out in joy;

• Selling all that I have because something I have found is worth more – much, much more, again and again;

• Searching for pearls;

• Finding just one pearl;

• Casting a net into the sea;

• Catching an abundance of fish;

• Drawing that abundance of fish ashore, realising there is too much there for my personal needs, and sharing it;

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

And this morning we are told that Kingdom of God is like a little child – imagine a child playing on a beach in Gaza, falsely feeling secure in a school or hospital in Ukraine, Russia or Iran, maimed and injured in a mother’s arms at home, dying in a Gaza hospital, kidnapped at a music festival in Israel or in her parent’s home in a kibbutz, caught in terror in the midst of a far-right riot on our city streets, starving and despised in a refugee camp or in the war the world ignores in Sudan, sea-sick in a crowded small boat in the English Channel, cowering in a cramped hotel room as rioters try to set the hotel alight.

In the face of these images I find myself thinking of the prophets, like Ezekiel who was called to speak ‘words of lamentation and mourning and woe’ and compelled to ‘go to the house of Israel and speak [God’s] very words to them’ (see Ezekiel 2: 8 to 3: 4).

But I have hope too, for I hear Christ’s words today: ‘in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven … it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.’

‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me’ (Matthew 18: 5) … a stained-glass window in Saint Mary’s Church, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 11 August 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 (9-15 August 2026, pp 28-29), is ‘Mission to the Mangyans’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by the Revd Jewel B Tumaliuan, Programme Director, Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI).

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 11 August 2026) invites us to pray:

Heavenly Father, we give thanks for lay leaders like Nanay Norma Abnay, serving with dedication and care. Grant strength, wisdom, and joy in leadership, as communities gather in faith and unity.

The Collect of the Day:

God of peace,
who in the poverty of the blessed Clare
gave us a clear light to shine in the darkness of this world:
give us grace so to follow in her footsteps
that we may, at the last, rejoice with her in your eternal glory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Merciful God,
who gave such grace to your servant Clare
that she served you with singleness of heart
and loved you above all things:
help us, whose communion with you
has been renewed in this sacrament,
to forsake all that holds us back from following Christ
and to grow into his likeness from glory to glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

‘So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost’ (Matthew 18: 14) … a stained-glass window in Saint Michael’s Church, St Albans (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

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

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)

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

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

Patrick Comerford

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saint Ebbe’s Church, part of church life in Oxford for 1,000 years, but standing apart from diocesan life

Saint Ebbe’s Church, Oxford … the north side faces onto Pennyfarthing Lane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

In Oxford last week, after visiting Holy Rood Church and Saint Matthew’s Church in Grandpont, searching for the extensive site of Greyfriars, the mediaeval Franciscan friary, and walking through the sites of the old gasworks and the slum clearance programmes in Saint Ebbe’s parish in the 1950s and 1960s, I decided to see once again whether I could see inside Saint Ebbe’s Church.

Saint Ebbe’s Church on Pennyfarthing Lane in central Oxford describes itself as a ‘conservative evangelical’ church, identifying with groupings such as ReNew, Gafcon and ReNew network’s Alternative Selection Panel (ASP).

Saint Ebbe’s has been part of life in Oxford for more than 1,000 years. Although the mediaeval and later church was largely rebuilt in the early 19th century, the tower and parts of the nave were retained and, along with the finely carved 12th century doorway, they form an imposing composition.

The west end and tower of Saint Ebbe’s Church, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The church stands on the site of an earlier church dedicated to Saint Æbbe before 1005. Most sources suggest that this was the Northumbrian Saint Æbbe of Coldingham, but it has been suggested that Æbbe of Oxford was a different saint. The name was first recorded ca 1005, when the church was granted to Eynsham Abbey by Ealdorman Æthelmær the Stout and it was already recorded as the ‘ancient Saint Ebbe’s.’

The earlier church had a nave and north aisle under the same roof, a chancel and north chapel, with a tower and north and south porches. The church seems to have been rebuilt ca 1170, and this is the date of the earliest surviving fabric The nave dated from the 12th century or earlier. The north wall was 15th century, as was the chapel.

When the Franciscans arrived in Oxford in 1224, they settled beside the church, outside the city wall, where they built a large friary, Greyfriars, that completely overshadowed Saint Ebbe’s. The Franciscans were given permission to make a ‘little gate’ in the city wall, to give them access to the city, and this is reserved in the name, Littlegate Street.

Meanwhile, the mediaeval synagogue in Oxford was established in 1228 close to Saint Ebbe’s Church, opposite Pennyfarthing Lane. Among the great Franciscan scholars in Oxford by the end of 13th century, Roger Bacon, was a philosopher and scientist whose work included research into light, lenses and gunpowder. He died in 1294 and was buried in the parish. He gives his name to Roger Bacon Lane, where Saint Ebbe’s church offices are now located.

The Franciscan philosopher and theologian Roger Bacon gives his name to Roger Bacon Lane, where Saint Ebbe’s has its church offices (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

For centuries, Saint Ebbe’s Parish was one of the poorest parts of the city. The church was partially rebuilt in 1648 after part of the church tower fell in 1648, and the whole church was thoroughly repaired in 1696.

By 1813, two architects reported the church was in a dangerous condition. On their recommendation it was demolished, but for the lowest part of the tower, probably dating from the 12th century, and 22 ft of walling at the south-west corner.

A new church, including the nave and chancel, was built 1814-1816 to a design by William Fisher in the Early English style on the same site but extending further north to include the site of the former rectory house on the corner of Saint Ebbe’s Street and Church Street.

The new or rebuilt church was paid for mainly by the Bishop of Oxford and Oxford colleges, but was already described as being too small by 1826. However, it was not enlarged until 1862-1868, when it was enlarged and restored under the diocesan architect, George Edmund Street, who added a south aisle with windows in the Decorated style, created a north aisle by inserting an arcade, and rebuilt the top stage of the tower.

The East Window is a memorial to Thomas Valpy French (1825-1891), who was the Rector of Saint Ebbe’s until 1850. He went to Lahore in Pakistan as a missionary, became the first Bishop of Lahore, and died in Muscat.

The Norman door beside the tower of Saint Ebbe’s Church was inserted in the west wall in 1904-1905 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The church tower was heightened in 1904-1905 to designs by the Oxford-based Gothic Revival architect Alfred Mardon Mowbray (1849-1915). At the same time, a 12th century door from the old church was inserted in the west wall to the south of the tower base. This Norman doorway, from ca1170, had been taken from the south wall in 1813. It has two orders of colonettes, decorated scallop capitals, an inner arch order of beakhead and an outer order of zig-zag.

The Church of Holy Trinity, Blackfriars Road, was designed by the Oxford-based architect Henry Jones Underwood (1804-1852), who was best known for his Gothic Revival architecture. The church opened in 1845, but it was deemed unsafe in the 1950s, it was demolished in 1957, and the parish was merged with Saint Ebbe’s.

During slum clearance programmes in the 1950s and 1960s, many families in the area relocated to newer housing estates on the periphery of Oxford, the gasworks beside the church were demolished in 1960, and the surrounding tightly-packed residential terraces were replaced by new houses and commercial property.

The parish of Saint Peter-le-Bailey merged with Saint Ebbe’s in 1961, when Saint Peter’s Church was transferred to Saint Peter’s College for use as the college chapel.

Many of the properties in the parish of Saint Ebbe’s were demolished in the 1960s and 1970s to make way for the Westgate Shopping Centre, now Westgate Oxford. The church underwent further restoration in 2017 under the direction of Quinlan Terry. During that restoration, some of the internal fittings were sold off as architectural antiques and the organ was moved to Saint Denys Church, York.

The former Saint Ebbe’s Rectory in Paradise Square was designed by George Edmund Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The old Saint Ebbe’s Rectory in Paradise Square stands in the last remaining part of the grounds of the Greyfriars, the mediaeval Franciscan friary. It was once ‘a large plot of ground partly enclosed by a rivulet and whereon was so pleasant a grove of trees, divided into several walks, ambits and recesses, as also a garden and orchard adjoining, that by the citizens of Oxon was called Paradise.’

The rectory was designed by GE Street and built in 1852 and altered in 1868. This two-storey stone house has gables, mullioned windows and a stair turret can be seen in this view.

A blue plaque on the former rectory commemorates the Revd Dr John Stansfeld (1854-1939), the Rector of Saint Ebbe’s in 1912-1926. As a civil servant, he studied part-time for degrees in theology (Exeter College) and medicine, and he ran the Oxford Medical Mission in Bermondsey before moving to Saint Ebbe’s parish.

A blue plaque on the former rectory commemorates Canon John Stansfeld, a former Rector of Saint Ebbe’s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Ebbe’s was then a poor and overcrowded parish. He set up a medical dispensary in the rectory garden and fought to have public baths built in Paradise Square. As in Bermondsey he was a firm believer in the importance of boys’ clubs and recruited undergraduates to run them.

Canon Stansfield used his personal resources in 1919 to buy 20 acres of land at Shotover to set up summer camps and a country retreat for the urban poor of Saint Ebbe’s. It continued until 2014 as the Stansfeld Outdoor Study Centre.

The former rectory was the Cherwell Tutorial College in recent years and it now houses the Oxford Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma.

The south side of Saint Ebbe’s Church, Oxford … Saint Ebbe’s describes itself as a ‘conservative evangelical’ church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Today, Saint Ebbe’s describes itself as a ‘conservative evangelical’ church, but the Guardian has described it as ‘a hardline evangelical church in Oxford.’ The church has passed resolutions to reject the ordination of women and female leadership in the church. It receives alternative episcopal oversight from the Bishop of Ebbsfleet, Bishop Rob Munro, and before him from Bishop Rod Thomas when he was the Bishop of Maidstone.

Canon Vaughan Edward Roberts has been the Rector of Saint Ebbe’s since 1998. He was educated at Winchester College, studied law at Selwyn College, Cambridge, and studied for ordination at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. He was ordained deacon in 1991 and priest in 1992. He joined Saint Ebbe’s in 1991 as a curate under the Revd David Fletcher, who once ran the controversial, abusive Iwerne camps associated with his brother Jonathan Fletcher and the late John Smyth. When David Fletcher retired from Saint Ebbe’s, Vaughan Roberts succeeded him as rector in 1998.

Jonathan Fletcher, who had a high-profile and influential ministry, was the vicar of Emmanuel Church, Wimbledon, and was also a regular preacher in Saint Ebbe’s. A recent report has exposed his bullying, coercive and abusive behaviour over many years, with a long-running pattern of sexual and spiritual abuse.

Since 2009, Roberts has also been Director of the Proclamation Trust, founded to train ‘conservative evangelical’ preachers by Dick Lucas and Jonathan Fletcher. ReNew network’s Alternative Selection Panel (ASP) was involved in the recent ‘alternative ordinations’ this year and last year conducted by Bishop Martin Morrison of the breakaway Reformed Evangelical Anglican Church of South Africa at the East London Tabernacle, a Baptist chapel in Mile End.

These ‘alternative ordinations’, which have been reported in the Church Times (4 July 2025 and 26 June 2026). But the men involved have not been named, and I cannot find out whether any of them are linked with Saint Ebbe’s. Five of the seven deacons are graduates of the Proclamation Trust’s Leaders’ Training Course (LTC), formerly known as Cornhill Plus.

Vaughan Roberts was one of more than 100 clerics who signed a letter in 2018 criticising the approach of the bishops in the Diocese of Oxford to sexual ethics, claiming ‘the situation [in the diocese] is serious.’ In a recent book, he described struggles with unwanted same-sex attraction, and later confirmed this in an interview, but said he does not define himself as homosexual and that he has chosen to remain celibate.

The East End of Saint Ebbe’s Church … the East Window is a memorial to a former rector, Bishop Thomas Valpy French (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

When I arrived at Saint Ebbe’s last week, the church was closed, and even the garden beside the church was padlocked on a hot sun-soaked summer afternoon.

The parish is formally Saint Ebbe with Holy Trinity and Saint Peter le Bailey. The clergy team includes Canon Vaughan Robets, the Revd Peter Wilkinson, the Revd Glenn Nesbitt, the Revd Josh Skidmore, the Revd Al Horn, the Revd Tim Dossor and the Revd Ben Vane.

Saint Ebbe’s has three services each Sunday at 10 am, 4 pm and 6:30. Weekday services from Monday to Friday are at 8:45. The church possesses beautiful Communion plates of Elizabethan and Jacobean date. The church says all of these are still in regular use, and it uses gluten-free Communion and non-alcoholic Communion wine. But I am still unable to find when or how often the Eucharist is celebrated in Saint Ebbe’s, and I have still not been inside the church.

When I arrived at Saint Ebbe’s on a hot sun-soaked summer afternoon, the church was closed and the garden was padlocked (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

A search for the site of Greyfriars and the heart of Franciscan intellectual life in mediaeval Oxford

‘The new religion is consumerism and massive malls are its cathedrals’ … Westgate Oxford was built on top of the extensive remains of the mediaeval Greyfriars friary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

The large shopping centres throughout Britain represent the consumer-driven urban environment that thrived with Thatcherism. The new religion became consumerism and massive malls became its cathedrals, where people are found like sheep with a shepherd, shopping around for salvation.

As Brian Appleyard pointed out in the Independent back in 1993, we have turned many run-of-the-mill towns into cities by building cathedrals called malls: ‘The religious parallel is precise and detailed: these malls have naves, aisles, triforia, clerestories, cruciform plans and holy water features. Here, through shopping, we seek out ‘value’, apply the moral code of consumerism and aspire to a better life.’

Westgate Oxford, previously known as the Westgate Centre and built as Westgate Shopping Centre, is the main shopping centre in the centre of Oxford. It was first built in 1970-1972 to designs by Douglas Murray and it was extensively remodelled and extended in 2016-2017.

When the centre was first built in the 1970s, part of the work destroyed archaeological remains of part of mediaeval Oxford. During the redevelopment in 2015-2017, Oxford Archaeology carried out architectural investigations into the extensive remains of the mediaeval Greyfriars friary (1244-1538), and the discoveries included stone foundations, wooden and other artefacts, and part of a mediaeval tiled floor.

My search for the remains of the vast Greyfriars site in Oxford began at Friars Wharf (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

I had a brief view of the modern Greyfriars buildings in Oxford recently, including the Church of Saint Edmund and Saint Frideswide or Greyfriars on Iffley Road in East Oxford. So, when we were back in Oxford a few days ago, one of the ecclesiastical sites I went in search of was the original Greyfriars or Franciscan friary, founded by Saint Agnellus of Pisa in 1224.

After visiting two neighbouring churches, Holy Rood Church on Abingdon Road and Saint Matthew’s Church on Marlborough Road, last week, I crossed back over the River Thames at the Gasworks Pipe Bridge to the site of the former gasworks and Friars Wharf to begin a search for the once extensive site of the medieval friary that had been an influential establishment in Oxford for over 300 years.

A new interactive archaeological and history trail has been developed at Westgate, showcasing artefacts uncovered during the excavation of the site, the largest exposure of medieval buildings yet seen in the city. The trail has been created in partnership with Oxford Archaeology and involves several marker in and around Westgate.

Each marker includes information and items of significance uncovered in archaeological excavations, including:

• the vanished suburb of St Ebbe’s
• original pavement from the Franciscan Friary
• art inspired by the Franciscan theologian and philosopher Roger Bacon

Visitors and local people are invited to interact with the trail and to find out more about the dig by scanning the QR codes on the totems in the centre, or by visiting the Westgate Oxford website with their smartphones. Printed maps are also available.

The trail signposts other locations in Oxford, including the Weston Library, the Bates Collection at Saint Aldate’s Church, the Pitt Rivers Museum and Oxford Castle Quarter. The trail was the culmination of many years work alongside Oxford Archaeology.

Roger Bacon Lane … one of the street names remembering the Franciscans of Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Franciscans were founded by Saint Francis of Assisi in 1210. He sent nine friars to England in 1224 under Saint Agnellus of Pisa, who founded the Franciscan or Greyfriars Friary in Oxford between Saint Ebbe’s Church and the city wall.

The friary started in a single house between Saint Ebbe’s Church and the mediaeval city wall. The popularity of the Franciscan friars as teachers in the University of Oxford meant they soon outgrew their original site. In 1244, Henry III granted the Greyfriars land and water south of the city wall and they received royal permission to demolish part of the wall to build their new church. The Franciscans were given permission to make a ‘little gate’ in the city wall to give them access to the city, and this is reserved in the name of Littlegate Street.

The T-shaped plan of the friary church provided the largest possible preaching area. Pieces of stained and painted glass, decorated floor tiles and a small statue, probably of a saint, were among the archaeological finds and give a glimpse of what the church might have looked like. Burials were found under the floor of the church, but the body of Saint Agnellus was not identified. Other burials were excavated from the graveyard.

The cloisters were to the south of the church and a complex of other buildings south of that probably included the monks’ sleeping quarters or dormitory, their washhouse or reredorter, the chapter house, the sacristy, and possibly a watermill.

More friars minor moved to Oxford when the University of Paris was dispersed in 1229-1230. The Franciscan friars of Oxford quickly earned their international academic and intellectual reputations, they had the ear of kings and popes, and they put Oxford more prominently on the map. They were politically influential and that in turn helped to give the university greater status, attracting more top teachers and students.

The friary became one of the greatest mediaeval teaching institutions in Oxford and it had a pivotal importance in the history of Oxford University. Along with the Dominicans of Oxford, the Franciscans were a major force in transforming the university, focusing on intellectually rigorous and challenging subjects.

Oxford University claims to have been founded in 1096, and it grew rapidly from 1167, when Henry II prohibited English students from attending the University of Paris. Before the Franciscans arrived in Oxford, it was already specialised in teaching practical vocationally oriented courses like letter writing, Latin grammar, classical speech-making, basic maths and practical law.

However, the Franciscans and their Dominican contemporaries and rivals introduced a new emphasis on theology in the curriculum that in turn led to teaching advanced philosophy, physics, natural history, geology and even optics. At that stage, theology was regarded as the cutting-edge intellectual discipline, and was known as the ‘Queen of the Sciences’.

The friars used theology and the Bible as ways to approach all other intellectual disciplines, and these mediaeval friars made Oxford the international centre of scholarship it remains to this day.

A plaque remembering Roger Bacon, the Franciscan philosopher known as Doctor Mirabilis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Among the eminent mediaeval scholars who taught at Greyfriars were:

• Robert Grosseteste, one of mediaeval Europe’s first great mathematicians and physicists was also Bishop of Lincoln and the first Chancellor of the University of Oxford;

• Roger Bacon, a philosopher, linguist and pioneer of empirical science whose work included research into light, lenses and gunpowder;

• Haymo of Faversham, a diplomat who taught in Paris, Tours, Bologna and Padua, as well as Oxford;

• John of Peckham, who became Archbishop of Canterbury;

• John Duns Scotus, considered among the most important philosopher-theologians in Western Christendom during the late medieval period, alongside Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure and William of Ockham;

• Alexander of Hales, a theologian and philosopher instrumental to the development of scholasticism;

• William of Ockham, a philosopher and radical political theorist who gives his name to the problem-solving principle known as ‘Ockham’s Razor’;

• the Italian friar Peter Phillarges, who was born in Neapoli in Crete and was later widely recognised as Pope Alexander V during the schism in the early 14th century, although he is now generally listed as an antipope.

Four of these great intellectual friars had interesting Latin monikers: Alexander of Hales, Doctor Irrefragabilis; Roger Bacon, Doctor Mirabilis; John Duns Scotus, Doctor Subtilis, and William of Ockham, Doctor Invincibilis.

The Castle on Paradise Street … the names of Paradise Square and Paradise Street are reminders of the ‘Paradise’ orchard at Greyfriars (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Franciscan order divided into two branches in 1517: the friars who had been living in city-convents and teaching in universities became known as Conventuals, while the friars who lived a more eremitical life became known as Observants; the Capuchins developed in 1528.

Greyfriars continued as an educational and religious centre until it was dissolved at the Tudor Reformations in 1538. After the dissolution of the monastic houses, the Greyfriars buildings were pulled down and many of the foundations were removed to provide building materials. The Capuchins did not return to Oxford until 1905.

The site of the Greyfriars gardens, known as Paradise, was turned into famous market gardens. By the end of the 19th century, the whole site of the Greyfriars had been was built over with streets of terraced housing, known as ‘The Friars’.

The footprint of the mediaeval friary at the south-west corner of the city walls was extensive, running between the present-day Paradise Street and the Westgate Oxford Shopping Centre.

The archaeological investigations are uncovering what life in Oxford was like during that crucial transition. The archaeological investigations are also important because the Franciscan Friary or Greyfriars was home to some of the most important scholars in mediaeval Oxford and in wider European academic life.

The first archaeological excavations of the Greyfriars were carried out in 1967-1972, before Westgate Shopping Centre was built. These uncovered the T-shaped plan of the friary church and the different phases of its construction over almost 300 years, from the 1240s until the Reformation.

Only a small part of these buildings were identified in the 1970s, but much more was discovered with further excavations in 2015-2016, revealing many more stone buildings south of the friary church. Combined, these excavations constitute some of the most extensive plans of any mediaeval urban friary in England.

Paradise Garden (2017) is a sculpture by William Cobbing (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Paradise Garden (2017) is a sculpture by William Cobbing that consists of seven quarried stone boulder forms inlaid with glazed ceramic tiles. They reference the archaeology, history and flora of the place, and the constellation of sculptures complements the landscaping design of Greyfriars Place, inviting the viewer to reflect on the history of the site.

Many of the street names and placenames in the area recall the presence of the Franciscan friars and the Dominicans in the area until the 16th century, including Old Greyfriars Street, Blackfriars Road, Friars Wharf, Preachers Lane, Trinity Street.

Roger Bacon gives his name to Roger Bacon Lane, where Saint Ebbe’s Church has its offices. The names of Paradise Square and Paradise Street are reminders of the ‘Paradise’ orchard at Greyfriars.

Old Greyfriars Street at Westgate is a reminder of the presence of the Franciscans in Oxford for over 300 years (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Greyfriars in East Oxford, a convent with a publishing house, and two other religious sites in Oxford

The Church of Saint Edmund and Saint Frideswide or Greyfriars on Iffley Road in East Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

During my walkabout in Oxford last week, by the river, through Iffley in East Oxford, and in the city centre, I had opportunities to see from the outside four religious houses that have interesting places in the story of religious communities and community life in Oxford.

Greyfriars has one of the most distinctive buildings in Oxford; it is the only flint-stone Norman-style building in the city, and its green spire is prominent along the Iffley Road in East Oxford. Greyfriars is a Catholic parish and a Franciscan friary, and until 2008 it was also a permanent private hall of the University of Oxford.

The original Greyfriars church and friary in Oxford was founded by the Franciscans in the marshy St Ebbe’s area of the city in 1224. The mediaeval friars in Oxford included the theologian Robert Grosseteste, also Bishop of Lincoln and the first Chancellor of the University of Oxford. Other early Franciscans in mediaeval Greyfriars in Oxford included Roger Bacon, John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, and the Antipope Alexander V, who was from Neapolis in Crete.

The mediaeval friary was in the south-west corner of the city walls. Its footprint was extensive, running between the present-day Paradise Street and the Westgate Oxford Shopping Centre. The Franciscan order divided into two branches in 1517: the friars who had been living in city-convents and teaching in universities became known as Conventuals, while the friars who lived a more eremitical life became known as Observants; the Capuchins developed in 1528.

The original Greyfriars in Oxford continued as an educational and religious centre in the Middle Ages before being dissolved at the Tudor Reformations in 1538, and the Capuchins did not return to Oxford until 1905.

Greyfriars Church or the Church of Saint Edmund and Saint Frideswide on Iffley Road was built in 1910-1911 as a chapel of ease to the Jesuits of the Church of Saint Aloysius, Woodstock Road. The dedication recalls Saint Edmund of Abingdon, Archbishop of Canterbury, who gives his name to St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and Saint Frideswide, the patron of Oxford. It succeeded Saint Ignatius chapel in St Clement’s (1793) as the principal site of Roman Catholic worship in east Oxford.

The church was designed by the priest-architect William Edward (Father Benedict) Williamson (1868-1948). The builders were Hunt & Sons of High Wycombe. Williamson’s other works include the Jesuit church of Saint Ignatius in Stamford Hill, north London, and a range of monastic buildings at Farnborough Abbey in Hampshire – both, like his church in Oxford, in a neo-Romanesque style.

The church is listed Grade II for its architectural interest as an austerely dignified neo-Romanesque church by an accomplished architect, with a particularly serene and well-proportioned interior. The church is at the north end of the long range of buildings at Greyfriars on the west side of Iffley Road and is aligned north-south. The church is built in a plain neo-Norman style. The main entrance is through the tower, with an organ gallery above.

Meanwhile, the Capuchin Franciscans had returned to Oxford in 1905 when they founded Saint Anselm’s Friary, and it was recognised by the university as a house of studies in 1910. The Jesuits transferred responsibility for the Church of Saint Edmund and Saint Frideswide on Iffley Road in 1928 to the Capuchins who already ran a student hostel at Grosseteste House in a pair of nearby houses on Iffley Road. The present friary buildings, designed by the Oxford architect Gilbert Gardner under the supervision of Father Cuthbert Hess, were built in 1930-1931 to the south of the church.

The Capuchins first named the house Grosseteste House after the first head of the original Greyfriars. When the present building was completed in 1930, the name of Greyfriars was adopted once more.

Greyfriars became a private hall in the university in 1957. Greyfriars had an unusual position in Oxford, and the university hall and Franciscan friary were part of the same institution and coexisted on the same site. The friars and the students mingled on the site and shared mealtimes. The hall had a tradition of noted theology academics, but students were in a range of disciplines, including English, history, theology, geography and law. Greyfriars was closely linked with Balliol College, with a long-standing tradition of sporting links.

In October 2007, the Capuchins announced they planned to close Greyfriars as a permanent private hall, for financial and personnel reasons. All students and prospective applicants were transferred to Regent’s Park College, and the hall closed in June 2008, despite a last-minute attempt by the Holy See to save the hall. At the time Greyfriars closed, the fellows included Aidan Nichols and honorary fellows included Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Birmingham. There was surprise in some circles that the Greyfriars students did not migrate to Saint Benet’s Hall, the Benedictine PPH, or Blackfriars Hall, the Dominican PPH; Saint Benet’s Hall closed in 2022. The buildings continue to house the friary.

The Fairacres Road entrance to the Convent of the Incarnation off Iffley Road, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

As I was walking back from the River and Donnington Bridge towards Iffley Road, I found myself at the back gate of the Convent of the Incarnation on Fairacres Road, although the main convent entrance is at Daubeny Road. The Convent of the Incarnation – known as Fairacres – is home to around 15 sisters, and their work includes prayer, hospitality, study. And publishing.

The Sisters of the Love of God began in 1906, and their first convent was a small house in East Oxford. They moved a little further from the centre of Oxford in 1911, the present chapel was built in 1923.

As the community numbers grew from 1928 into the 1970s, new houses opened in Hemel Hampstead, at Burwash in Sussex and near Staplehurst in Kent, and a house opened in New Zealand in 1995. By 2005, falling numbers and increasing age led to closing the other houses, and community life since then has been centred in Oxford, where their story began.

Later this week, on the Feast of the Birth of Saint John the Baptist (Wednesday 24 June 2026), Sister Christine (South) will be blessed and installed as the new Reverend Mother of the Fairacres Convent.

The community established a small publishing house, SLG Press, in 1967 and produces a journal with short theological papers twice a year, the Fairacres Chronicle. The main publishing activity is a list of over 200 short books on prayer and the spiritual life, including a significant collection of Syriac patristics works and a series of contemplative poetry. The authors include AM Allchin, Professor Sebastian Brock, Father John Chryssavgis, Professor Andrew Louth, Professor John McGuckin, Archbishop Michael Ramsey, Sister Benedicta Ward, Metropolitan Kallistos Ware and Archbishop Rowan Williams.

The Convent of the Incarnation off Iffley Road is home to the Sisters of the Love of God and SLG Press (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

At the corner of Holywell Street, St Cross Road and Longwall Street, a plaque to four Catholic Martyrs was erected at 100 Holywell Street in October 2008 and reads: ‘Near this spot George Nichols, Richard Yaxley, Thomas Belson, Humphrey Pritchard, were executed for their Catholic Faith, 5 July 1589.

The plaque was organised by Dr Joseph Shaw of Saint Benet's Hall, with permission from Merton College, the owner of the house. The four men are also remembered on the plaque commemorating all the martyrs of the Reformation, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, erected in the University Church of Saint Mary the Virgin on 19 June 2008.

All four men were hanged at Holywell Gallows in Oxford in 1589 were Roman Catholics living in Oxford. The first two were priests, and the second two were laymen.

Father George Nichols was born in Oxford in 1550 and studied at Brasenose College. He was ordained in Reims in France in 1583, before being sent back to Oxford. Father Richard Yaxley (alias Tankard) Yaxley was born in Boston, Lincolnshire. He was ordained in Reims In 1585 and returned to England in 1586.

Thomas Belson was born at Brill in Buckinghamshire and studied at Saint Mary Hall, Oxford, and at the English College in Reims in 1584. He was a prisoner in the Tower of London for a while, before returning to Oxford, where George Nichols was his confessor.

Humphrey Pritchard, or Prichard or ap Richard, or ap Richard ap Gruffydd or Griffin or Griffith, was a Welsh servant at the Catherine Wheel Inn in Oxford, and a tailor. He was said to have served the Catholics who came to the inn in every way possible during the 12 or 14 years before his execution. Some Catholic priests in Oxford were hunted down at the Catherine Wheel Inn in Magdalen Street, which was owned by a Catholic widow.

All four men named on the plaque were arrested at the Catherine Wheel Inn. The priests were held in Bocardo in Cornmarket Street, then the city gaol, and the two laymen in Oxford Castle, then the county gaol, before being sent to London, where they were questioned and tortured in the Bridewell and in the Tower of London.

The four were returned to Oxford on 30 June 1589. The two priests were convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn, and quartered at Holywell Gallows, and their parts parboiled in a cauldron before being fixed to the wall of Oxford Castle, where they were mutilated by Protestants. Two days later the heads and quarters were removed by the authorities and placed on high poles over the four town gates of Oxford. The two laymen who had been convicted of felony were simply hanged. All four martyrs were beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1987.

A plaque to four Catholic Martyrs at 100 Holywell Street, at the corner with St Cross Road and Longwall Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Grandpont House, near Folly Bridge, takes its name from a long causeway on the River Thmas known as Grandpont that once stretched along almost the full length of Abingdon Road.

Grandpont House sits on stone arches over a water channel off the River Thames. It was built in 1785 for Sir William Elias Taunton (1744-1825), the City Solicitor and Town Clerk of Oxford. The Taunton family owned Grandpont House until 1847, when it was acquired by Brasenose College. It was the home in the 1850s and 1860s of Thomas Randall (1805-1887), a tailor who may have been the inspiration for the Hatter in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Prince Hassan, son of the Khedive of Egypt, lived in the house in 1869-1872 while he was studying law at Brasenose. The chaplain of Brasenose, the Revd HC Wace, was living at Grandpont House In the early 20th century. Another Brasenose Fellow, William Holdsworth, Vinerian Professor of Law, was living there From 1922 to 1944.

Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei, who spent five summers in England, was keen to open an Opus Dei in Oxford. He visited Grandpont House in 1958 and the house and grounds were bought in April 1959. Grandpont House is one of several properties which is owned and operated by Netherhall Educational Association, which is linked with Opus Dei.

Grandpont House was bought by Opus Dei after Josemaría Escrivá visited in 1958 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Holy Cross Chapel near the bus station in Iraklion recalls the lengthy story of the Catholic presence in Crete

A cross on the wall of the Chapel of the Holy Cross, near the KTEL bus station in Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Over the past week or so, I have been going through old photographs of and postings about churches, chapels and monasteries in Crete and throughout Greece, trying to put together a guide to those churches and church sites I have visited, similar to those I have compiled for churches in Milton Keynes and Buckingham, Lichfield and Staffordshire, Oxford, Wexford, Limerick and Dublin.

I have been a frequent visitor to Greece for almost 40 years, since the late 1980s, when I first stayed in Rethymnon.

As my list of Greek churches, cathedral, chapels and monasteries grows, I am surprised how many churches and church sites I have visited, and as I compile the guide the number has already grown to more than 130, of which almost 80 are in Crete alone. But I am also taken aback by the number of churches I have visited in Greece but never blogged about or have lost photographs of.

Although I wrote a now-lost feature as a guide to the cathedrals and churches of Athens to mark the Athens Olympics in 2004, all those notes and photographs seem to have been lost on old laptops or on memory sticks that no longer seem to remember anything. Gone too are my photographs from my journeys throughout the Peloponnese and past visits to many islands on working trips and family holidays, including Halki, Ikaria, Kalymnos, Kephallonia, Kos, Patmos, Pserimos, Rhodes, Samos, Santorini and Zakynthos.

But, as I was going through those photographs and blog postings over the past week or so, I also came across photographs of a church in Iraklion that I have noticed during recent stopovers when I have spent Easter weeks in Rethymnon and visited friends in Piskopiano or had dinner with old friends in Iraklion, and two other chapels that I had visited during treks across the mountains from Rethymnon to the Monastery of Preveli on the south coast of Crete.

The Chapel of the Holy Cross in Iraklion was built in 1893, five years ago before Ottoman Turkish rule in Crete came to an end (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I have known Iraklion throughout all those 40 years since the 1980s. The old KTEL bus station was moved a few years ago from beneath the old Megaron Hotel about 200 metres east and a bit inland. The main bus station in Iraklion now stands on Ikarou Avenue, where it serves the long-distance intercity buses on routes along the north coast of Crete, including buses to Chania and Rethymnon to the west and Hersonissos and Agios Nikolaos to the east.

Without that move, Ikarou Avenue may have remained a back street in Iraklion and I might never have noticed the small 130-year-old Catholic chapel on Ikarou Avenue. The Chapel of the Holy Cross is at the old Catholic cemetery, close to the KTEL bus station and on a side road off Efesou Road.

The Chapel of the Holy Cross (Παρεκκλήσιο Τίμιος Σταυρός) was a built in 1893, five years before the expulsion of the Ottoman Turks in 1898 and the formation of an autonomous Cretan State headed by Prince George of Greece and Denmark. Crete was not fully incorporated into the modern Greek state until 1906, and this was not recognised internationally until 1913.

The Chapel of the Holy Cross (Παρεκκλήσιο Τίμιος Σταυρός) was a built in 1893 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In the past, during Venetian rule, Iraklion had many Catholic churches, including Saint Mark’s Cathedral in the heart of the city or prominent monastic churches such as the Dominican Church of Saint Peter.

Pope Alexander V is the only Pope to have been born a Catholic in Crete. He was born Peter Phillarges (Πέτρος Φιλάργης) near modern Neapoli in 1339, under Venetian rule, and became a Franciscan. He was pope from 1409 to 1410, but is now regarded as an antipope.

The Catholic Diocese of Crete was re-established as a bishopric in 1874, initially as a suffragan of the Archbishop of İzmir. Today, the Bishop of Crete is a suffragan of the Archbishop of Naxos, Andros, Tinos and Mykonos, the Catholic cathedral is in Chania, and there are Catholic churches in Crete in Iraklion, Chania and Rethymnon.

Plaques on the wall of the Chapel of the Holy Cross recall the work of Father George Roussos and Father Petros Roussos in restoring the building (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The small, pre-independence Chapel of the Holy Cross near the new KTEL bus station was built at the entrance to old Catholic cemetery in Iraklion in 1893 by Italian priests serving the small remaining Catholic community in Iraklion.

Today, the main Catholic church in Iraklion is the Church of Saint John the Baptist at Antoniou Patros, near the old port. The church was first built in 1888. The church was severely damaged in the earthquake in 1959 and had to be demolished and rebuilt.There has been a long presence of Capuchin Franciscans in Crete and the pastor at that time, Father George Roussos, built the present church in 1961-1962. Father Petros Roussos, who was the pastor from 1980 to 2008, also refurbished the Capuchin monastery next to the church.

Despite its small size, the church has mass in six different languages and welcomes everyone to coffee afterwards. Daily Mass is usually in the evening, while the Sunday morning Masses are often multilingual to meet the needs of both tourists and expats.

Plaques on the wall of the Chapel of the Holy Cross recall the work of Father George Roussos and Father Petros Roussos in restoring the building. Today, the chapel is primarily a resting place for funerals in the old Catholic cemetery and it is seldom used for the celebration of public Masses. But I may never have noticed this chapel if the main KTEL station in Iraklion had not been moved a few hundred metres a few years ago.

As for that catalogue or index of the churches I have visited in Crete and throughout Greece over the past 40 years, I hope to have that ready within the next few days, as well as some of those other churches, chapels and monasteries that I have found in photographs that I thought I had lost.

The chapel is primarily a resting place for funerals and is seldom used for public Masses (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)