A late tutorial in Latin in Oxford with Brian and a new mural under Donnington Bridge

An unexpected but humorous tutorial in Latin in Oxford this week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Some of the best street art in Oxford is actually not visible from the streets but is found under the bridges. I came across one work this week that is inspired by a scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, the 1979 film, but that also appeals to everyone with an interest in Latin and the classics or in the history of radical movements and agrarian agitation.

It was a bright sunny afternoon, with clear blue skies, and I went for a long walk through Christ Church Meadow in Oxford, by the banks of the river, before crossing the small footbridge to continue walking along on the north bank at Boathouses Walk, where most of the college boathouses are.

The most famous stretch of river in Oxford is probably the section between Folly Bridge and Iffley Lock. It is part of the River Thames, but at this section it is popularly known as the Isis. The college rowing crews train there and there are two major events each year: Torpids in late February and Eights in mid-May. Scullers and rowers were out on the river, training earnestly, with small tour boats making their way along through them, and there were geese, ducks and a family of swans too.

Donnington Bridge crosses the River Thames or Isis and the Thames Path towpath, between Iffley Lock to the south and Osney to the north (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

But my walk came to an abrupt end where the Isis meets the Cherwell, and I decided to retrace my steps, crossed Folly Bridge and returned to the river to walk along the towpath on the south bank, which runs for 1.5 miles past a couple of boathouses, moorings with houseboats, narrowboats and barges, the secluded Longbridges Nature Park and on towards Iffley Lock.

I never got as far as Iffley Lock or Isis Farmhouse, this time, because I was stopped in my tracks along the Thames Path by the goose art under Donnington Bridge. The Oxford Canal Mural Project has organised a series of artworks under bridges along the waterways around Oxfordshire, and the space under Donnington Bridge is frequently updated by street artists, with vibrant nature and animal motifs painted on the concrete pillars.

Donnington Bridge crosses the River Thames or Isis and the Thames Path towpath, between Iffley Lock to the south and Osney to the north, and connects Abingdon Road and Iffley Road. The bridge was opened on 22 October 1962, but there may have been a river crossing at or near this point in Roman times, before Oxford existed, linking to the Roman road from Dorchester to Alchester. There was nothing there after Roman times, and until the mid-20th century it was only possible to cross the river at this point by ferry.

The new mural under Donnington Bridge is said to have been started to poke fun at an Oxford scholar across the river (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026; click on image for full-screen viewing)

Previous images under the bridge have included one depicting an evil-looking Tony Blair war-mongering and greedy for money and oil in Iraq. A new graffiti mural appeared under Donnington Bridge within the past two or three month and is the creation of a local artist Mani (the Big Orange M). It includes geese and references to the Roman presence here with allusions to The Life of Brian.

The street art there is said to have been started to poke fun at an Oxford scholar from across the river who disliked The Life of Brian, which has inspired a long list of ‘silly goose’ puns. The mural also includes the fourth stanza from a song about agrarian agitation that developed as a response to the Enclosure Acts:

The crime is great, in man or woman,
Who steals a goose from a common;
But surely ’tis a worse abuse,
To steal the common from the goose.

The song or poem is a powerful critique of the Enclosure Acts that privatised shared public lands. It lampoons the hypocrisy of the law and how it severely punishes the poor for stealing a goose, while allowing wealthy landowners to steal the common land itself.

From the 1700s on, wealthy landlords used legislation to fence off traditional, shared village pastures and forests to turn them into private property. Rural people relied on these commons to graze their livestock, to gather firewood, and to survive, but were stripped of their livelihoods while landed families were protected by the law while claiming communal resources for themselves.

John Clare’s verse is a critique of the Enclosure Acts that privatised shared public lands (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The poem about the goose and the common has many variations, and these lines first appeared in the Monthly Magazine in 1810, and later in the London Express in 1848. But the original version is attributed to the Northamptonshire poet John Clare (1793-1864). Today, the poem has evolved into a famous anti-capitalist folk song and a rallying cry for activists protecting public spaces.

Other lettering on the mural hint at grievances about mooring rights along this stretch of the river – ‘Honk, Honk, Honk’ and ‘No Moorings’ with its ending crossed out to read ‘No Moor Hens’.

At the north end of the mural, the Latin saying Romanes eunt domus CCCXC BC has been altered purposefully or corrected to read Romani ite domum CCCXC BC.

‘Romanes eunt domus’ is an intentionally incorrect Latin phrase that translates as ‘People called 'Romanes' they go the house?’ It is the famous, grammatically butchered graffiti from Monty Python’s Life of Brian.

The sketch draws on John Cleese’s time as a teacher, when he taught Latin to 10-year-olds at Saint Peter’s, a preparatory school in Weston-super-Mare. He said the sketch was inspired by an occasion when he wrote on the blackboard a number of times a word that he as a teacher had misspelled, demonstrating his even-handedness.

The centurion is concerned not with Brian’s act of vandalism, but with his inept Latin grammar. Once Brian has arrived at the correct answer, the centurion imposes a grammar school punishment – writing lines – instead of the punishment a vandal or rebel might expect. Instead of punishing Brian for writing the graffito, the centurion instructs him to repeat the act 100 times, using good grammar.

In the film, Brian is an anti-Roman agitator who is caught painting ‘Romans go home’ on the palace walls. Instead of punishing him, a pedantic Roman centurion forces him to conjugate his verbs and decline his nouns – treating a public execution like a strict classroom lesson in Latin.

Romani ite domum is the corrected Latin phrase for the graffito Romanes eunt domus. The scene features John Cleese as a centurion and Graham Chapman as Brian, at that point a would-be member of the revolutionary People’s Front of Judea. To prove himself a worthy candidate for membership, Brian has to daub the anti-Roman slogan ‘Romans go home’ on the walls of Pontius Pilate’s palace in Jerusalem, under cover of darkness, written in Latin for the Romans to read.

He completes the phrase Romanes eunt domus when he is caught by the centurion. Brian is terrified and expects to be killed on the spot. Instead, the centurion corrects Brian’s grammatical errors like traditional Latin teacher, for he has written ‘People called Romanes they go the house’.

John Cleese’s centurion forces Brian to use the proper imperative verb form and accusative case and to write the correct phrase, Romani ite domum, 100 times, threatening to ‘cut [his] balls off’ if he has not done so by sunrise.

Brian does so, covering nearly every surface of the plaza with the graffiti while he is supervised by two guards. When he finishes the task the following morning, one soldier says ‘don’t do it again’ and leaves with his comrade. Just as they leave, three other soldiers come round the corner and see the graffiti. Brian realises his position and races off, chased by the soldiers. In subsequent scenes, various Roman soldiers can be seen erasing the seditious graffiti.


A tutorial in Latin in onty Python’s Life of Brian (1979)

The exchange on the case of domus is worth repeating:

Centurion: ‘Domus’? Nominative? ‘Go home’? This is motion towards. Isn’t it, boy?

Brian: Dative, sir!

[The centurion draws his sword and holds it to Brian’s throat]

Brian: Ahh! No, not dative! Not the dative, sir! Oh, the ... accusative! Accusative! ‘Domum’, sir! ‘Ad domum’!

Centurion: Except that ‘domus’ takes the ...?

Brian: The locative, sir!

Centurion: Which is ...?!

Brian: ‘Domum’.

Some Latin scholars may point out that the centurion is mistaken in accepting Brian’s answer of the locative case, although the result was correct. The locative case indicates presence at or in a particular place, such as a city, town, or small island. The locative of domus, meaning a house or home, would be domi. But motion toward a place or thing was indicated using the accusative of motion towards, domum being the allative construction correctly used in the final formulation of the graffito.

This confusion over the use of the locative case is an example of how even people who are well-educated in Latin occasionally err when it comes to grammatical details. But the sketch may be incomprehensible to many today, as Latin is no longer taught in schools in the way my generation learned it.

Beneath the Latin ‘homework’, tucked into a discreet corner of the assemblage is the date ‘CCCXC BC’. Not that the Romans would have used the date ‘CCCXC BC’ for the year 390 BC, but what happened that year? What did the Romans do for us then? 390 BC is four centuries or more before the supposed setting for The Life of Brian, and the Romans certainly did not have their eyes set on Jerusalem – nor were they contemplating the road from Dorchester to Alchester almost 2,500 years.

In the year 390 BC, the Roman Republic suffered a devastating defeat at the Battle of the Allia against the Senones, a Gallic tribe led by chieftain Brennus. The Gauls subsequently captured and sacked Rome, profoundly shaping the trajectory of the Roman military and state.

A houseboat on the River Thmas near Donnington Bridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Winston Churchill once said, ‘I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honour, and Greek as a treat.’ I did Latin at school from 12 to 17 in my secondary schools, sat an honours paper in Latin at the Leaving Certificate (the Irish equivalent of A Levels) in 1969, and I still remember reading Caesar, Ovid, Pliny and Horace, as well as the difficulty of wrestling with the finer points of Latin grammar.

Many, many years later, I went on to do some post-graduate work in liturgical Latin in the Institutum Liturgicum at Ealing Abbey in 2012 in association with the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at KU Leuven.

But I never thought I would have my most amusing tutorial in Latin in Oxford, under a bridge, on the town path along the Isis, surrounded by geese, house boats, rowers and sculls, thanks to John Cleese and Monty Python’s Life of Brian.

A summer stroll along the towpath and under the bridges (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Dial House on Bristle Hill and the extraordinary story of a hidden but very modern sundial in Buckingham

The sundial at Dial House at 7 Bristle Hill, Buckingham, with its Latin inscription, was commissioned by Anthony Gordon Randall and designed by David Harber (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Wandering through the streets of Buckingham, I have often gazed at Dial House at 7 Bristle Hill, and wondered about the sundial that fills the lower of two recesses above the front door, and its Latin inscription and Roman numerals.

I could find no reference to house or the sundial in architectural guides, local histories or tourist leaflets, nobody in the tourist information office in the Old Gaol in Buckingham seemed to know about the dial or the house, and so last week I began to wonder about the origins, antiquity and purpose of the dial and the story of Dial House.

Dial House is at the bottom of Bristle Hill, at its north-west end, where it meets School Lane, close to a bend on the River Great Ouse.

Across the top of this vertical declining dial on the first floor is the Latin inscription Super collem saetigerum septem / semper luceat sol. Below there is a fading translation, Upon seven Bristle Hill let the sun shine still, though this is now difficult to make out, and a peculiar sequence of letters and numbers ‘AGR 080808’ that seem to create a puzzling conundrum.

The blue painted slate dial plate is set in a recess about 30 mm deep. The hours XI to X are shown with full length hour lines originating from a sun, below may be the letters ‘GMT’. There are declination lines labelled for the solstices and equinoxes, although they may not be accurately drawn, and another dashed line that is not identified. All the remaining dial lettering appears to be gold or gold leaf.

I inquired around and eventually learned that the initials AGR are those of an interesting and creative local figure, the late Anthony Gordon Randall (1933-2021), and learned too how he erected the dial almost 18 years ago to mark his 75th birthday on 8 August 2008 – hence the puzzling numbers 080808 beside his initials.

Dial House is at the bottom of Bristle Hill, at its north-west end, where it meets School Lane, close to a bend on the River Great Ouse (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Anthony Gordon Randall, once a website developer and printing entrepreneur, was born into Quaker family in Woking on 8 August 1933, the third and youngest of three children. He was educated at Leighton Park, a Quaker-run public school in Reading, and at Trinity College Oxford (BA 1957), Insead (MBA 1962) and the University of Buckingham (MA 2012).

He moved from Richmond to Buckingham in 2007 and there, at the beginning of 2008, as he was looking forward to his 75th birthday, he began thinking of suitable ways to celebrate that milestone. He heard how the number 8 is regarded as lucky in China because the word eight sounds similar to the word that means ‘prosper’ or ‘wealth’. The date 08.08.08 would be a particularly auspicious one in China, and coincided with the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.

His house on Bristle Hill was originally a couple of old two-storey cottages with a third floor probably added shortly after the canal arrived in Buckingham in the early 19th century and with a Georgian façade added to form the front of the house.

Above the front door and between the two windows on each of the upper floors are niches, probably designed to resemble windows in more stately houses that were blocked up in the 18th century to avoid Window Tax. Randall decided the lower of the niches would be a suitable place for a sundial.

An online search led him to David Harber, whose list of commissions included Oxbridge colleges, stately homes and international corporate head offices. The wording for the Latin inscription was provided by Bishop Stephen Verney (1919-2009), a former Bishop of Repton, who lived near David Harber’s workshop.

Randall wanted a motto related to the house at the bottom of Bristle Hill. He thought of the words in the funeral, Lux aeterna luceat …, ‘Let light eternal shine …’, and transformed this into ‘Let the sun always shine’ (Semper luceat sol …), ending (or beginning) with ‘upon 7 Bristle Hill’.

But he met some problems with his efforts at creating a Latin phrase. When he looked up ‘bristle’ he got saeta, and so he submitted to Bishop Verney Super collem saetae (‘of the bristle’) septem … He got back Super septem (before, not after, the street name) collem saetigerum (‘bristle-bearing’).

Meanwhile, during a visit to Naples, he thought he might find the correct position for the number seven (VII) during a visit to Pompeii. But the people of Pompeii did not use numbers for addresses: ‘this was a new-fangled Greek idea, which might be all very well in Alexandria, but really wouldn’t do for us Romans in Campania.’ And so, imagining the modern Italian method of putting the house number after and not before the street name was perhaps based on some Roman precedent, he decided to do likewise.

The bishop’s opinions about the word ‘Bristle’, however, were supported by a family member who had won a classical scholarship in Oxford college. He was convinced that forming adjectives from nouns by adding ‘-bearing’ in cases such as this was a common occurrence and was derived from Greek practice. They arrived at what they agreed was a reasonable Latin motto, adding a translation into English in small print at the bottom. There he produced a rhyming couplet to render semper (‘always’) as ‘still’, or continuing until this time, and produced: ‘Upon Seven Bristle Hill / Let the sun shine still’.

In addition, he chose the typeface Trajan for the wording on the dial.

Anthony Randall and David Harber worked with Bishop Stephen Verney to complete the inscriptions on the dial at Dial House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

At the installation of the sundial at No 7 Bristle House, David Harber and Anthony Randall discussed a follow-up project for the empty niche above, with Harber suggesting a weather cock on the chimney that would link through gears to a pointer on a compass rose in the niche: ‘This birthday you’re tracking the sun: the next big one, track the wind!’

No 7 Bristle House became Dial House, the sundial was nominated for a prize for the best recent embellishment of the town of Buckingham, and Anthony Randall began planning for his 80th birthday on 8 August 2013. But those plans never saw the light of day, and he died on 18 January 2021.

The house at the bottom of Bristle Hill was sold recently and is being refurbished. I hope the sundial is restored to its original glory, and that the new owners have a vision for the second-storey niche above.

As for Bishop Stephen Verney, he died on 9 November 2009, just over a year after the dial was installed. As a conscientious objector during World War II, he first served with Friends Ambulance Unit but later became an undercover agent in occupied Crete, working with the Greek resistance.

He was as an Oxford classicist and his Water into Wine (London: Fount Paperbacks, 1985) had a profound influence on my understanding of Saint John’s Gospel. Perhaps I should return to his story in the weeks to come.

Looking down Bristle Hill in Buckingham towards School Lane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

A Victorian fountain and a puzzling roundabout near Magdalen Bridge mark the entry to East Oxford

The Victoria Fountain at the Plain, near Magdalen Bridge in Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

In recent days, I have been writing about a number of landmarks in east Oxford that I have noticed on my bus journeys to and from hospital appointments, and that I have returned to see time and again in recent months.

The churches and pubs include: Saint Clement’s Church, the former Saint Ignatius Chapel, the Port Mahon and Oranges and Lemons.

One of the landmarks in this part of Oxford is the Plain, an unusual roundabout known to many not only for its unusual name but also for the Victoria Fountain. It also has a puzzling, perplexing and at times dangerous layout.

The Plain marks the entrance to East Oxford, with three roads off the roundabout leading onto St Clement’s, Cowley Road and Iffley Road, Magdalen College School is to the south, as is Cowley Place, a fourth leads to Saint Hilda’s College, the most easterly college of the University of Oxford, while a fifth leads to Magdalen Bridge, Magdalen College and back into the city centre.

Saint Clement’s Church stood near the site of the roundabout until the 19th century, and there is evidence of a Danish settlement in the area ca 1000. Saint Edmund’s Well, a place where miracles were said to have taken place, was next to the church. But the church had become too small for the parish’s growing population, and was demolished in 1829 when a new and larger church was built on Marston Road.

St Clement’s was turnpiked in 1771, forcing road users to pay tolls. A new Henley Road, later Iffley Road, was formed in the 1770s to link up with Magdalen Bridge, which had been rebuilt and many houses around the church were demolished.

A tollhouse was built in front of the church in 1818, with gates on either side to control traffic. When the railway arrived in Oxford, the turnpike was abolished and the tollhouse was pulled down in 1874.

The fountain was a belated celebration of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee was celebrated in 1897, and two years later the Victoria Fountain was built in 1899 to mark the anniversary. It was designed as a drinking fountain by the architect Edward Prioleau Warren (1856-1937), whose main works were lodgings for Oxford colleges and minor country houses.

EP Warren trained with the architect GF Bodley, whose biography he later wrote. He published illustrations in the Transactions of the Guild and School of Handicraft in 1890, joined the Art Workers Guild in 1892 and was Master in 1913.

His brother was President of Magdalen College and in 1894 he married Margaret Cecil Louisa Morrell, a member of the wealthy Morrell banking family in Oxford. Both connections may have helped him develop an extensive practice in Oxford, and his works include the Eastgate Hotel, buildings at the Radcliffe Infirmary and at Balliol College, Magdalen College, Merton College and Saint John’s College, Oxford, and new clerestory windows in Saint Cross Church. His works in Cambridge include alterations to the west range of Gonville Court at Gonville and Caius College and work at Trinity College.

The Victoria Fountain was paid for by George Herbert Morrell (1845-1906) and Emily Morrell, owners of Morrell’s Brewery in Oxford, who lived nearby at Headington Hill Hall and who were generous benefactors of Saint Clement’s Church.

GH Morrell was the Conservative MP for Woodstock (1891-1892, 1895-1906). He was a son of the Revd GK Morrell of Saint John’s College, Oxford. In 1874, he married his third cousin, Emilia Alicia Morrell (1854-1938), granddaughter of one of the founders of Morrell’s Brewery and said to be the richest heiress in Oxfordshire.

A Latin inscription around the clock is an elaboration of Virgil’s maxim ‘Tempus Fugit’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Victoria Fountain, a Grade II listed building, is a small but elaborate hexagonal monument built of stone, with eight columns supporting a tiled roof. This is topped with a timber cupola with a four-faced clock, crowned with a weather vane.

A Latin inscription around the clock reads:

Aqua stillat, horae fugiunt.
Cave, bibe, capte eas antequam fugiunt

It translates:

The water drips, the hours go by.
Be warned, drink, catch them ’ere they fly’

The fountain features scallop decorative details and four basins that once were lined with copper. On the outside, four troughs provided water for horses and dogs.

It was inaugurated on 25 May 1899 by Princess Louise (1848-1939), Duchess of Argyll and fourth daughter of Queen Victoria. She was a was also an artist and sculptor, and her works include the statue of Queen Victoria at Lichfield Cathedral.

Since the fountain was erected, there have been many changes to the area around the Plain. A war memorial dedicated to the 142 men of the First Battalion Oxfordshire Light Infantry who died in the Second Boer War (1899-1902) stood on the site of the former churchyard from 1903 to 1950. The memorial has since been moved to Edward Brookes Barracks in Abingdon.

The Victoria Fountain was restored in 2009 through a partnership between Oxford City Council and Oxford Preservation Trust (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The former churchyard was bought by Oxford City Council in the 1930s to improve public safety and traffic flow. After delays caused by World War II, the site of Saint Clement’s churchyard behind the fountain was cleared in 1950 and the Plain was converted into a roundabout.

The Plain was further redeveloped early in 2006 to make the junction safer. That work introduced pinch points between the motor and cycle traffic, especially on the Iffley Road entry to the roundabout. Redevelopment work completed in September 2007 included resurfacing the traffic islands. Work on the roundabout and increasing the safety of cyclists was completed in 2015, but there were more calls to make changes to the junction after the death of a cyclist in 2022.

The Victoria Fountain was restored in 2009 through a partnership between Oxford City Council and Oxford Preservation Trust, with the support of the East Area Parliament, and additional funds from Magdalen College and the CPRE Oxfordshire Building Preservation Trust.

the Cape of Good Hope dates from 1785 and was rebuilt in 1892 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Facing the Victoria Fountain and the Plain is the Cape of Good Hope, a public house built in 1785 after road improvements created a new site, and rebuilt in 1892.

The name has nothing to do with the Boer War Memorial that once stood nearby. Instead, the pub is said to have acquired its name because the new site, between the north ends of Iffley Road and Cowley Roads, is shaped like the southern tip of South Africa. If so, the pub is incorrectly named, because the Cape of Good Hope is 90 miles away.

The pub was acquired by Morrell’s Brewery, and in 1892 a new pub, also named the Cape of Good Hope, replaced the original. The new pub was designed by a local architect, Harry George Walter Drinkwater (1844-1895), who also designed the Grapes on George Street. He was the son of George Drinkwater, a coachman who moved from Warwick and become the landlord of the George Inn on Cornmarket Street.

Drinkwater began his career as an assistant to the Gothic Revival architect GE Street in 1865-1873. He followed Street into restoring churches and designing vicarages, and received commissions from Hanley’s, Morrell’s and Weaving’s breweries.

His works include Saint Frideswide’s Vicarage, New Osney, Oxford; Saint Margaret’s Church, Walton Manor, Oxford; alterations to Saint James’s Church, Aston, Oxfordshire: New Theatre, Oxford; Saint Philip and Saint James old vicarage, Woodstock Road, Oxford, now part of Saint Antony’s College; the restoration of Saint Leonard’s Church, Eynsham, Oxfordshire. He was an uncle of the poet and playwright John Drinkwater (1882-1937).

Drinkwater’s pub at the Plain had three entrances – on Cowley Road, Iffley Road and facing the Plain, and had several name changes over the years. Morrell’s sold the pub in 1994 to Witney’s Wychwood Brewery, which renamed it the Hobgoblin after one of the brewery’s award-winning beers. Later Wychwood Brewery sold the pub and its name was changed to ‘The Pub, Oxford,’ then ‘The Pub at the Plain’, ‘The Point’, and then ‘It’s a Scream’, with a sign showing Edward Munch’s painting ‘The Scream’.

Today the pub is once again known as the Cape of Good Hope. It reverted to the name and reopened in 2016 after a major makeover by Mitchells and Butlers, who then owned 13 pubs in Oxford, including the Eagle and Child on St Giles, the Chequers on High Street, the Jericho tavern and Summertown’s only pub, the Dew Drop Inn.

the Cape of Good Hope was designed by Harry George Walter Drinkwater (1844-1895), a local architect (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The former Belfast Bank in Rathmines has moved from a ‘Quid’ in the Psalms to making the best dough

The former Belfast Bank, now Reggie’s Pizzeria on Rathmines Road Lower, was designed by Vincent Craig (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

The former Belfast Bank at 221-223 Rathmines Road Lower is now Reggie’s Pizzeria and is one of the interesting buildings in Rathmines that I looked at last week, along with the former YMCA building on Lower Rathmines Road, close to Portobello Road, nearby Kensington Lodge on Grove Park, and the former Kodak building.

The former Belfast Bank in Rathmines is a small building in a Scottish Baronial style, with a sharp corner and a corner turret. Despite its size, it is very noticeable for the narrow façade that creates an optical illusion, for its individual features, and because of its prominent location on a busy corner where Rathmines Road Lower meets Rathgar Road and Rathmines Road Upper.

The side street is Wynnefield Road, and many people also know the building because of its location beside Slattery’s public house.

The narrow façade at the junction of Rathmines Road, Wynnefield Road and Rathgar Road creates an optical illusion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Belfast Bank was formed in 1827 by a merger of two private banks, Batt’s, also known as the Belfast Bank, and Tennant’s, also known as the Commercial Bank. The bank moved in 1846 to the former Assembly Buildings at the corner of North Street, Bridge Street, Waring Street and Donegall Street. Within decades, the bank was trading in branches throughout the northern half of Ireland.

The Belfast Bank had a New York branch by the 1860s, but it did not establish a branch in Dublin until 1892, when temporary premises were acquired in Dame Street. A purpose-built branch at 21-22 College Green was designed by William Henry Lynn and was built in 1893-1894.

The Belfast Bank in Rathmines was the second branch in Dublin, and a third branch in Dublin at 86 Talbot Street was designed by Frederick George Hicks and built in 1900. The branch building in Rathmines was designed by the Belfast architect Vincent Craig (1869-1925), whose work included clubhouses for yacht and golf clubs, Presbyterian churches, hospitals, banks for the Belfast Bank and the Ulster Bank, and masonic halls.

Craig was born at Craigavon, Strandtown, Belfast, in 1869, one of seven sons of James Craig, a wealthy whiskey distiller, and a younger brother of James Craig (1871-1940), later Lord Craigavon and first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland.

Vincent Criag was educated at Bath College and received his architectural training in the office of William Henry Lynn from 1885 to 1889. He then spent a year travelling in Europe before setting up in practice in Belfast in 1891.

He was a member of the Royal Institute of the Architects in Ireland, and was elected a fellow (FRIAI) in 29 May 1906. He was also a fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA, 1900). His pupils and assistants included John Charles Lepper, Arthur Norman McClinton and Jackson Graham Smyth. He exhibited drawings of three of his designs in the Irish International Exhibition in Dublin in 1907.

Craig was a keen yachtsman and motorist, and also a generous benefactor of hospitals. He represented Court Ward on Belfast City Council in 1903-1906, and he was president of the Belfast Art Society in 1903.

He worked from 5 Lombard Street, Belfast, and 22 Donegall Place, and lived at Eldon Green, Helen’s Bay, Co Down, which he designed for himself. He moved to England in 1910, retired from his architectural practice soon after, and lived in retirement at High Close, Wokingham, Berkshire.

The former bank is in a Scottish baronial style, with a sharp corner and a corner turret (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Craig’s bank in Rathmines was built between 1899 and 1900 for the Belfast Bank. Tenders were invited in September 1899 and the building was ‘nearly complete’ by mid-July 1900.

The site was once part of the Chains. A fading photograph in Slattery’s beside the former bank tells how the Chains were one of the worst slums in late Victorian Rathmines. According to Weston St John Joyce in The Neighbourhood of Dublin (1912), the Chains were a number of dilapidated shanties enclosed by chains hung from stone pillars. They had become ‘an unsightly and insanitary slum’ until they were cleared to make the site for a new bank.

The corner is marked by a tower, topped by a finial and cut into at the base to make the entrance. The curve to the castellation is picked up on the apex of the gable, and the little peaks on the slope look even more like cake decoration when you follow the line down into the fussy scrolled base.

The terracotta plaque with the coat of arms of Belfast and the motto ‘Pro tanto quid retribuamus’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

On the Wynnefield Road elevation, a terracotta plaque set into the wall displays the coat of arms of Belfast with the motto Pro tanto quid retribuamus (‘What return shall we make for so much?’). It is a paraphrase of Psalm 116: 12 in the Vulgate translation, which reads ‘Quid retribuam Domino pro omnibus quae retribuit mihi?’

My childish sense of humour could not resist being amused by a Latin motto on a bank building that includes the word Quid.

On this façade, the chimney’s descent stops nearly in line with the top of the door, and it is an additional tension, a feat of brinksmanship with the visual weight as well as a clear marker of the asymmetry of the two façades. The break happens within the entrance, too, with the columns holding nothing and the pointed brackets above hanging like stalactites.

Sitting on the string course are two stone figures that look like lions bearing shields with the initials BB for Belfast Bank. The doors have panels and panes of stained glass.

Two stone figures that look like lions bear holdshields with the initials BB for Belfast Bank (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

In the aftermath of the 1916 Rising, the Belfast Bank merged with the London City & Midland Bank in 1917, the first entry into the Irish market by an English bank. After partition, the Belfast Bank decided to operate only in what became Northern Ireland. Following secret negotiations, the business in what had become the Irish Free State was transferred to the Royal Bank of Ireland in 1923, along with 20 branches and their staff.

The bank in Rathmines was more recently the premises of the Trustee Savings Bank/TSB Bank, and then the offices of a recruitment agency. It is now Reggie’s Pizzeria, which was opened in December 2024 by Reggie White, his wife Amy and their daughter Florence, who live nearby.

He has been described by the The Irish Times as ‘Ireland’s pizzaiolo-in-chief.’ He has trained Ballymaloe, and had stints at Del Popolo and Flour+Water in San Francisco. He returned to Dublin, co-founded Pi on George’s Street, and then made his name consulting for some of Ireland’s best-known pizza spots, including Little Forest, Bambino and Otto. With ten of his friends, including James Lowe, quietly backing 20 per cent, he opened Reggie’s in Rathmines shortly before last Christmas.

Once again, my childish sense of humour could not resist being amused by the thought that a former bank that exalted the word Quid is now making some of the best dough in Dublin.

As for the Belfast Bank, its businesses in Northern Ireland eventually merged with the Northern Bank, which began trading in 1824. Both were acquired by the Midland Bank, the integration was completed in 1970, and Northern Bank continued to trade throughout the whole of Ireland. The Midland Bank eventually sold the Northern Bank to the National Australia Bank, which later transferred ownership to Danske Bank.

Many of the former Belfast Bank buildings in Northern Ireland have been sold on to other businesses. But the name of ‘Belfast Bank’ continues to adorn a few of the old buildings, including those in Portrush, Rathfriland and Warrenpoint, as well as the former bank building on that narrow corner on Lower Rathmines Road.

For the former National Bank and Bank of Ireland branch at Lower Rathmines Road, see here

Inside Reggie's Pizzeria in the former Belfast Bank on Rathmines Road Lower (Photograph © Bryan O’Brien, The Irish Times, 2025)

A multi-lingual memorial plaque in Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale

The memorial plaque to Mary Anne Richardson on the north wall of Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale, is in three languages (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

On the north wall of Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale, Co Limerick, there is a tri-lingual monument to a young mother of two who died at the age of 27.

This plaque, in Greek, Latin and English, reads:

ΙΧΘΥΣ

Sacred to the memory of
Mary Anne,
the beloved wife of
Clement Richardson CLK,
a beautiful daughter,
an affectionate sister,
a loving wife,
a devoted mother.
She died IX January 1865 aged XXVII years
leaving four children, two of these
with her were soon at rest,
two must ever feel their irreparable loss.
Her remains are buried in
Mount Jerome Cemetery Co Dublin

Vale Desideratissima! Illic Demum
conquiescam tecum
tecum in Christo consurcam

Γενηθητω Το Θελημα Σου

The word at the top of the monument, ΙΧΘΥΣ (Ichthys) is a Greek acronym or acrostic for Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Θεοῦ Υἱός, Σωτήρ (Iēsous Christos, Theou Yios, Sōtēr), and translates as ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.’

The three-line valedictory in Latin near the end translates roughly as: ‘Farewell. I shall miss so much! May you rest in peace with Christ.’

The final line in Greek, Γενηθητω το θελημα σου (genithito to thelima sou), is a quotation from the Lord’s Prayer, ‘Thy will be done.’

But who was Mary Anne Richardson, and who was her husband, Clement Richardson CLK? Why is the monument in this church? And what happened to Clement and their children after Mary Anne died?

The Revd Clement William Henry Richardson was born in Dublin on 12 August 1830, one of the eleven children of William Richardson of Poolbeg Street, a solicitor and Proctor of the High Court of Admiralty. William Richardson’s father, the Revd Galbraith Richardson (1713-1780) was the rector of Errigle Keerogue, Co Tyrone, in the Diocese of Armagh.

Clement Richardson was baptised in Saint Mark’s Church on 12 December 1880, by the curate, the Revd Alexander Franklin. He entered Trinity College Dublin in 1848 and later graduated BA, proceeding MA in 1859. In the same year he received his MA, he married Mary Ann Barcroft, daughter of D Molloy, solicitor, in Monkstown Parish Church.

Clement was ordained deacon on 3 July 1859 and priest on 3 June 1860 by William FitzGerald, Bishop of Cork. But he was ordained for the Diocese of Limerick, and from 1859 to 1864 he was the Curate of Kilscannell, between Rathkeale and Newcastle West.

Between 1859 and 1864, Mary Anne and Clement were the parents of four children, including two sons who were born in Dublin on 7 August 1861 and 29 December 1864. Mary Anne died eleven days after the birth of h seer fourth child.

Clement resigned as curate of Kilscannell around the time of Mary Anne’s death, and I have been unable to find what he did for the next four or five years. But on 6 August 1868, he married again. His second wife, Louisa Maria Bonham Maunsell was born on 8 September 1842, the second daughter of the Revd Horatio Maunsell (1798-1882), the Rector of Drumbo, Co Down, and they were married in her father’s church.

But Louisa and Clement may have known each other before Mary Anne’s death, and may have first met when he was the curate in Kilscannell. Louisa came from a large family of eleven children. Her father, the Revd Horatio Maunsell, was the eleventh and youngest son of Daniel Maunsell, barrister, of Ballywilliam, near Rathkeale, Co Limerick, a grandson of Richard Maunsell, MP for Limerick City (1740-1761) and Mayor of Limerick in 1761. In the mid-19th century the Ballywilliam estate was in the parishes of Kilscannell and Rathkeale, and totalled 4,231 acres.

After this second marriage, Clement returned to ministry in 1869 as the chaplain to Hercules Edward Rowley (1848-1919), 4th Lord Langford, on his estate at Summerhill in Co Meath. But Clement and Louisa left Ireland in 1873, and moved first to the United States, and then to Canada, and seem to have spent the rest of their lives there.

In the US, he was briefly Assistant Minister at Christ Church in Norfolk, Virginia (1873-1874) and then Rector of Greenville, Tennessee (1874-1876). He then moved to Canada, and was the rector of two parishes in the Diocese of Montreal: Chambly, Quebec (1876-1880) and Shefford, Quebec (1880-1883).

In 1883, he became a missionary in St Eleanor, Prince Edward Island, with the Anglican mission agency, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG), now USPG (the United Society Partners in the Gospel).

He stayed at St Eleanor in Prince Edward Island until 1887, and for at least the next two decades he worked in Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia as a missionary priest.

The last record I have of him is his appointment in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1906, when he was 76. I have no record of Clement Richardson’s ministry and mission work. Nor do I know whether Clement and Louisa were the parents of any more children, or of what happened to his first two children, who were expected to ‘ever feel their irreparable loss.’

Did they ever think of Kilscannell or Rathkeale, or return to this parish in West Limerick?

I may never know, but the monument provides an interesting reminder of the links between this parish and SPG and USPG. I am taking part in the annual conference of USPG in High Leigh, Hertfordshire, next week.

The ruins of Kilscannell parish church, between Rathkeale and Newcastle West, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

‘The winged herald of the day proclaims the approaching light’

Four new bells waiting to be blessed in Glenstal Abbey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

Today is the feastday of Saint Benedict, the founder of the Benedict tradition, the founding figure in Western monasticism, and the patron saint of Europe.

Had I stayed in Glenstal Abbey for one extra day, I would have found myself present for this great celebration in the Benedictine calendar. The solemnity is being marked today [11 July 2018] with a special Mass at mid-day that begins outdoors with the blessing of four new bells at the car park on the library side of the abbey church.

Following the tradition associated with church bells, each of these bells has been named individually: Saint Benedict, Saint Joseph, Saint Columba and Saint Scholastica.

The name of Saint Benedict is an obvious choice; the abbey church is dedicated to Saint Columba and Saint Joseph; and Saint Scholastica was the twin sister of Saint Benedict.

Following the daily offices and the daily Mass in the abbey church on Monday and Tuesday made me realise how much I miss the routine of daily prayer in the life of the chapel in the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, which include the daily offices twice a day and celebrations of the Eucharist on a weekly basis, with celebrations too on the main feast days in the Church Calendar.

Although I pray daily, I miss the routine and stability of community prayer that is marked out by the rhythms of the daily offices.

At Matins and Lauds (Morning Prayer) in the abbey church yesterday morning [10 July 2018], we began with the hymn Ales diei nuntius, ‘The Winged Herald of the Day,’ written by Prudentius (348-413) from Saragossa.

During a life of asceticism and devotion, Prudentius composed his poems that have made him one of the first great Christian poets of the Latin West. This hymn is taken from his Hymnus ad Galli cantum (‘Hymn at Cockcrow’), the first of the 12 hymns that make up his Cathemerinon, or Hymns for the Day.

Ales diei nuntius is a traditional morning hymn for Tuesday Lauds and is also found in the Roman Breviary:

Ales diei nuntius
lucem propinquam praecinit;
nos excitator mentium,
iam Christus ad vitam vocat.

Auferte, clamat, lectulos,
aegro sopore desides;
castique, recti ac sobrii
vigilate; iam sum proximus.

Iesum ciamus vocibus,
flentes, precantes, sobrii;
intenta supplicatio
dormire cor mundum vetat.

Tu, Christe, somnum discute,
tu rumpe noctis vincula,
tu solve peccatum vetus
novumque lumen ingere.
Deo Patri sit gloria,
eiusque soli Filio
cum Spiritu Paraclito,
et nunc et in perpetuum. Amen.

The winged herald of the day
proclaims the approaching light,
and Christ, awakening our hearts,
calls us to life.

Take up your beds, he cries,
you who sleep in idle sloth:
be chaste, upright and sober;
be watchful, for I am at hand.

Weeping, praying and alert,
invoking Jesus with our voice;
fervent prayer
forbids the pure heart to sleep.

Dispel, O Christ, our sleep,
break the bonds of night;
set us free from ancient sin
and shed on us new light.

To God the Father be glory,
and to his only Son,
together with the Spirit Paraclete,
both now and evermore. Amen.

The Psalms at Matins and Lauds yesterday morning reminded us ‘how lovely is your dwelling place, Lord God of hosts, … they are happy, who dwell in your house.’ And they reminded me that ‘one day within your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.’

This morning I am on my way to Dublin for a meeting involving some of my work in Rathkeale. But I am grateful for my 24 hours of prayer and reflection in Glenstal Abbey.

‘One day within your courts’ … the guesthouse in Glenstal Abbey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

‘Do not applaud, just throw money’

‘The Monument to the Unknown Artist’ … seen on Sumner Street near the Tate Modern (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

As I walk from Liverpool Street Station to the USPG offices in Southwark, my eye is often caught by the ‘Monument to the Unknown Artist,’ a sculpture on Sumner Street just behind the Tate Modern on Bankside, in front of the Blue Fin building, near the Neo buildings.

We have had summers in Ireland that were filled with stories of ‘moving statues.’ But on a warm sunny day in London last week I was told that this too is a moving statue.

The statue stands on a 6 ft plinth with a Latin inscription in capital letters: Non plaudite modo pecuniam jacite, which translates: ‘Do not applaud, just throw money.’

The piece was installed by an art collective called Greyworld, a collective of artists who have been creating intriguing urban art since the mid-1990s. Their other projects include the Lake District’s ‘Clockwork Forest’ (2011) and Trafalgar Sun (2012).

‘The Monument to the Unknown Artist’ often causes alarm because it is capable of moving.

The original inscription was going to be: Quidquid Latine dictum sit altum videtur, ‘Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.’

When the statue was unveiled in 2007, a camera was linked to the sculpture, so it could observe and mimic the movements of passers-by. I have not seen it function like this, but some people say they have seen in bend and move, and have even seen it dance.

At first glance the figure seems to be a simple bronze statue standing on a stone plinth. However, the mischievous figure is said to observe the people passing by below and to mimic their movements as they pose before him – although I did not notice the statue move in the summer sunshine in London last week as I walked back from Great Suffolk Street to the Millennium Bridge and Saint Paul’s Cathedral, and on to Liverpool Street station.

The changing faces of a street in Spitalfields

French Huguenot weavers lived at No 5 Fournier Street until about 1820 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

My journey through the East End this week, as I strolled from the Royal Foundation of Saint Katharine in Limehouse to Liverpool Street Station, brought me along Commerical Road, and the former heart of the Jewish East End of London.

Eventually I came to Fournier Street, formerly Church Street, an East End street of 18th-century houses in Spitalfields, and a street that has been home to successive generations of new religious refugees and immigrants, from French-speaking Huguenots in the early 18th century, to Jewish refugees from East Europe in the 19th century, to Bengali Muslims in the 20th century.

Fournier Street runs from Commercial Street to Brick Lane, from a church to a mosque. Its French-sounding name from George Fournier, a member of a family of Huguenot refugees.

This was the last street built on the Wood-Michell estate in Spitalfields. It was developed in response to the settlement of a significant community of French Huguenots around Spitalfields after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. By settling here, outside the bounds of the City of London, they hoped to avoid the restrictive legislation of the City Guilds. These Huguenots brought with them little apart from their skills, and an Order in Council in 1687 raised £200,000 to relieve their poverty.

Many of these refugees brought silk-weaving skills from Nantes, Lyons and other French cities. The houses were initially built as domestic dwellings, but they were immediately turned to use for this new silk industry.

The houses mainly date from the 1720s and they form one of the most important and best preserved collections of early Georgian domestic townhouses in Britain.

Fournier Street was designed to be both well-appointed and of a higher standard than previous residential developments in the area. They were bought and leased by the master silk-weavers and silk mercers.

These houses are notable for their fine wooden panelling and elaborate joinery, including carved staircases, fireplaces and highly detailed doorcases that were made by skilled craftsmen.

Silk-weaving activities were carried out on the upper floors to gain the best light for the looms. This use explains unusual highly glazed lofts that are still found in these houses. The ground floor rooms often served as elaborate showrooms for the finished products.

Christ Church Spitalfields was built at the west end of Fournier Street in 1714-1729. It was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor, a former assistant of Christopher Wren, and the church is regarded as the highest expression of English Baroque architecture.

But as the French weavers and their community prospered, they had their own religious needs, and a new Huguenot church, La Neuve Eglise, was built at the east end of Fournier Street in 1743-1744.

After the decline of the silk weaving industry in London at the end of the Georgian era, the community moved on and the Huguenot church became a a Wesleyan chapel in 1809 and a Methodist chapel in 1819.

At the west end of Fournier Street, on the corner opposite Christ Church, the Ten Bells public house has notorious associations with Jack the Ripper from the 1880s.

The area was changing in character, and in time both Fournier Street and Brick Lane became the heart of the Jewish East End. There had been a small Jewish community in the East End for some time, and a large number of Jews from Eastern Europe and Russia arrived to Spitalfields in the 19th century.

They developed into a thriving community, with new schools, cultural activities and businesses, including the Jews Free School and the Jewish Chronicle, the oldest Jewish English-language weekly newspaper in the world.

In 1898, the Methodist Church at the east end of Fournier Street, built by the Huguenots as La Neuve Eglise in 1743-1744, was converted into the Maz’ik Adath Synagogue, or Spitalfields Great Synagogue. One new community of religious refugees had given way to another.

In recent years, the famous residents of Fournier Street have included the artists Gilbert and George, who lived and worked on the street for many years, and today the street has some of London’s finest Georgian houses.

Weavers lived in the house at No 5 Fournier Street until about 1820, before two doctors, a father and son, moved in. They lived there for 50 years until the 1870s and built what is now the rear gallery as their surgery.

A succession of people and businesses followed including a Russian translator, a furrier, coffee rooms and storage for the vegetable market. At the end of World War II, this became the Market Café, where Gilbert and George breakfasted for many years.

No 5 remained the Market Café until 2000, when Fiona Atkins, a long-time resident of the East End, bought the house, which was then run down and in need of repair.

Today, No 5 is part museum, part gallery, part guesthouse and part shop, selling antique furniture and upholstery alongside a mix of locally sourced artefacts and objects. A kitchen in the basement area sells old china, glasses, serving dishes, colourful modern pottery and coffee and cake.

At the back of the shop, the gallery – in what was once the doctors’ surgery – hosts regular exhibitions by contemporary London artists.

No 5a Fournier Street fuses original Georgian features with 21st century comfort. The property can accommodate four adults, or a family of two adults and two children and includes two bedrooms, two living rooms and a modern kitchen and bathroom. One bedroom has amazing views of Christ Church Spitalfields and the City. It costs £600 for three nights.

Howard House, a three-storey mansion at No 14 Fournier Street, was built around 1726 by William Taylor, carpenter and gentleman, for himself, but he later leased it to two silk weavers, Signeratt and Bourdillon. It is here the silk for Queen Victoria’s coronation gown was woven.

The unique hardwood staircase balustrade is carved to display fluted columns with Ionic capitals placed on each turn for 100 steps, and each step is expertly carved with a masterly design of hops, barley, and wild roses.

No 23 Fournier Street is one of the best surviving example of a classic, single-fronted early Georgian townhouse of simple but elegant design.

Meanwhile, the surrounding area had evolved to become the heart of the Bengali community. In 1975, Spitalfields Great Synagogue was relocated to Golders Green, and in 1976 the building was reopened as the London Jamme Masjid or Great Mosque. A minaret was added to the building on the corner with Fournier Street and Brick Lane in December 2009.

The building’s changing use in response to the changing religious needs of the surrounding population over its 300-year history is symbolic of the place of Spitalfields in immigration and in providing refuge. On a wall on the south side, a large sundial survives, carved with the date 1743 a Latin inscription Umbra sumus, a quotation from an ode by Horace (4.7), meaning ‘We are a shadow.’

The full stanza poses a contrast between the moon’s renewal and our own mortality:

Damna tamen celeres reparant caelestia lunae; Nos ubi decidimus, Quo pater Aeneas, quo dives Tullus et Ancus, Pulvis et umbra sumus.

The moons, however, quickly repair their heavenly losses; when we have fallen to where father Aeneas fell, and wealthy Tullus and Ancus, we are dust and shadow.

Signs of the times on the old houses in Portugal Place

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

Patrick Comerford

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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