Seven more churches in Leicester that might go on my list of places to visit

Figures above the west door of the former Church of Saint John the Divine (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Over the past few weeks, I have been posting about the many places of worship and associated with belief systems that I have visited or seen during my visits to Leicester last month.

They have included Leicester Cathedral, Church of England parish churches, churches in the Baptist, Congregational, Methodist and Orthodox traditions, Quaker meeting houses, synagogues, mosques, Hindu, Jain and Sikh places of worship, and the Secular Hall.

But my one-day visits to Leicester last wmon theek were fleeting and far too short to get to visit all the places I was interested in. Some I managed to photograph, and I have started to put together a list of churches and other places of worship I saw from the outside and that I may consider searching out on future visits.

Saint Nicholas Church is said to be the oldest place of worship in Leicester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

1, Saint Nicholas Church, Saint Nicholas Circle:

Saint Nicholas Church, said to be the oldest place of worship in Leicester, is next to the Jewry Wall, a remnant of Roman masonry, to the east is the site of the Roman forum. Saint Nicholas Church is on Saint Nicholas Circle, just off Vaughan Way, part of the city’s inner ring road, and is the official church of the University of Leicester.

The church was built on a pre-Christian religious site. There are Roman tiles in the tower, and the Roman pillars in the churchyard came from the nearby Forum or Basilica. However, this does not mean it was a Roman church. Leicester was an important Roman town, and the tiles were taken from ruins there in Anglo-Saxon times, while the Roman pillars were used as grave markers before the advent of gravestones.

The Roman pillars in Saint Nicholas churchyard came from the nearby Forum or Basilica (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

It has been suggested that an Anglo-Saxon minster on the same site was the cathedral of the early Diocese of Leicester (679-874), and the current church may contain some material from this building.

The church was consecrated in 879, and parts of the church fabric date from ca 880 AD, with an architectural survey suggesting possible Roman building work. There are two Anglo-Saxon window openings inside the church. These were formerly outside windows, but the church was later extended. The church retains almost all of the original nave and crossing tower. The tower is Norman.

The church was in an extremely poor condition by 1825, and plans were made for its demolition. Instead, due to lack of funds to build the planned replacement church, it was extensively renovated in 1875-1884, including the building of a new north aisle.

Renovation continued into the 20th century. A 15th-century octagonal font from the redundant Church of Saint Michael the Greater, Stamford, was moved to Saint Nicholas. The porch was brought from the original Wyggeston’s Hospital, founded in the 16th century by William Wyggeston, who was Mayor of both Leicester and Calais.

Saint Nicholas was a city centre church without a large residential parish by the 1950s, when Saint Nicholas was allocated for the spiritual needs of local university students.

Saint Nicholas has become an Inclusive Church, with a mission to welcome people of diverse sexualities, identities, abilities, origins, and socioeconomic situations. Saint Nicholas is open for worship, and is normally open to visitors on Saturdays.

The site of the chapel of Saint Ursula’s Hospitalor Wyggeston’s Hospitalatf the Leicester Cathedral Gardens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

2, Saint Ursula’s Chapel, Wyggeston’s Hospital:

The chapel of Saint Ursula’s Hospital, commonly called Wigston’s Hospital, or Wyggeston’s Hospital, once stood on the site of the Leicester Cathedral Gardens. The hospital was founded by letters patent in 1513 and 1514. The chapel and the adjoining almshouse were demolished almost 150 years ago in 1875.

The site of the chapel and the hospital was revealed in 2013 and 2014 when archaeologists from the University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) carried out a series of watching briefs while the Cathedral Gardens were being laid out as a new public open space to the south and west of Leicester Cathedral. As part of this development, ground-works were undertaken within both the graveyard of Leicester Cathedral and the Saint Martin’s House carpark.

The hospital was named after its main benefactor and founder, William Wyggeston (1472-1536), a wool merchant and three times mayor of Leicester and an MP for the Borough. The hospital facing Saint Martin’s Church and churchyard included an almshouse, a great hall, a chapel dedicated to Saint Ursula, and a master’s house.

The hospital was to be called ‘the Hospital of William Wigston, Junior’, and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Katherine and Saint Ursula and her Companions. The chaplains were to be appointed by the founder or his brother Thomas, a canon of Newarke College who died in 1537, during their lives, and then by the Dean and Chapter of Newarke College, the Mayor and Justices, and the Abbot of Leicester.

The chapel had a considerable quantity of painted glass, most of which was removed at the beginning of the 19th century to Ockbrook parish church in Derbyshire. Some of the windows were blocked up at the same time. The chapel also contained the tombs and monuments of several of the masters and confraters, including the first master, William Fisher.

The old hospital was vacated in April 1868 but the building remained standing until 1875. However, the archaeological excavations found no evidence of the remains of Saint Ursula’s Chapel or the great hall that once fronted onto Peacock Lane and adjoined the main hospital building.

The former Church of Saint John the Divine was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott in 1854-1855 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

3, Saint John’s Chambers, Ashwell Street:

Saint John’s Chambers facing onto Ashwell Street is the former Church of Saint John the Divine, a former parish church designed in 1854-1855 by Sir George Gilbert Scott and converted into apartments late 1980s. It is close Victoria Park and Leicester train station.

Saint John the Divine was a good example of his style and was one of the first Leicester churches to be built following what are known as ecclesiological principles. The interior was built with arcades of round piers and foliage capitals, and included stained glass windows by William Wailes and a wrought-iron screen made in 1903 by CH Lohr.

The west front of Saint John’s Chambers facing onto Ashwell Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The church was mainly in the style of ca 1300 that Scott favoured, although that character is now compromised by modern window frames and skylights in the steep roof. The church was redundant by the 1980s and was converted to apartments in the late 1980s.

The west front, facing Ashwell Street, has an elaborate doorway with nook shafts, below a band of five cusped lancets, and a rose window in the gable. The aisles have pointed windows with modern domestic window frames. The three-stage tower has angle buttresses and a north-east polygonal turret. The plain parapet was added in the 1950s when the spire was removed.

Saint James the Greater … Henry Langton Goddard was influenced by Torcello Cathedral and churches in Venice and Florence (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

4, Saint James the Greater Church, London Road:

Saint James the Greater is a Grade II* listed church south of the city centre, on the London Road and opposite Victoria Park. The church was founded as a daughter church of Saint Peter’s Church, Leicester, in 1881, when a temporary wooden church was built. A decade later, the decision was made to build a permanent church due to the growth in the congregation.

The church was designed by the Leicester architect, Henry Langton Goddard. The Bishop of Peterborough, Mandell Creighton, wanted the new church to be impressive architecturally, reflecting its status in Leicester. On his advice, Goddard visited several churches in northern Italy.

Following that visit, Goddard’s external design for Saint James was influenced by Torcello Cathedral on the Venetian lagoon and its interior decor by churches in Venice and Florence. The foundation stone was laid on 28 October 1899, and the building was consecrated on 25 July 1901.

The interior of Saint James the Greater … an image on the noticeboard across the road from the church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The west front of the church was completed between 1911 and 1914 and was dedicated by Creighton’s successor Edward Carr Glyn, Bishop of Peterborough, on 24 September 1914. Saint James the Greater became a parish in its own right on 25 June 1918.

The Diocese of Leicester considered closing the church in the 1950s due to falling numbers. However, the Revd Lawrence Jackson, who was appointed to the parisin 1959, managed to bring people back to the church through his remarkable ministry. The church had one of the largest congregations in the diocese by the time Lawrence moved to Coventry in 1965.

Saint James the Greater continues to have an active congregation. It hosts a variety of events, has two church halls and remains one of Leicester’s best-known churches.

Holy Cross Priory is a priory of the Order of Preachers or Dominicans (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

5, Holy Cross Priory:

Holy Cross Priory is a Roman Catholic priory of the Order of Preachers or Dominicans. The Dominicans first came to Leicester in 1247, establishing a priory at Saint Clements Church in the north-west corner of the old city walls in the reign of Henry III. Blackfriars in Leicester was dissolved during the Tudor reformation in 1538, along with the other Dominican houses in England.

The Dominicans were absent from Leicester for more than 280 years, but returned to the city in 1819. The first public building on New Walk was a Roman Catholic chapel built in 1819 on the site of what is now Holy Cross Priory. However, Holy Cross was not established as a Dominican priory until 1882.

The west door of Holy Cross Priory … the foundation stone was laid in 1929 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

By 1929, the church had become too small and Father Vincent McNabb began to raise money for a new, larger church. The foundation stone was laid in 1929, the choir and transepts of the church were completed by 1931, and the High Altar was consecrated in 1931. The church was finally completed and formally consecrated in 1958.

The friars have ministries in the University of Leicester, De Montfort University and Leicester Royal Infirmary and also at Blackfriars, Oxford.

Saint Stephen’s Church was moved stone-by-stone to New Walk in 1891 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

6, Saint Stephen’s United Reformed Church:

Saint Stephen’s Church is a 19th century church in New Walk, on the corner of De Montfort Street and overlooking De Montfort Square. It is notable as ‘the church that moved.’ It was originally built where Leicester Railway Station now stands, but when the present building replaced the earlier Campbell Street Station in 1891, the church was moved stone by stone to its present New Walk location.

The architect James Tait (1834-1915) also built a Sunday School centenary building, now a bar, in New Walk. He also designed nearby Clarendon Park Congregational Church.

Saint Stephen’s was first built as a Presbyterian church, and became a United Reformed church when the Presbyterians and the Congregationalists came together to form the United Reformed Church.

The spire of Saint Stephen’s, together with the trees in De Montfort Square and Robert Hall’s Statue, make a fine contribution to Leicester’s streetscape.

Clarendon Park Congregational Church decided to remain outside the United Reformed Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

7, Clarendon Park Congregational Church, London Road:

The Clarendon Park Congregational Church is on London Road in the Stoneygate area, near Clarendon Park. The Bond Street chapel once shared by Congregationalists and Presbyterians became a Unitarian chapel in the late 18th century. After that, the first Congregational church in Leicester was built in 1801, and many others were built in the 19th century, including the church on Oxford Street, which is now a Jain Temple.

The Clarendon Park Congregational Church was also designed by James Tait and built in 1886. It is built of granite rubble with ashlar dressings and a roof of red tiles, and is a designated Grade II listed building.

The church is part of the Congregational Federation, formed in 1972 by Congregational churches that did not enter the union of the Presbyterian Church of England with the Congregational Church in England and Wales to form the United Reformed Church.

The west door of Clarendon Park Congregational Church, London Road (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Other churches in this series:

Church of England:

1, Leicester Cathedral (22 May 2024)

2, Saint Mary de Castro (26 May 2024)

3, Saint George’s Church, former Church of England, now Serbian Orthodox (2 June 2024)

Baptist:

4, Central Baptist Church, Charles Street (8 June 2024)

Congregationalist:

5, (Former) Congregationalist Church, Oxford Street (23 May 2024)

Methodis

6, Bishop Street Methodist Church (6 June 2024)

Society of Friends (Quakers):

7, (Former) Quaker Meeting House, Prebend Street (25 May 2024)

8, Quaker Meeting House and Drayton House, Queen’s Road (25 May 2024)

Unitarian:

9, Great Meeting Place, Broad Street (1 June 2024)

Jewish synagogues:

10, Leicester Hebrew Congregation Synagogue, Highfield Street (24 May 2024)

11, Leicester Progressive Jewish Congregation, Avenue Road (31 May 2024)

Islam:

12, Masjid Umar mosque (1 April 2011)

Hindu:

13, Iskcon (‘Hare Kishna’) temple, Granby Street (5 June 2024)

14, Shree Geeta Bhavan Temple and Hindu Community Centre, Clarendon Park Road (5 June 2024)

15, Shree Sanatan Mandir, Weymouth Street (2 March 2011)

16, Shirdi Sai Baba Temple, Colton Street (5 June 2024)

Jains

17, Jain Temple (former Congregational Church), Oxford Street (23 May 2024)

Sikh:

18, Sant Nirankari Mandal, Prebend Street (25 May 2024)

Secular:

19, Leicester Secular Hall (4 June 2024)

The 18th century sundial over the porch of Saint Nicholas Church, Leicester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Celebrating Corpus Christi at the mediaeval guildhall built in Leicester by the Guild of Corpus Christi

The emblem of the Guild of Corpus Christi in Leicester, the Host and Chalice, seen in 15th century glass fragments in the Guildhall in Leicester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

The Feast of Corpus Christi is marked in the calendar of many Anglican churches on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, and this day is being celebrated in many English churches and cathedrals today (30 May 2024).

For example, the Eucharist was celebrated in Lichfield Cathedral at 12.30 today, Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth, is celebrating the Feast of Corpus Christi with the Sung Eucharist at 7:30 pm, followed by sherry and shortbread refreshments.

There is a Corpus Christi procession in Cambridge each year, with High Mass in Saint Bene’t’s Church at 7 p.m., then moving along Trumpington Street, passing Corpus Christi College, Fitzbillies and the Fitzwilliam Museum as it processes to Little Saint Mary’s for Benediction, followed by refreshments.churc

I plan to be in Oxford later today for the Corpus Christi celebrations, with High Mass in Pusey House at 6:30, and a Procession to Saint Barnabas Church, Jericho, and Benediction. The preacher is the Revd Grant Naylor, Parish Priest of Saint Matthew's, Carver Street, Sheffield.

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge was established in 1352 by the Guilds of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary. But, it seems, many towns and cities in England had guilds dedicated to Corpus Christi. Last week I visited the Guildhall in Leicester, built in the 14th century by the Guild of Corpus Christi, and where the signs of the guild – the host and chalice of Corpus Christi – can be glimpsed in coloured fragments of medieval stained glass.

The Guild of Corpus Christi in Leicester built the Great Hall in Leicester in 1390 as the guild hall (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The Guild of Corpus Christi was founded as a religious body in Leicester in 1343, and at one time was the most powerful organisation in the mediaeval town, bringing together the post powerful people in social, political and commercial life in a religious group.

The guild was a select group of influential businessmen and gentry founded, and the guild was the richest in the town and a powerful force in medieval Leicester.

The Guild of Corpus Christi had its own altar and guild chapel in Saint Martin’s Church (now Leicester Cathedral), and it financially supported four chantry priests who prayed for the souls of deceased guild members. In times of need, the guild members offered each other practical and financial assistance and spiritual and prayerful support.

The emblem of the Guild was the Host and Chalice, and can be seen in many of the fragments of 15th century painted glass windows in the Mayor’s Parlour in the guildhall. The annual guild procession took place through the streets of Leicester on the Feast of Corpus Christ.

The guild moved from temporary premises in 1390 when the Great Hall was built in as the guildhall or meeting place. Originally the Great Hall had a beaten earth floor which would have been laid with rushes and heated by an open hearth, with smoke rising to the roof. Leicester Guildhall in its present form incorporates a later Tudor extension to the original Great Hall.

From its earliest days, the Guild was a powerful force in the mediaeval borough. Ordinances in 1477 gave the masters of the guild precedence over the mayor and council.

Inside the Guildhall, built by the Guild of Corpus Christi, in Leicester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The Guildhall was a building of importance during the reign of Richard III (1483-1485). Many of the guild’s members were associated with the Corporation of Leicester, which began using Leicester Guildhall as a place of assembly from 1494-1495 or probably earlier.

During the Tudor reformation, the Guild of Corpus Christi was dissolved in 1547. The Corporation then bought the guildhall, and by 1563 the building had become Leicester’s first Town Hall with its west wing, including the Mayor’s Parlour, added in 1589.

The painted panels in the Great Hall ceiling are from the 1600s and show the coat of arms of the borough and the arms of the Hastings family. Over the Hastings coat of arms is a painted quotation reminding courts and corporations that ‘God shall bring every work into judgement.’

The painted panels in the Great Hall ceiling include the coat of arms of the borough and the arms of the Hastings family (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Over the centuries, Leicester Guildhall has had many different uses. In the 16th and 17th centuries, as well as being used for civic business, the Quarter Sessions were held there and public meetings, civic dinners, concerts and dramatic entertainment were hosted. There is a tradition that William Shakespeare was a member of one of the theatre companies that performed within its walls.

The Great Hall was also the venue for banquets at times of high festivals. The Mayor held a feast in the Guildhall to celebrate the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. Arms and armour were kept in the building at this time in readiness for possible invasion.

The Town Library moved into Leicester Guildhall from the bell tower of nearby Saint Martin’s Church in 1632. It is the third oldest public library in the country. The library rooms were originally quarters for the chantry priests of the Guild of Corpus Christi.

Volumes in the library include the Codex Leicestrensis, an important manuscript of the New Testament in Greek dating to the 1400s, a Latin grammar of 1592 with the signature of the playwright Ben Jonson, a contemporary of Shakespeare, a copy of William Harvey’s 1639 classic work on the circulation of blood. De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis, and a New Testament in an American Indian language intended for missionary work in New England.

The elaborate decorative features in the Mayor’s Parlour date from the early 17th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The elaborate decorative features in the Mayor’s Parlour date from the early 17th century. The panelling and over-mantle were added in 1637 and Richard Inge, the then Mayor, gave the Mayor’s chair with the arms of Charles I above.

During the English Civil War, the Mayor and Corporation met in Leicester Guildhall to make key decisions, including how to respond to royalist demands for money. Prince Rupert eventually attacked the town on 30 May 1645 and breached its walls. The last stand made by the defenders was outside Leicester Guildhall and Saint Martin’s. The Royalists then entered Leicester Guildhall and looted the town’s archives, mace and seal.

Within a few weeks, the Royalists had been defeated at the Battle of Naseby and Oliver Cromwell advanced on Leicester. The Royalists surrendered and a thanksgiving dinner was held in the Guildhall to celebrate Cromwell’s victory.

From the later 1700s, Leicester was a larger and more important town. When the Municipal Reform Act was passed in 1835, the ratepayers elected a new council including local tradespeople such as hosiers, grocers, drapers, spinners and bankers.

Leicester Guildhall has been opened as a museum since 1926 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The reformed Corporation took office on 1 January 1836 and at once held an auction in the Great Hall to dispose of the civic silver and china, including the Great Mace, as the ceremonial trappings of an earlier age. To accommodate a new borough police force, part of the ground floor of the east range was altered in 1840 to provide offices, three cells and a charge room. The banqueting kitchens on the south side of the courtyard were demolished and replaced with a house known as the Constables Cottage for the superintendent of the new police force.

But the mediaeval guildhall had become inadequate for the needs of a rapidly growing 19th century town, and a new Town Hall was built on the Horse Fair in 1876. Leicester Guildhall had a variety of uses after that, including as a domestic science school, with cooking lessons for the girls in the Great Hall.

Having lost its main civic purpose, however, Leicester Guildhall was neglected and it declined further during the late 19th and early 20th century. Neighbouring businesses and residents saw it as old-fashioned and gloomy and it was under threat of demolition. But the new City Council launched a major renovation programme in 1922-1926, spearheaded by Leicester Archaeological Society.

Leicester Guildhall reopened to the public as a museum in 1926, and the library of Leicester Archaeological and Historical Society is housed in the museum above the mayor’s parlour, in the former jury room. A further programme of renovation took place in 1991-1993, removing modern alterations to the building and restoring it to its former glory.

Today, the Guildhall is one of the most important mediaeval buildings in Leicester. It is a museum, performance centre, wedding venue, café, local landmark, and a Grade I listed building. The Guildhall still has a place in the ceremonial life of the city, with the annual Freemen’s oath-taking ceremony takes place there.

Leicester Cathedral seen from the courtyard of the Guildhall (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The Collect:

Lord Jesus Christ,
we thank you that in this wonderful sacrament
you have given us the memorial of your passion:
grant us so to reverence the sacred mysteries
of your body and blood
that we may know within ourselves
and show forth in our lives
the fruits of your redemption;
for you are alive and reign with the Father
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

All praise to you, our God and Father,
for you have fed us with the bread of heaven
and quenched our thirst from the true vine:
hear our prayer that, being grafted into Christ,
we may grow together in unity
and feast with him in the kingdom;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The emblem of the Guild of Corpus Christi in Leicester, the Host and Chalice, seen in 15th century glass fragments in the Mayor’s Parlour in the Guildhall in Leicester (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The former Quaker meeting house in Leicester has had a variety of religious uses

The former Quaker meeting house on Prebend Street, Leicester, was built in 1876 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

I was writing recently (23 May 2024) about the former Congregational Church on Oxford Street, Leicester, and how it was converted into the first fully consecrated Jain Temple in the western world.

Leicester is the most ethnically diverse city in Britain, and it was interesting during my visits this week and last week to learn how a former Quaker meeting house in Leicester has become the spiritual home of a group that are seen as on the margins of mainstream Sikh traditional.

George Fox (1624-1691), the founding figure in the Society of Friends or Quakers, was born 400 years ago in Leicestershire in Fenny Drayton, then known as Drayton-in-the-Clay, in July 1624.

When George Fox first visited Leicester in 1648, he found a considerable body of supporters there. On that visit he took part in a theological discussion with the Vicar of Saint Martin’s – now Leicester Cathedral – and made a number of conversions. George Fox was jailed numerous times, including in Leicester and Nottingham. But ever since, there has been a Quaker meeting in Leicester, although it never was a very large one.

The borough records include two letters from about 1655 from Quaker prisoners in the town gaol, one who was jailed for refusing to take off his hat in the presence of a magistrate.

Samuel Brown’s petition to be licensed as an apothecary in 1669 was refused because he was a Quaker, although in 1699 another Quaker, Joseph Smith, was admitted to the freedom of the borough.

Friends or Quakers acquired a site in Soar Lane, Leicester, in 1680 for a burial ground and built a meeting house on part of the site in 1680-1681. There were said to be 13 Quakers living in Saint Martin’s Parish in 1709. As time passed, and Quaker numbers grew in Leicester, the site was enlarged gradually to cope with the number of burials.

A new meeting house was built in the centre of the site in 1768 and the old building was demolished. In 1791, it was said that the Quakers of Leicester maintained ‘more of the original simplicity of dress and manners characteristic of their body, than was to be seen in other towns.’

When the Quakers of Saint Martin’s parish refused to pay church rates, it was agreed that they should pay twice as much poor rate as the members of the Church of England.

By 1848, the former Baptist chapel in Soar Lane had been taken over by the Quakers as an adult school and mission chapel, although it was abandoned about 1895.

An important benefactor and member of the meeting in the 19th century was the industrialist John Ellis (1789-1862). He was responsible for the Leicester and Swannington Railway, which opened in 1832 and allowed the Leicestershire coalfields to prosper.

A plaque is a reminder of the former Friends’ Meeting House on Prebend Street, designed by Edward Burgess and built in 1876 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Meanwhile, the Quaker meeting house on Soar Lane and the surrounding site were acquired in 1876 for development by the Manchester Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway, later called the Great Central Railway.

A new site was acquired in Prebend Street, and a new meeting house was built there in 1876, designed by Edward Burgess (1847-1929), a Quaker and who went on to become a prominent Leicester architect. His legacy to Leicester includes the central reference library on Bishop Street, the former Leicester Savings Bank building in Greyfriars, the former Wyggeston Girls’ School (1877-1878), now the Leicester Age UK building on Humberstone Gate, and several Victorian coffee houses for the Leicester Coffee and Cocoa House Company Ltd.

Among his many buildings of distinction, two of the finest are the Victoria Coffee House on Granby Street and the terracotta-faced Alexandra House on Rutland Street. The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner describes Alexandra House as ‘the finest warehouse in Leicester and one of the finest in the country.’ It is in the heart of what is now the cultural quarter, close to the Curve Theatre, the Phoenix Cinema and Art Centre.

The Quaker Meeting House and Drayton House on Queen’s Road, Leicester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Quakers remained at Prebend Street for almost 80 years until the mid-1950s, when the site for a new Quaker meeting house on Queen’s Road in the Clarendon Park area was donated by Charles Goddard – of silver plate powder fame – who was a member of the meeting. The new meeting house was designed by AH Gardner & Partners and was built in 1955, and the meeting house on Prebend Street closed in 1956.

The new meeting house originally comprised a two storey range fronting the street, with a single-storey meeting room set at right angles at the rear. The front range was extended across the end of the meeting room in 1968 to designs by the Douglas Smith Stimpson partnership; Douglas Smith was member of the Quaker meeting in Leicester.

When a Progressive Synagogue was formed in Leicester in 1950, it first met in members’ homes. Then in the 1960s it met in the Quaker Meeting House on Queen’s Road, as I recalled in a posting yesterday (24 May 2024). Later, it moved into its own building nearby on Avenue Road in 1995.

The southern part of the meeting house site on Queen’s Road was used to build Drayton House in the 1970s, including 12 flats for a newly-formed Leicester Quaker Housing Association. It is named after Fenny Drayton, where George Fox was born 400 years ago in July 1624.

The Sant Nirankari Mandal moved into in the former Quaker meeting house on Prebend Street in 1977 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

As for the Victorian meeting house on Prebend Street, it first became a school run by the Royal Society for the Blind, and then became a Sikh gurdwara in 1977 when the Sant Nirankari Mandal moved into in the former Quaker premises and the mission was opened by Baba Gurbachan Singh Ji. However, this movement, based in Delhi, is often seen as peripheral to mainstream Sikhism because of its belief in a living human guru and it describes itself as a ‘universal brotherhood’.

The Sikh community in Leicester is diverse and gurdwaras have developed according to the needs and plans of individuals and community groups. The first Sikh temple in Leicester, Guru Nanak Gurdwara, opened in 1970, reflecting the growth of the city’s Sikh population in the 1960s and 1970s. By 2011, the Sikh population of Leicester had risen to 14,457, representing 4.4% of the city’s population.

The Sikh presence continues to contribute significantly to the social, political and religious life of Leicester and is especially evident at the annual Vaisakhi celebrations, attracting thousands of people from across Leicester and the Midlands, to a parade through the city centre. The event, known as Nagar Kirtan, took place this year on Sunday 28 April.

Today, there are nine gurdwaras in the city of Leicester, and a further two in other parts of Leicestershire, in Oadby and Loughborough. Gurdwaras are usually named after one of the Sikh gurus.

Sant Nirankari Mission was founded as a Sikh reform movement in 1929 by Baba Buta Singh (1873-1943). Mata Sudiksha, the daughter of Satguru Baba Hardev Singh, has been the sixth spiritual head of the mission since 2018. Nirankaris consider themselves to be Sikhs, and a part of Sikh history, although most Sikhs continue to regard them as marginal to mainstream Sikhism. The main gathering of the week at the Sant Nirankari Bhawan in Leicester is at 4 pm to 5:45 pm on Sundays.

• Meeting for Worship gathers in the Quaker Meeting House on Queen’s Road, Leicester, from 10:30 to 11:30 on Sundays and from 12:30 to 1 pm on Wednesdays.

The garden and the entrance to the Quaker Meeting House at Queen’s Road, Leicester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

There is more to see in Leicester Cathedral apart from the tomb of King Richard III

Leicester Cathedral … the 220-ft spire was added in 1862 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Ever since I was in Leicester 13 years ago for an intensive course on interfaith dialogue at Saint Philip Centre’s, I had promised to return to see Leicester Cathedral and some of the other places I had missed back in 2011.

I finally returned last week, and visited Leicester Cathedral, the Roman ruins, sites associated with the mediaeval Jewish community, the castle, the Guildhall, some city centre churches – and some good coffee shops.

Leicester Cathedral, or the Cathedral Church of Saint Martin, is near the centre of the mediaeval old town and is best-known today as the burial place of King Richard III. Over 100,000 people visit Leicester Cathedral every year, mainly to see the tomb of the last English monarch to die in battle.

Leicester Cathedral has been a cathedral since 1927, following the formation of a new Diocese of Leicester the previous year. In terms of size, it is the fifth smallest cathedral in the Church of England – smaller than Christ Church, Oxford, but bigger than the cathedrals in Birmingham, Chelmsford, Carlisle and Derby.

Over 100,000 people visit Leicester Cathedral every year, mainly to see the tomb of Richard III, the last English monarch to die in battle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The Middle Angles had a bishopric in 680 and the Anglo-Saxon cathedral may have stood close to or on the site of the present cathedral in Leicester.

The original diocese collapsed during the invasion by the Danes ca 870. After the establishment of the Danelaw in 886, the seat of the diocese was moved to Dorchester in Oxfordshire and became the Diocese of Dorchester.

The see later moved to Lincoln in 1072 under King William I and became the Diocese of Lincoln. At the Tudor Reformation, the Diocese of Lincoln was divided in three. In 1539 A new cathedral planned in 1539 was never built, and Peterborough became the seat of a new diocese.

The 19th century suffragan bishops of Leicester were part of the Diocese of Peterborough until the Diocese of Leicester was formed in 1926 from the archdeaconries of Leicester and Loughborough and part of the Archdeaconry of Northampton, and Saint Martin’s Church, Leicester, became the cathedral of the new see.

Seven figures in sandstone niches on the south porch or ‘Vaughan Porch’ illustrate the story of the diocese and the cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The south porch or ‘Vaughan Porch’ is currently closed off to visitors during renovations and building work. But I reyrned to Leicester earlier this week (20 May 2025) to see the seven figures in sandstone niches on the south porch who embody the story of the diocese and the cathedral (from left):

• Saint Guthlac (ca 673-713) from Lincolnshire lived when Leicester first became a diocese in 680.

• Hugh of Lincoln (ca 1135-1200) rebuilt Lincoln Cathedral in 1185, when Leicester was in the Diocese of Lincoln.

• Robert Grosseteste (ca 1175-1253), Bishop of Lincoln, was also Archdeacon of Leicester. He provided support for Simon de Montfort’s antisemitic rhetoric at a time when the Jewish community was forcibly driven out of Leicester.

• John Wycliffe (ca 1329-1384) was an early translator of the Bible into English before the Reformation.

• Henry Hastings (ca 1535-1595), 3rd Earl of Huntingdon – Mary Queen of Scots was a prisoner in his home in Lord’s Place off the High Street, Leicester, on her journey to Coventry.

• William Chillingworth (1602-1643) was an Oxford theologian, a friend of Jeremy Taylor and a nephew of Archbishop William Laud; he was Master of Wyggeston Hospital beside the cathedral, and a chaplain to the royalist army in the Civil War.

• William Connor Magee (1821-1891) was born in Cork, was a former Dean of Cork and later became Archbishop of York. As Bishop of Peterborough, Leicester was in his diocese, and he encouraged building many churches and schools in Victorian Leicester. He appointed the first suffragan Bishop of Leicester, Francis Thichnesse, in 1888.

Inside Leicester Cathedral, one of the smallest cathedrals in the Church of England (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Leicester Cathedral has a large nave and chancel with two chancel chapels, and a 220-ft spire that was added in 1862. The building has seen many restoration projects over the centuries, including work by the Victorian architect John Raphael Rodrigues Brandon (1817-1877), and the building appears largely Gothic in style today.

Saint Martin’s Church was built on the site of Roman ruins. Archaeological discoveries show evidence of a Roman building on the site, with many believing it was the site of a Roman temple.

The church is dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours, a fourth century Roman officer who became a bishop. It is almost certainly one of six churches in Leicester referred to in the Domesday Book (1086), when the older Anglo-Saxon church was replaced by a Norman one.

Parts of the present church can be traced to a 12th century Norman church that was rebuilt in the 13th and 15th centuries. In the Middle Ages, its site next to the Guild Hall made Saint Martin’s the civic church of Leicester, with strong ties to the merchants and guilds of the town.

Much of the present building is predominantly Victorian, including the tower, completed in 1862, and the 220-ft spire added in 1867. This Victorian work by the architect Raphael Brandon is in the Early English style, although his work in other parts of the church is in the perpendicular style.

The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner says the tower and spire are ‘intentionally impressive’ and loosely based on the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin at Ketton in Rutland.

The East Window in Leicester Cathedral was designed by Christopher Whall (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Saint Martin’s was dedicated as Leicester’s Cathedral in 1927 with the formation of the Diocese of Leicester, over 1,000 years after the last Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Leicester fled from the invading Danes.

The tower and spire were restored both internally and externally in 2004-2005. The main work was to clean and replace any weak stonework with replacement stone quarried from the Tyne Valley.

The Vaughan Porch on the south side of the cathedral was designed by JL Pearson, who was also the architect of Truro Cathedral. It is named the Vaughan Porch because it was erected in memory of the Vaughans who served successively as vicars of Saint Martin’s throughout much of the 19th century.

Saint Katharine’s Chapel on north side of the chancel in Leicester Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The cathedral has four separate chapels, one dedicated to Chapel of Christ the King and three dedicated to different saints.

The new Chapel of Christ the King, with the Great East Window, was created at the east end of the cathedral in the former chancel as part of re-ordering the cathedral for the burial of Richard III.

The East Window, a monument to the dead of World War I, features unusual but beautiful colours of stained glass designed by Christopher Whall. Christ the King sits enthroned, with one hand raised in blessing and the other holding a starry orb, his feet resting on the earth or creation.

Surrounding the figure of Christ are eight angels with wings made from a red glass. To the left and right stand Saint George and Saint Michael the Archangel, each standing on a vanquished dragon.

The bottom row depicts the deposition from the cross in the three centre panels, with Saint Joan of Arc and Saint Martin of Tours in the side panels.

The large wooden screen separating the nave from the chancel was designed by Charles Nicholson and carved by Bowman of Stamford. The screen was moved eastward in 2015 to stand in front of the tomb of Richard III, as part of the reordering of the chancel by van Heyningen and Haward Architects.

Saint Dunstan’s Chapel on the south side of the chancel in Leicester Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Saint Katharine’s Chapel is on the north side of the east end of the cathedral, to the left of the sanctuary. Saint Katharine of Alexandria is depicted in the window above the altar. The carved panel below shows the Crucified Christ with the Virgin Mary and Saint John.

Saint Francis of Assisi and the 17th-century poet Robert Herrick are also depicted in the chapel – the chapel is sometimes referred to as the ‘Herrick Chapel’.

The two Redemption windows (2016) in the chapel, designed by Thomas Denny, tell stories from the life of Richard III.

Saint Dunstan’s Chapel, to the south of the chancel, is set aside for prayer and the reserved sacrament. Saint Dunstan was Archbishop of Canterbury in the 10th century, and scenes from his life are depicted in the south-east window.

Saint George’s Chapel at the west end of the cathedral is enclosed by a carved wooden screen. It was the chapel of the Guild of Saint George. An effigy of Saint George was kept here and borne through the streets on 23 April in an annual procession. The chapel was rebuilt in 1921 with memorials to the Royal Leicestershire Regiment.

The tomb of Richard III in Leicester Cathedral was designed by van Heyningen and Haward architects and made by James Elliott (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Richard III was killed in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth Field in Leicestershire and was buried hastily, with little ceremony, in the Greyfriars, Leicester. Leicester City Council, the University of Leicester, and the Richard III Society, inspired by the work of Philippa Langley, began a search for his remains at a car park in August 2012. His remains were exhumed and following DNA testing were confirmed in February 2013.

Meanwhile, the cathedral completed a redesign of its gardens in July 2014, including installation of the 1980 statue of Richard III, and plans were made to reinter him in a new tomb, with a wider reordering of the cathedral interior.

After five days of commemorative events, Richard III was reburied in Leicester Cathedral on 26 March 2015 at a service conducted by Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury and the Irish-born Dean of Leicester, the Very Revd David Monteith. The last previous burial of an English monarch was of the Duke of Windsor (Edward VIII) in 1972.

The lead ossuary is inside an English oak coffin crafted by Michael Ibsen, a direct descendant of Richard III’s sister, Anne of York. The coffin lies in a brick-lined vault below the floor, under the plinth and tombstone.

The tomb was designed by van Heyningen and Haward architects and made by James Elliott. The tombstone features a cross deeply incised into a single block of Swaledale fossil stone quarried in North Yorkshire. It rests on a low plinth of dark Kilkenny limestone, incised with Richard’s name, dates and motto, carved by Gary Breeze and Stuart Buckle, and with his coat of arms in pietra dura by Thomas Greenaway.

Inside Leicester Cathedral, facing west (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The cathedral also has a set of 14th century wooden carved figures, each ‘afflicted’ with some kind of illness. One has a medieval hearing aid, while another is suffering from sore shoulders.

The cathedral has close links with Leicester Grammar School which once stood beside it. After the school moved to Great Glen, seven miles south of Leicester, the site was refurbished extensively, and the cathedral offices moved into Saint Martin’s House in 2011.

In 2021, Leicester Cathedral Revealed embarked on a project to transform the cathedral and to ensure a more sustaining and welcome future, making the cathedral fully accessible and building a space for heritage and learning.

The 1980 statue of Richard III in the gardens on the south side of Leicester Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The Very Revd Frederick MacNutt (1873-1949), who was born to Irish parents, was the first Provost of Leicester Cathedral (1927-1934), and also Archdeacon of Leicester (1921-1938). He was later a canon of Canterbury Cathedral (1938-1948).

The Very Revd Viv Faull was the first Dean of Leicester after the post was renamed in 2002. She was also the first woman dean in the Church of England. She became Dean of York Minster in 2012, and she has been the Bishop of Bristol since 2018. The present Dean of Canterbury, the Very Revd David Monteith, who was born in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, was the the Dean of Leicester in 2013-2022. The present Dean of Leicester, the Very Revd Karen Rooms, was installed earlier this year (9 March 2024).

Canon Alison Adams is Canon Pastor; Canon Emma Davies is Canon Precentor; Christopher Ouvry-Johns is Director of Music; and Rosie Vinter is Assistant Director of Music and Head of Music Outreach.

The organ in Leicester Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The cathedral choir joins the choirs of Derby Cathedral, Coventry Cathedral and Southwell Minster in the Midlands Four Choirs Festival each year. The present organ was installed by JW Walker & Sons Ltd in 1873 and was rebuilt by Harrison and Harrison in 1929 and 1972.

The cathedral tower has 13 bells, including a peal of 12. These are heard on Thursday evenings and Sunday mornings, with peals being rung on special days.

• Leicester Cathedral is open daily. The Cathedral Eucharist is celebrated on Sundays at 10:30, with Evening Prayer or Choral Evensong at 3:30. During the week, the Eucharist is celebrated at 8:30 on Mondays and at 12:30 Tuesday to Friday.

Leicester Cathedral reflected in the windows of BBC Radio Leicester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

‘Then suddenly we woke, aflame with love dynamic as life-giving breath’: Pentecost in Leicester

‘The Holy Spirit descends at Pentecost’ … a painting by Iain McKillop in his ‘Hope and Tragedy’ exhibition in Leicester Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Tomorrow is the Day of Pentecost (19 May 2024), celebrating the fulfilment of all the promises of the Easter, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the ‘birthday of the Church.’ I am looking forward to the Parish Eucharist in the Church of Saint Mary and Saint Giles in Stony Stratford, when I am reading one of the lessons and leading the intercessions.

Earlier this week, I was in Leicester for the first time in 13 years. This time it was just a one-day visit, but I visited Leicester Cathedral for the first time, including the current exhibition in the north aisle of ‘Hope and Tragedy’, a collection of ‘Stations of the Resurrection’ by Iain McKillop. The Easter exhibition opened on the Wednesday in Easter Week (3 April 2024) and continues until next Monday (20 May 2024).

The Revd Iain McKillop is a priest, painter, art historian and academic who works mainly in the field of religious art. He also produces paintings of architectural history and related subjects, and he has exhibited works in many cathedrals and churches, including Bradford, Exeter, Gloucester, Guildford, Leicester, Lichfield, St Edmundsbury, Saint Paul’s, Westminster and Worcester cathedrals. He gives talks and retreats on issues of faith, art and art history.

The Stations of the Cross are a tradition inherited from the early Church. The traditional Stations of the Cross end with the burial of Christ, but in the late 20th century it became popular to add the Resurrection as Stations 15.

The Stations of the Resurrection are a modern development, but the idea dates back to early Church murals and sequences found in illustrated mediaeval manuscripts, and in works by Duccio, Giotto and Fra Angelico.

Father Sabino Palumbieri, a Salesian priest in Rome, developed a series of Resurrection Stations in 1994 in ‘The Way of Light’ (Via Lucis) to complement ‘The Way of the Cross’ (Via Crucis), for the Easter season of the 50 days from Easter to Pentecost. ‘The Way of Light’ has developed since then, and in 2006 the Church of England included Stations of the Resurrection in Common Worship: Times and Seasons for Easter, selecting 19 Stations, with the Conversion of Saul as the last Station in an unusual way of ending the sequence.

Iain McKillop initially produced 20 paintings for his ‘Stations of the Resurrection’ theme over 20 months of near isolation during the Covid 19 pandemic. They were first shown in Guildford Cathedral in 2022, and he hopes to exhibit them in cathedrals throughout England as ‘a memorial to all who were affected by the pandemic.’

During the pandemic, he realised he needed ‘to work on creating something that would raise both my own spirits and those of others, when we would eventually be able to meet, exhibit work and visit churches again.’

The series commemorates all who died or have been affected by the pandemic. They are dedicated to his friend and mentor the Revd Alan Elkins who died of cancer in 2021. He also says he wanted to paint a substantial and significant subject in personal gratitude to Archbishop Rowan Williams ‘for the inspiration and encouragement I had gained through his ministry, guided retreats and writings.’

Iain McKillop’s panels follow the Resurrection stories in the Gospels from Christ’s Resurrection through to the Ascension and Pentecost. The New Testament writers record 19 resurrection appearances, from the first encounter with Mary Magdalene on Easter morning to Saint Paul’s life-changing experience on the road to Damascus.

The artist realised how idifficult it is to arrange the resurrection accounts into a clearly unified chronology. He added two larger Resurrection and Pentecostpaintings as introductions and conclusions to the series – an ‘Introit’ and ‘Postlude’ to encourage viewers to prepare spiritually for the journey and end with reflection on the Spirit’s presence in our lives.

His complete series of 26 images now contains all the themes in the Anglican and Roman Catholic stations, including the additional subjects in Times and Seasons.

The series is accompanied by a series of short written meditations. A book linked to the exhibition, Stations of the Resurrection: Encounters with the Risen Christ, was published earlier this year (January 2024 ). It includes copies of the pictures in this series, with texts by Bishop Guli Francis-Dehqani of Chelmsford and sonnets by the Cambridge priest poet Malcolm Guite.

Over 40 years or so, Iain McKillop has used drawing and painting as ways of thinking through the meaning and relevance of scripture. These Stations of the Resurrection involved three years of studying commentaries and theological writings, including re-exploring and reconsidering what we believe about the spiritual mysteries and hope offered by Christ’s resurrection. He sees the creative process as ‘rather like a form of Lectio Divina, using sketchbooks, paint, study, meditation, contemplation and prayer.’

He says: ‘The work strengthened my own belief that there are truths within the resurrection stories which offer strong foundations on which to build a trusting faith. I hope these ideas and images may help others to … offer people hope and to help to transform our suffering, often corrupted world into a better place that Jesus intended God’s Kingdom to become. To do this, it is important to strengthen confidence in the grounds of our faith.’

One of the concluding images in the exhibition in Leicester Cathedral is ‘The Holy Spirit descends at Pentecost.’ A citation below the painting is inspired by Acts 2: 1-42 and Mark 16: 20: ‘Then suddenly we woke, aflame with love dynamic as life-giving breath … knew truths and surged with memories and thoughts of God; found understanding, powers, persuasive words. Of course we were afraid, but none could hide behind closed doors. We dashed into the streets: Enthusiasts, we sang with confidence of love and future life empowered by you.’

Iain McKillop’s exhibition in Leicester Cathedral ends on Monday 20 May (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)