COMERFORD WAY: Patrick Comerford’s online journal on Anglicanism, theology, spirituality, history, architecture, travel, poetry, beach walks ... and more
The Chapel and the Hospital of Saint John Baptist without the Barrs, Lichfield, today … recalling a journey that began 54 years ago (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Patrick Comerford
Today is the Feast of the Birthday of Saint John the Baptist (24 June 2025). I have been back in Lichfield today where, throughout the day, I have been remembering that I was ordained priest 24 years ago on this day, 24 June 2001, and that tomorrow is the anniversary of the day I was ordained deacon 25 years ago (25 June 2000).
I have reflected throughout this day on these 25 years of ordained ministry, praying, reading, thinking, walking and giving thanks.
Bishops, in the charge to priests at their ordination, call us to ‘preach the Word and to minister his (God’s) holy sacraments.’ But the bishop also reminds us to be ‘faithful in visiting the sick, in caring for the poor and needy, and in helping the oppressed,’ to ‘promote unity, peace, and love,’ to share ‘in a common witness in the world’ and ‘in Christ’s work of reconciliation,’ to ‘search for God’s children in the wilderness of this world’s temptations.’
These charges remain a sacred commitment for life, even after a priest retires from parish ministry. I retired from full-time ministry over three ago (31 March 2022) after a stroke earlier that month, and I am still in the process of seeking Permission to Officiate (PTO). But I shall always remain a priest.
With Archbishop Walton Empey at my ordination as priest in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, on 24 June 2001, and (from left) the Revd Tim Close and the Revd Avril Bennett (Photograph: Valerie Jones, 2001)
As I reflected today on the anniversaries of my ordination, I recalled too how my path to ordination began here in Lichfield 54 years ago when I was a 19-year-old, following very personal and special experiences in the chapel dedicated to Saint John the Baptist – the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield – and in Lichfield Cathedral, both of which I return to constantly.
It was the summer of 1971, and although I was training to be a chartered surveyor with Jones Lang Wootton and the College of Estate Management at Reading University, I was also trying to become a freelance journalist, contributing features to the Lichfield Mercury, the Rugeley Mercury and the Tamworth Herald.
Late one sunny Thursday afternoon, after a few days traipsing along Wenlock Edge and through Shropshire, and staying at Wilderhope Manor and in Shrewsbury, I had returned to Lichfield.
I was walking from Birmingham Road into the centre of Lichfield, and I was more interested in an evening’s entertainment than prayer or religious life when I stumbled into that chapel out of curiosity. Not because I wanted to see the inside of an old church or chapel, but because I was attracted by the architectural curiosity of the outside of the building facing onto the street, with its Tudor chimney stacks and its Gothic chapel.
I still remember lifting the latch, and stepping down into the chapel. It was late in the afternoon, so there was no light streaming through the East Window. But as I turned towards the lectern, I was filled in one rush with the sensation of the light and the love of God.
This is not a normal experience for a young 19-year-old … certainly not for one who is focussing on an active social night later on, or on rugby and cricket in the weekend ahead.
But it was – and still is – a real and gripping moment. I have talked about this as my ‘self-defining moment in life.’ It still remains as a lived, living moment.
At the Patronal Festival Eucharist in the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield, earlier today (Photograph: Patrick Comerford. 2025)
My first reaction was to make my way on down John Street, up Bird Street and Beacon Street and into the Cathedral Close and Lichfield Cathedral. There I slipped into the choir stalls, just in time for Choral Evensong.
It was a tranquil and an exhilarating experience, all at once. But as I was leaving, a residentiary canon shook my hand … I think he was Canon John Yates (1925-2008), then the Principal of Lichfield Theological College (1966-1972) and later Bishop of Gloucester and Bishop at Lambeth. He looked at me amusingly and asked whether a young man like me had decided to start going back to church because I was thinking of ordination.
All that in one day, on that one summer afternoon.
The west front of Lichfield Cathedral in the afternoon sunshine earlier today (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
However, I took the scenic route to ordination. I was inspired by the story of Gonville ffrench-Beytagh (1912-1991), which was beginning to unfold at the time. He was then the Dean of Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Johannesburg, and facing trial when he opened his doors to black protesters who were being rhino-whipped by South African apartheid police on the steps of his cathedral.
My new-found adult faith led me to a path of social activism, campaigning on human rights, apartheid, the arms race, and issues of war and peace. I also moved into journalism full-time, first with the Wexford People and eventually becoming Foreign Desk Editor of The Irish Times.
While I was working as a journalist, I became a student once agaon, and completed degrees in theology at the Irish School of Ecumenics and Trinity College Dublin in 1984 and at the Kimmage Mission Institute and Maynooth in 1987. In the back of my mind, that startling choice I was confronted with after evensong in Lichfield Cathedral 54 years ago was gnawing away in the back of my mind.
Letters of ordination as priest by Archbishop Walton Empey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Of course, I was on the scenic route to ordination. A long and scenic route, from the age of 19 to the age of 48 … almost 30 years: I returned to study theology at the Church of Ireland Theological College (CITC, now CITI) in 1999, I was ordained deacon on 25 June 2000 and I was ordained priest a year later on 24 June 2001, the Feast of the Birth of Saint John the Baptist.
Since then, my ordained ministry has included two years as an NSM curate in Whitechurch Parish, Rathfarnham (2000-2002), while I continued to work as Foreign Desk Editor of The Irish Times; four years working with mission agencies and as a part-time lecturer in the Church of Ireland Theological College (2002-2006); 11 years on the staff of CITC and CITI as Director of Spiritual Formation, college chaplain, and then Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History (2006-2017), when I was also an adjunct assistant professor in TCD (2011-2017) and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (2008-2017); and five years in west Limerick and north Kerry in the Diocese of Limerick and Killaloe (now Tuam, Limerick and Killaloe) as priest-in-charge of the Rathkeale and Kilnaughtin Group of Parishes, Precentor of Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, Saint Flannan’s Cathedral, Killaloe, Co Clare, and Saint Brendan’s Cathedral, Clonfert, Co Galway, and Director for Education and Training (2017-2022).
That ministry has included school and hospital chaplaincy, membership of the General Synod and various church commissions and committees and school boards, mission agency visits to Egypt, China, Hong Kong, Italy, the Vatican, Romania, Hungary and Finland, and six years as a trustee of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel). There were additional studies at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and the Institutum Liturgicum, based at the Benedictine Study and Arts Centre in Ealing Abbey and KU Leuven.
Archbishop Walton Empey’s inscription on the Bible he gave to me on my ordination to the priesthood on 24 June 2001 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
I had started coming to Lichfield as a teenager because of family connections with the area around Lichfield and Tamworth. The traditions of the chapel in Saint John's Chapel subtly grew on me and became my own personal expression of Anglicanism, while and the liturgical traditions of Lichfield Cathedral nurtured my own liturgical spirituality.
That bright summer evening left me open to the world, with all its beauty, all its problems and its promises.
The chapel in Saint John’s Hospital and Lichfield Cathedral remain my twin spiritual homes, and I returned to both again today (24 June 2025), to Saint John’s for the Patronal Festival Eucharist at Noon, and to the Cathedral for Choral Evensong at the end of the day.
Ten years ago, Canon Andrew Gorham, the then Master of Saint John’s Hospital, invited me to preach at the Festal Eucharist in the chapel on the Feast of the Birth of Saint John the Baptist on 24 June 2015. It was also the anniversary of my ordination. The attendance included the Lord-Lieutenant of Staffordshire, Dr Ian Dudson, the Deputy Mayor of Lichfield, Mrs Sheelagh James, and a former Mayor, Mrs Norma Bacon.
With Canon Andrew Gorham, Master of St John’s Hospital, at the Festal Eucharist in Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield, in 2015
As priests, we normally celebrate the anniversary of our ordination to the priesthood and reflect on it sacramentally. However, I still await PTO in a new diocese and I have found unexpected restrictions on celebrating this meaningful day.
This continues to be trying at a personal level, and I held these emotions and feelings in my heart at the mid-day Eucharist in Saint John’s and Evensong in Lichfield Cathedral today, and at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church in Stony Stratford on Sunday (22 June 2025).
Today has been a day for walks around Stowe Pool and Minster Pool, through the streets of Lichfield, along Beacon Street, and a walk out into the countryside along Cross in Hand Lane after a pleasant late lunch in the Hedgehog Vintage Inn at the corner of Stafford Road.
When I get home to Stony Stratford later tonight, I shall have a quiet celebration of the Eucharist. This has been a day to remind myself that I remain a priest forever, and to remind myself where this journey or pilgrimage began 54 years ago, and I was erncouraged by Timothy Dudley-Smith’s opening lines of the Post-Communion hymn in Saint John’s today:
Lord, for the years yiur love has kept and guided,
urged and inspired us, cheered us on our way,
sought us and saved us, pardoned and provided:
Lord for the years, we bring our thanks today.
Saint John the Baptist seen in a statue above the entrance arch at Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield, this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)
The Chapel and the Hospital of Saint John Baptist without the Barrs, Lichfield … recalling a journey that continues 53 years later (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Patrick Comerford
Today is the Feast of the Birthday of Saint John the Baptist (24 June 2024). I have been back in Lichfield today where, throughout the day, I have been remembering that I was ordained priest 23 years ago on this day, 24 June 2001, and that tomorrow is the anniversary of the day I was ordained deacon 24 years ago (25 June 2000).
I have reflected throughout this day on these 24 years of ordained ministry, giving thanks, praying, reading, thinking, walking and giving thanks.
I was ordained priest 23 years ago today, on the Feast of the Birth of Saint John the Baptist [24 June 2001], and deacon 24 years ago tomorrow, on 25 June 2000.
With Archbishop Walton Empey at my ordination as priest in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, on 24 June 2001, and (from left) the Revd Tim Close and the Revd Avril Bennett (Photograph: Valerie Jones, 2001)
Bishops, in the charge to priests at their ordination, call us to ‘preach the Word and to minister his (God’s) holy sacraments.’ But the bishop also reminds us to be ‘faithful in visiting the sick, in caring for the poor and needy, and in helping the oppressed,’ to ‘promote unity, peace, and love,’ to share ‘in a common witness in the world’ and ‘in Christ’s work of reconciliation,’ to ‘search for God’s children in the wilderness of this world’s temptations.’
These charges remain a sacred commitment for life, even after a priest retires from parish ministry. I retired from full-time ministry over two ago (31 March 2022) after my stroke that year, and I am still in the process of seeking Permission to Officiate (PTO). But I shall always remain a priest.
As I reflected today on the anniversaries of my ordination, I recalled too how my path to ordination began here in Lichfield 53 years ago when I was a 19-year-old, following very personal and special experiences in the chapel dedicated to Saint John the Baptist – the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield – and in Lichfield Cathedral, both of which I return to constantly.
It was the summer of 1971, and although I was training to be a chartered surveyor with Jones Lang Wootton and the College of Estate Management at Reading University, I was also trying to become a freelance journalist, contributing features to the Lichfield Mercury, the Rugeley Mercury and the Tamworth Herald.
Late one sunny Thursday afternoon, after a few days traipsing along Wenlock Edge and through Shropshire, and staying at Wilderhope Manor and in Shrewsbury, I had returned to Lichfield.
I was walking from Birmingham Road into the centre of Lichfield, and I was more interested in an evening’s entertainment than prayer or religious life when I stumbled into that chapel out of curiosity. Not because I wanted to see the inside of an old church or chapel, but because I was attracted by the architectural curiosity of the outside of the building facing onto the street, with its Tudor chimney stacks and its Gothic chapel.
I still remember lifting the latch, and stepping down into the chapel. It was late in the afternoon, so there was no light streaming through the East Window. But as I turned towards the lectern, I was filled in one rush with the sensation of the light and the love of God.
This is not a normal experience for a young 19-year-old … certainly not for one who is focussing on an active social night later on, or on rugby and cricket in the weekend ahead.
But it was – and still is – a real and gripping moment. I have talked about this as my ‘self-defining moment in life.’ It still remains as a lived, living moment.
Waiting for the mid-day Eucharist in Lichfield Cathedral this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
My first reaction was to make my way on down John Street, up Bird Street and Beacon Street and into the Cathedral Close and Lichfield Cathedral. There I slipped into the choir stalls, just in time for Choral Evensong.
It was a tranquil and an exhilarating experience, all at once. But as I was leaving, a residentiary canon shook my hand … I think he was Canon John Yates (1925-2008), then the Principal of Lichfield Theological College (1966-1972) and later Bishop of Gloucester and Bishop at Lambeth. He amusingly asked me whether a young man like me had decided to start going back to church because I was thinking of ordination.
All that in one day, on that one summer afternoon.
The west front of Lichfield Cathedral this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
However, I took the scenic route to ordination. I was inspired by the story of Gonville ffrench-Beytagh (1912-1991), which was beginning to unfold at the time. He was then the Dean of Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Johannesburg, and facing trial when he opened his doors to black protesters who were being rhino-whipped by South African apartheid police on the steps of his cathedral.
My new-found adult faith led me to a path of social activism, campaigning on human rights, apartheid, the arms race, and issues of war and peace. Meanwhile, I moved on in journalism, first to the Wexford People and eventually becoming Foreign Desk Editor of The Irish Times.
While I was working as a journalist, I also completed my degrees in theology, at the Irish School of Ecumenics and Trinity College Dublin in 1984 and at the Kimmage Mission Institute and Maynooth in 1987. In the back of my mind, that startling choice I was confronted with after evensong in Lichfield Cathedral 53 years ago was gnawing away in the back of my mind.
Letters of ordination as priest by Archbishop Walton Empey
Of course, I was on the scenic route to ordination. A long and scenic route, from the age of 19 to the age of 48 … almost 30 years: I returned to study theology at the Church of Ireland Theological College (CITC, now CITI) in 1999, I was ordained deacon on 25 June 2000 and I was ordained priest on 24 June 2001, the Feast of the Birth of Saint John the Baptist.
Since then, my ordained ministry has included two years as an NSM curate in Whitechurch Parish, Rathfarnham (2000-2002), while I continued to work as Foreign Desk Editor of The Irish Times; four years working with mission agencies and as a part-time lecturer in the Church of Ireland Theological College (2002-2006); 11 years on the staff of the Church of Ireland Theological College or Institute as Director of Spiritual Formation, college chaplain, and then Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy, Church History (2006-2017), when I was also an adjunct assistant professor in Trinity College Dublin (2011-2017) and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (2008-2017); and five years in west Limerick and north Kerry in the Diocese of Limerick and Killaloe (now Tuam, Limerick and Killaloe) as priest-in-charge of the Rathkeale and Kilnaughtin Group of Parishes, Precentor of Saint Mary's Cathedral, Limerick, Saint Flannan’s Cathedral, Killaloe, Co Clare and Saint Brendan’s Cathedral, Clonfert, Co Galway, and Director for Education and Training (2017-2022).
That ministry also included school and hospital chaplaincy, membership of the General Synod and various church commissions and committees, mission agency visits to Egypt, China, Hong Kong, Italy, the Vatican, Romania, Hungary and Finland, and six years as a trustee of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel). There were additional studies at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and the Institutum Liturgicum, based at the Benedictine Study and Arts Centre in Ealing Abbey and KU Leuven.
Archbishop Walton Empey’s inscription on the Bible he gave to me on my ordination to the priesthood in 2001
I had started coming to Lichfield as a teenager because of family connections with the area around Lichfield and Tamworth. The traditions of the chapel in Saint John's Chapel subtly grew on me and became my own personal expression of Anglicanism, while and the liturgical traditions of Lichfield Cathedral nurtured my own liturgical spirituality.
That bright summer evening left me open to the world, with all its beauty, all its problems and its promises.
The chapel in Saint John’s Hospital and Lichfield Cathedral remain my twin spiritual homes, and I returned to both again today (24 June 2024).
As priests, we normally celebrate the anniversary of our ordination to the priesthood and reflect on it sacramentally. However, I still await PTO in a new diocese and I have found unexpected restrictions on celebrating this meaningful day.
This continues to be trying at a personal level, and I held these emotions and feelings in my heart at the mid-day Eucharist and Evening Prayer in Lichfield Cathedral today, as I knelt in prayer in the chapel of Saint John’s Hospital earlier in the day, and at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church in Stony Stratford yesterday (23 June 2024).
I remembered too how I was in Holy Trinity Church, Old Wolverton, on this day last year (24 June 2023) when the Revd Francesca Vernon celebrated her first Mass following her ordination.
It has been a day for walks around Stowe Pool and Minster Pool, through the streets of Lichfield, along Beacon Street, and a walk out into the countryside along Cross in Hand Lane after a pleasant late lunch in the Hedgehog Vintage Inn at the corner of Stafford Road.
When I get home to Stony Stratford later this evening, I shall have a quiet celebration of the Eucharist. This has been a day to remind myself that I remain a priest forever, and to remind myself where this journey or pilgrimage began 53 years ago.
Saint John the Baptist depicted in a window in the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
A parking sign in Navan, Co Meath … surely there was more than one visitor and one car? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
North Yorkshire Council recently created arguments and a lengthy public debate when it decided to eliminate apostrophes from street names, because they and other punctuation marks, apparently, don’t conform with geographical databases.
In Harrogate, for example, a new sign for St Mary’s Walk was changed to ‘St Marys Walk.’ But this was derided as a sign of the general decay of literacy in today’s England.
The apostrophe (' or ’) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used in five principal way:
• to mark the omission of one or more letters, such as the contraction of ‘do not’ to ‘don’t’ or 2024 or ’24
• to mark the of possessive case of nouns, as in ‘Patrick’s blog posting,’ ‘yesterday’s news’ or ‘the politicians’ promises and lies’
• as part of some Irish surnames such as O’Brien and O’Neill
• to represent feet and inches in length, as in 5’ 8” for 5 ft 8 in
• in single ‘quotation’ marks
More than one Saint Patrick? How many friars? … a street sign in Coventry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
But in its original use in the English language, the apostrophe is an exclamatory figure of speech. It happens when a speaker breaks off from addressing the audience and turns to speak someone else. This seems closer to the Greek origins of the word: the Greek word ἀποστροφή (apostrophe) means ‘turning away’.
The word comes into English through the Latin apostropha or apostrophe from the Greek ἀποστροφή (apostrophḗ), from ἀποστρέφω (apostréphō), ‘to turn away’), from ἀπό (apó), ‘from’ or ‘away’, and στρέφω (stréphō), ‘I turn’.
In other words, the word apostrophe comes ultimately from the Greek ἡ ἀπόστροφος προσῳδία (hē apóstrophos prosōidía), 'the accent of turning away or elision.’
In a similar way, the word catastrophe is derived from the Greek καταστροφή (katastrophḗ), from καταστρέφω (katastréphō, ‘I overturn’), from κατά (kata, ‘down’ or ‘against’) and στρέφω (stréphō, ‘I turn’).
The apostrophe as we use it in punctuation was introduced into French by Geoffroy Tory in 1529), when it was used in place of a vowel letter to indicate elision, as in l’heure in place of la heure. It was also frequently used in place of a final E, which was still pronounced at the time, when it was elided before a vowel, as in un’ heure. Modern French orthography has restored the spelling une heure.
The apostrophe was first used by Pietro Bembo in his edition of De Aetna (1496). It was introduced into English in the 16th century in imitation of French practice, when the apostrophe was used when a vowel letter was omitted either because of incidental elision (‘I’m’ for ‘I am’), or because the letter no longer represented a sound (‘lov’d’ for ‘loved’).
The contraction who’re for ‘who are’ takes on a whole new meaning if we leave out the apostrophe.
What did she really want? … a sign seen in a window in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
By the 18th century, an apostrophe with the addition of an S was regularly used for all possessive singular forms. The apostrophe was used after the plural S for possessive plural forms, although this was not universally accepted until the mid-19th century.
Of course ‘possessive apostrophe’ can seem silly, almost inexplicable, as in ‘yesterday’s news’ – yesterday does not own the news, and they never will. But then, that’s a discussion about why 18th century grammarians began to refer to the genitive case as the possessive case. And if we could recall all our yesterdays, would they own the news as yesterdays’ news?
And who decided on the convention that we do not use an apostrophe when we say ours rather than our’s, yours rather your’s, his rather than he’s, hers instead of her’s, its instead of it’s – when it’s has a very different meaning – or their’s instead of theirs, yet we say children’s, women’s and men’s when they are plurals without an S ending, rather than childrens’, womens’ and mens’.
Let me add that keying in that last conundrum was a nightmare, as autocorrect tried to correct each one of these examples.
A subeditor confused the possessive apostrophe and the plural S in the headline on one of my first newspaper features in the Lichfield Mercury in October 1971
If a singular noun ends with an S, practice varies as to whether to add ’S or the apostrophe alone: do you say Saint James’ Gate or Saint James’s Gate, Guinness’ stout or Guinness’s stout, or even Guinnesses or Guinnesses’ stout?
After all, I know of Dubliners who refer to Stephenses Green and Stephenses Day, and even to Stevenses Hospital.
And if dice is the plural of die, mice the plural of mouse, and pence the plural of penny, how and when, if ever, do I use an apostrophe? I’m only asking so that I get my tuppence’s worth and do not get my comeuppance.
The plural of trade union is trades union, of father-in-law is fathers-in-law, and of Attorney General is Attorneys General. But whoever speaks of the Attorney’s Geneal office, or the father’s-in-law daughter?
What about when two people share ownership? My father and mother’s home? Or my father’s and mother’s home? His and her children, but not his and her’s children?
If you’re as old as I am, do you speak of the 1960s or the 1960’s? Cliff Richards’s records? The Irish Times’ stylebook, or The Irish Times stylebook? Moses’ law or Moses law? Jesus’ new commandment, Jesus’s new commandment, or simply Jesus new commandment?
Descartes’s and Dumas’s place in French literary legacy? Socrates’ or Socrates’s wisdom?
The United States’ next president – and the catastrophe that this may create)?
Both panini’s and paninis are wrong gramatically (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Why are Earl’s Court and Barons Court neighbouring stations on the Piccadilly line?
Why do some people shop at Sainsbury’s and others at Harrods, Currys, and Selfridges? Why is it Marks and Spencer, but not Marks and Spencers, and never Mark’s and Spencer’s or even Marks’ and Spencers’?
Why is the Apostrophe Protection Society not the Apostrophe’s Protection Society, or even the Apostrophes’ Protection Society?
When did we stop referring to the ’phone or the ’bus or to ’flu? Why is shan’t not spelled as sha’n’t if we cannot spell out shall not?
Do you know which of Queens’ College and Queen’s College is in Oxford or Cambridge? Is it St Alban’s Cathedral or St Albans Cathedral? And did you know Saint Bene’t’s Church in Cambridge is truly Saint Benedict’s?
If we eliminate apostrophes in all names, what happens to Kitty O’Shea and Brian O’Driscoll?
Should I mind my ps and qs or my p’s and q’s?
And shopfronts would be less entertaining and amusing without the grocer’s apostrophe’s above the apple’s and orange’s in the window’s.
Nor should we forget the literary origin of the words apostrophe and catastrophe in στρέφω (stréphō), ‘I turn’.
A strophe (στροφή) is the first stanza in a traditional ancient Greek ode. These odes were recited by a chorus and were used to celebrate victories, the natural world, and the achievements of extraordinary people. They were also commonly found in the opening ode of ancient Greek tragedy plays.
Together with its partners, the antistrophe and the epode, the strophe was part of the Pindaric ode. This elaborate lyrical poem celebrated victories and commemorated the victors.
The Four Apostrophe’s of the Apocalypse’s, but not for Goodwyn’s in Brierly Hill … shared widely on social media postings (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
But I’m getting ahead of myself, and turning aside. Indeed, I hear few people today talking regularly about the strophe the antistrophe.
When I was back in Crete a few weeks ago, I found myself re-reading some of the poems of the Greek poet Giorgios Seferis (1900-1971), one of the two Greek poets to have received the Nobel Prize for Literature. His collection Στροφή (Strophe, Turning Point), was published in 1931. The title poem is:
Στροφή
Στιγμή, σταλμένη απο ένα χέρι
που είχα τόσο αγαπήσει
με πρόφταξες ίσια στη δύση
σα μαύρο περιστέρι
Ο δρόμος άσπριζε μπροστά μου,
απαλός αχνός ύπνου
στο γέρμα του μυστικού δείπνου
Στιγμή σπυρί της άμμου,
που κράτησες μονάχη σου όλη
την τραγική κλεψύδρα
βουβή, σα να είχε δει την Υδρα
στο ουράνιο περιβόλι
Strophe
Moment sent by a hand
that I had so much loved
you reached me almost at dusk
like a black dove
The road shone before me
soft breath of sleep
at the end of a secret feast …
Moment grain of sand
that you alone kept
the tragic clepsydra whole
silent as though it had seen Hydra
in the heavenly orchard.
The Kingdom Hall on Lombard Street, Lichfield … a Wesleyan Methodist chapel was built on the site in 1814 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
Patrick Comerford
I have written on this blog over the years about many of the churches in Lichfield. But one building I have missed is the Kingdom Hall of the Jehovah’s Witnesses on Lombard Street. It is a modern, 1980s-looking building, set back a little from the street front, and is easy to miss at times unless you lookcarefully. But the site dates back more than two centuries, and the first Wesleyan Methodist Chapel in Lichfield was built there 210 years ago, in 1814.
Jehovah’s Witnesses have met in Lichfield since at least 1956, according to a report in the Lichfield Mercury that year. Their Kingdom Hall in Lombard Street, registered in 1980, occupies the site of the former Wesleyan Methodist chapel, and I had anoher look at in the weeks before Christmas.
John Wesley passed through or near Lichfield three time – in 1755, 1756, and again in 1777 – but he never preached there, and Methodism was late in arriving in Lichfield.
A house at Gallows Wharf, where the London Road crossed the Wyrley and Essington Canal, was registered for worship by dissenters in 1811. The evidence suggests it was almost certainly being used by Wesleyan Methodists: the registration was witnessed by Joshua Kidger (1775-1861), the wharf manager, and he registered a Wesleyan chapel in Lombard Street in 1813.
That chapel, on the south side of Lombard Street, was built in 1814, and was opened by Dr Adam Clarke. The early trustees were William Kidger, William Hawkins, James Mason, John Knight, James Burton, John Hawkins, Joshua Kidger, James Sharp, Samuel Shakespeare. Henry Hawkins, Samuel Watton and John Woodward.
An early minister there was Joshua Kidger’s nephew, John Kidger (1795-1825) from Belton, near Ashby-le-Zouche in Leicestershire. He was 17 when he was converted at a Methodist rally in 1812.
John Kidger ministered in Lichfield between 1815 and 1818. But he was described by a contemporary as not having ‘acquired a very extensive and accurate knowledge of Christian doctrine, and therefore was less capable of encountering the sophisms of those who wrest the Scriptures to their own serious injury.’ He eventually withdrew from ministry, returned to Leicestershire, and died of scarlet fever at the age of 29 in 1825.
In the early days, the Wesleyan choir and congregation in Lombard Street sang to the accompaniment of a string band. A Sunday school had been established by 1823.
The congregation was served by ministers from neighbouring circuits in 1826, and this was still the practice in the earlier 1840s.
On Census Sunday 1851, there were attendances of 22 in the morning and 41 in the evening, with 51 Sunday school children in the morning. It was said that during the winter months the evening congregation numbered up to 130 people.
Lichfield was part of the Burton upon Trent Circuit until 1886, when the Tamworth and Lichfield Circuit was formed. This became two separate circuits in 1947, but was reunited in 1989.
A new Methodist church in Tamworth Street, Lichfield, was designed by Thomas Guest of Birmingham. It opened in Tamworth Street in 1892 and remains in use today. The former chapel was used as the Sunday school until 1902, when a school was built behind the Tamworth Street chapel.
The former chapel building on Lombard Street has been much changed since that time. From 1921 to 1979, the building was used by the Lichfield Afternoon Women’s Institute.
The land in front of the building was used as a Methodist burial ground in early Victorian times. This was eventually deconsecrated and before the building was transferred to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the burials were removed, under the direction of the Revd WNJ Hutchens, the Methodist minister in Lichfield from 1972 to 1980, possibly to Saint Chad’s Churchyard in Lichfield.
The former Wesleyan Methodist chapel on Tamworth Street was sold to the Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1980, and it is now their Kingdom Hall.
Memories of old print rooms and case rooms at Milton Keynes Museum (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
Patrick Comerford
Charlotte and I have had a number of visits to Milton Keynes Museum in recent weeks, particularly to dedicated Printing Section, showcasing the printing industry, and which has brought back many happy memories of the days of ‘hot metal’ when I had student jobs in the late 1960s in a printing firm and later when I worked closely with printers when I was a journalist in Lichfield, Wexford and Dublin.
Milton Keynes Museum is set in beautiful farmland, close to Wolverton, Britain’s first railway town, and it tells the story of Milton Keynes from long before the New Town was planned and developed.
The museum is run mainly by volunteers and is based at Stacey Hill Farm, where the Victorian parlour, scullery and kitchen have been lovingly recreated in the old farmhouse.
One gallery tells the story of the Milton Keynes area from pre-history through to the 1800s, with a rich collection of archaeological finds. Another gallery tells the story of the new town’s creation and stories of Marshall Amplification, Red Bull Racing, the Parks Trust and the Open University. Regular events, displays, recreations and family days are part of the museum experience.
Milton Keynes Museum is based at the former Stacey Hill Farm (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
The museum is located on the outskirts of Wolverton. When Stacey Hill Farm was new, the farmstead was surrounded by countryside, but today it overlooks the new town of Milton Keynes.
Soon after the decision was taken in 1967 to build Milton Keynes, local residents formed the Stacey Hill Society and were collecting items representing their heritage. Many of these items came from farms and factories that were closed down to make way for the new development. These collections eventually became the basis of the museum.
With the support of Milton Keynes Development Corporation, the collection was stored at Stacey Hill Farm, part of an estate that had once been bought by the physician, Dr John Radcliffe, in 1713 when he became MP for Buckingham.
Milton Keynes Museum has a dedicated Printing Section, showcasing the printing industry that has been in the Wolverton area since 1878.
The presses and guillotines in the museum were manufactured in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and most were used by local firms. The two principal firms – McCorquodale & Co and Muscutt and Tompkins – followed a general pattern in printing. Printing books, newspapers and magazines for national circulation was concentrated in a few large firms, while printing of posters, bills, circulars and tickets provided a living for many small businesses.
McCorquodale opened a branch in Wolverton in 1878 to provide jobs for the daughters of men employed in Wolverton Carriage Works. It started with 20 employees aged from 13 to 21 years, who worked a 54-hour week.
The firm’s early work in Wolverton included printing registered envelopes for the General Post Office – envelope making was the only area of the printing industry consistently to employ more women than men. Other government work followed, as well as printing Bradshaw’s Guide to railway timetables. By 1886, the number of staff had risen to 120 women and 20 men.
The equipment used in the early years were the platen, sheet-fed rotary and Wharfedale presses. They were fairly slow machines, and many presses were required.
At one time, McCorquodale employed around 900 people in Wolverton. Now there are only around 240 due to the use of high speed presses, and numbers may fall even further as the company moves towards computer-controlled operations.
Muscutt and Tompkins was located a few hundred metres from McCorquodale. Originally a wholesale and retail newsagents, they moved into printing when William Tompkins bought a large Golding Jobber press, on display in the museum, and a small platen press at a sale in the late 1930s.
Printing did not begin until 1946 when Reg Tomalin returned to work for the family firm after World War II. The company work in general printing included headed notepaper, Christmas cards, dance tickets, and notepads. Although the demand was limited and orders were usually in small quantities, printing continued at Muscutt and Tompkins until Reg Tomalin died in 1967.
The museum’s Columbian hand press came from High Wycombe and takes pride of place in the Print Room. Beside it is the similar but much smaller Albion hand press, bearing the date 1845, that was used in Olney.
The jobbing platen presses range from a small hand fed treadle machines, through belt driven Golding Jobber and Cropper. The largest machine in the collection is an 1880s Wharfedale, stop cylinder manufactured by W Dawson and Sons, Otley. It has been modified with a flyer delivery added in 1906. A proofing press from McCorquodale’s is the most modern item in the collection. Among the wide range of associated artefacts is a Furnival Express guillotine that lacks any of the safety features required today.
Muscutt and Tompkins in Wolverton moved into printing after the late 1930s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
As a teenage schoolboy in the 1960s, I spent a number of summers working as a copyholder or proofreader’s assistant at Irish Printers, a large printing business in Dublin, located first off Aungier Street in the city centre and then at Donore Avenue, off the South Circular Road.
Those experiences gave a lifelong taste for and delight in the world of printing and graphic design, knowing and appreciating the differences in and uses of typefaces and point sizes.
They prepared me too for working with printers in the caseroom and on the stone as a subeditor, laying out making up pages first in the Wexford People and then in The Irish Times. I had acquired an instinctive knowledge of what would work in designing and making up the pages of newspapers and magazines.
But I also had an earlier foretaste at the Lichfield Mercury in the early 1970s of the changes that computerisation was going to bring to the newspaper industry. Those days of ‘hot metal’ vanished rapidly when I was working at The Irish Times.
As the changes swept through the newspapers, many printers – because they knew and understood how typefaces work and the importance of proofreading – made excellent sub-editors … I think of good colleagues and friends such as the late Seán O’Toole and Derek Richards, who died earlier this year.
However, these recent visits to the printing section in the Milton Keynes Museum have also brought back a vocabulary and language that is unique to the printing world. I knew my linotype from my monotype and my stereotype, my italics from Roman, a dash from a hyphen, and flat beds from rotaries; I learned about orphans and widows, why pages had even numbers on the left and odd numbers on the right, and how typefaces increased in point sizes; I even became a dab had at reading upside down and back-to-front.
One display in the museum is a reminder of many printers’ sayings that have passed into our everyday language, including:
‘Getting the wrong end of the stick’ – reversing the letters
‘Upper case and lower case’ – capitals and small letters
‘Minding your Ps and Qs’ – mixing up letters
‘Being a dab hand’ – using print ink dabbers
‘The devil is in the detail’ – the detailed work of typesetters?
‘Stereotype’ – method of printing from a plate
‘Cliché’ – solid cast metal plate
‘Against the grain’ – a reference to the grain in paper
‘Making a good impression’ – quality of print produce
‘Hot off the press’ – related to hot metal typeface
‘Out of sorts’ – running out of typeface
‘Come a Cropper’ – catching your fingers in the press.
That last phrase, ‘Come a Cropper’, reminded me of one colleague in Wexford who actually lost part of his finger. On the other hand, I always thought the saying ‘The devil is in the detail’ referred to the ‘printer’s devil,’ the printer’s apprentice who attended to details such as correctly mixing tubs of ink and fetching type while minding his Ps and Qs, or, more importantly telling q from p and d from b.
• Milton Keynes Museum continues to be open in October from Wednesdays to Sundays, 10:30 am to 4:30 pm, and from 1 November on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays.
Minding my Ps and Qs and knowing the right type (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
The Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield, and the Tudor East Façade of Saint John’s Hospital facing onto Saint John Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and the week began with the Tenth Sunday after Trinity (13 August 2023).
Before this day begins (18 August 2023), I am taking some time this morning for prayer, reading and reflection.
In recent weeks, I have been reflecting on the churches in Tamworth. For this week and next week, I am reflecting each morning in these ways:
1, Looking at a church in Lichfield;
2, the Gospel reading of the day in the Church of England lectionary;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.
Inside the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
The Chapel, Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield:
Each time I return to Lichfield, I spend some time in the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital. These are times for prayer, times of pilgrimage and times for giving thanks.
Saint John’s has remained my spiritual home since my experiences there one summer afternoon in 1971. Going from there to Choral Evensong in Lichfield Cathedral was a combined experience that marks the beginning of my adult faith and a pilgrimage that would lead eventually to my ordination and priesthood.
I first arrived in Lichfield in my teens, and I began my career in journalism as a freelance contributor to the local newspaper, the Lichfield Mercury. I continue to be grateful for the encouragement and opportunities provided by the Lichfield Mercury and the Rugeley Mercury and the then editor, Neil Beddows, in the early 1970s.
I came to Lichfield following in the footsteps of my great-grandfather, James Comerford (1817-1902), about 70 years earlier. Like him, I was seeking the story of origins of the Comberford family, which was intimately linked with Lichfield for many generations, spanning centuries of the history of the family.
Canon Roger Williams when he was the Master of Saint John’s, invited me to preach at the mid-week Eucharist in the chapel on 12 August 2009, the day Jeremy Taylor is remembered in the calendar of the Church of England.
In January 2015, Dave Moore, a local historian who makes films on local people and their memories of local history, filmed five interviews with me in this chapel, asking me about faith and ministrt, my family connections with Lichfield, my move from journalism to the ordained priesthood, my grandfather’s part in World War I, and my views on war and nationalism.
Later that year, on the Feast of the Birth of Saint John the Baptist [24 June 2015], I was invited by the 49th Master, Canon Andrew Gorham, to preach at the Festal Eucharist in the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital.
I have returned a number of times this year to spend a little time in prayer in the Chapel of Saint John’s.
The story of the Hospital of Saint John Baptist Without the Barrs of the City of Lichfield – its formal title – is the story of the important place Lichfield had as a centre of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages.
Saint Chad is credited with converting the Kingdom of Mercia in the English Midlands to Christianity. After he died in 672, people claimed miracles at his tomb in Lichfield. He was declared a saint in 700, and when his body was moved to the new cathedral in Lichfield, his shrine became a popular place of pilgrimage.
The mediaeval cathedral stood inside a fortified close, protected by a defensive ditch, rampart and expanse of water. The city was enclosed and the four gates or ‘barrs’ were closed at night and did not open again until the morning.
Pilgrims who arrived late in the day found their entry was barred, and they were left outside for the night without shelter. To meet their needs, Roger de Clinton, Bishop of Lichfield (1129-1148), built an Augustinian priory just outside the Culstrubbe Gate, where the road from London arrived at the south side of Lichfield.
The priory was completed in 1135 and the house became known as the Hospital of Saint John Baptist without the Barrs. The Augustinian canons or friars were expected to provide food and shelter for travellers arriving late at night.
The hospital chapel, as well as serving the hospital community, was a place of public worship from at least the earlier 13th century. Elaborate precautions, however, were taken to protect the rights of Saint Michael’s Church, in whose parish the hospital stood. By an agreement made in Bishop Stavensby’s time (1224-1238) with the Prebendary of Freeford, the prior and brethren of the hospital and their chaplains promised to maintain the rights of the prebend, to which Saint Michael's was appropriated. In return for these promises, the Prebendary of Freeford allowed the establishment of a chantry in the hospital chapel.
In the 13th century, the Augustinian community at Saint John’s consisted of a prior, brothers and sisters, with a chapel and community buildings. Travellers and pilgrims ate and slept in a long mediaeval hall, with an undercroft below.
For 300 years or more, Saint John’s provided hospitality for travellers and pilgrims, while local people used the chapel as a place of worship. These neighbours were served by a chaplain, and in turn they endowed the hospital and built a chantry chapel. These benefactors included William de Juvenis, still remembered each year with a red rose on the Feast of the Nativity of Saint John Baptist (24 June).
By the mid-15th century, the ditch and ramparts around Lichfield had fallen into disuse and the gates remained open at night for late arriving pilgrims. Times were changing, and when William Smyth became Bishop of Lichfield in 1492, he put Saint John’s to new uses, re-founding the priory in 1495 as a hospital for aged men and as a free grammar school.
New statutes provided for a Master who was a priest appointed by the Bishop of Lichfield. The hospital was to house ‘13 honest poor men upon whom the inconveniences of old age and poverty, without any fault of their own, had fallen.’ They were to receive seven pence a week, they were to be honest and devout, and they were to attend prayers every day.
The canons’ and pilgrims’ hall was enlarged to provide a house for the master and a new wing was added to the old building. This new ‘almshouse,’ with its row of eight chimneys, provided each almsman or resident with his own room and fireplace.
When the dissolution of the monasteries began 40 years later in 1536, the changes made by Bishop William Smyth a generation earlier ensured the survival of Saint John’s as a hospital or almshouse and as a school.
The grammar school was separated from the hospital in 1692, but the school continued to use the chapel, and the schoolboys included local worthies such as Joseph Addison, Elias Ashmole, Samuel Johnson and David Garrick. Edward Maynard rebuilt the Master’s Hall once again in 1720 to keep up with modern Georgian architectural tastes, and the stone tablet above the doorway dates from this period.
By the early 19th century, Saint John’s must have had the character and the problems described by Anthony Trollope in his novels, including The Warden and Barchester Towers. A north aisle was added to the chapel in 1829, and a new three-bay arcade was built.
In another major restoration in 1870-1871, the Master of Saint John’s, Philip Hayman Dod (1810-1883), repaired and renovated the chapel, raising the walls of the nave, building a new roof, and adding buttresses outside and a stone bell-cote and bell.
The Rev Denham Rowe Norman was the last master to govern the hospital and administer its estates under the statutes of 1495. When he tendered his resignation to the Bishop of Lichfield in 1925, he had been in orders for 70 years and was one of the oldest clergymen in England.
The almsmen’s rooms at Saint John’s were rearranged in 1929 to overlook the court or quadrangle, giving them more light and modern heating and sanitation. The Master’s House was renovated in 1958, new flats were added in the mid-1960s, and the inner quadrangle was completed with a new building. In the 1960s too, for the first time, married couples were allowed to take residence in the hospital.
When Lichfield Theological College in the Cathedral Close closed in 1976, new accommodation was provided in what became the Hospital of Saint John’s within the Close.
The Chapel has a single-vessel nave and sanctuary, with a north aisle that was added in 1829. At the east end there is a coped gable with kneelers and offset angle buttresses to the right. There is a segmental-pointed window of five double-cusped lights, a small window with a pointed arch above, and an enriched 19th century rainwater head to the left. The blind return has a cornice.
The exterior of the north aisle has a coped west gable with kneelers, a gabled bell cote, and angle buttresses. The three-light west window has intersecting tracery. The north return has similar windows flanking the buttress and stack.
The south elevation of the chapel has offset buttresses, and a double-chamfered pointed entrance to left end; a two-light plate tracery window, a lancet, a three-light window and a two-light square-headed window, both with Perpendicular tracery, and a traceried lancet at the right end.
Inside, the chapel roof has cusped arch braces to the collars and queen struts. The sanctuary has a blocked thee-light square-headed window on the northside.
The three-bay arcade at the north aisle has octagonal piers and head stops to the hoods. The north aisle has a kingpost roof.
The sanctuary has bolection-moulded fielded panelling, a fluted frieze and cornice, a large central panel with a frieze with grapes and wheat, a piscina on the south with an arch over the restored bowl, a gabled tabernacle and encaustic tiles.
The west end has a vestibule with re-used panelling, and there are monuments to members of the Simpson family at the west end.
The large window on the south wall depicts Christ healing the man at the pool of Bethesda (John 5: 1-16), alluding to Saint John’s title as a ‘hospital’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Entering the chapel at the west end, there are two facing windows of similar style by the Victorian stained-glass designer and manufacturer Charles Eamer Kempe (1837-1907). Kempe was best known in the late Victorian period for his stained-glass windows, some of which can also be seen in Lichfield Cathedral. The Cambridge Church Historian Owen Chadwick, who died in 2015, once said Kempe’s work represents ‘the Victorian zenith’ of church decoration and stained glass windows.
One Kempe window, portraying Saint John the Baptist and Saint George the Martyr is memory of Captain Peter Charles Gillies Webster (1836-1877), Adjutant of the Staffordshire Yeomanry.
The facing window, portraying Saint Philip the Apostle and Bishop William Smyth, commemorates Philip Wayman Dod (1810-1883), who was the Master of Saint John’s (1842-1883) and undertook the repair and arrangement of the chapel in 1871.
Above Saint Philip is the coat-of-arms of the Bishops of Lichfield; above Bishop Smyth is his coat-of-arms as Bishop of Lichfield. Around Saint Philip’s head, a scroll reads: ‘We have found Jesus of Nazareth’ (see John 1: 45).
Bishop Smyth is holding a crozier with his left hand and in his right hand he holds an illustration of the chapel. Above him, the words on a scroll read: ‘Except the Lord build the house’ (Psalm 127: 1).
A two-light window, ‘Suffer the Little Children’ is in memory of Catherine Browne (1813-1880) of The Friary, Lichfield, a local doctor’s wife. The Biblical text in the lower window reads: ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not for of such is the kingdom of God’ (see Matthew 19: 14; Luke 18: 16; Mark 10; 14).
The dedication reads: ‘To the glory of God and in memory of Catherine, the wife of William Browne MD of the Friary, born 12th July 1813, died 6th December 1880.’
The large window on the south wall is the earliest stained-glass in the chapel and dates from ca 1855. It depicts Christ healing the crippled man at the pool of Bethesda (John 5: 1-16).
This window has no dedication, but the choice of this image from Saint John’s Gospel alludes to Saint John’s title as a ‘hospital.’
John Piper’s magnificent stained-glass window depicting ‘Christ in Majesty’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
John Piper’s magnificent stained-glass window depicting ‘Christ in Majesty’, executed by Patrick Reyntiens, was placed in the east window of the chapel in 1984.
This is a work of great solemnity and power in strong colours, and is John Piper’s last major undertaking. It shows Christ in Majesty, with the Mercian cross offset, and surrounded by the symbols of the Four Evangelists: Saint Matthew (man), Saint Mark (winged lion), Saint Luke (bull) and Saint John (eagle).
The design was influenced by Piper’s drawings of Romanesque sculptures in the Dordogne and Saintonge areas in western France in 1955-1975.
In the north aisle, the shrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary is in the style of the Italian ceramicist Lucca della Robbia.
There are 14 Stations of the Cross along the north wall.
A Triptych of wooden plaques (1999) depicting the Baptism of Christ by Saint John the Baptist is on the east wall of the north aisle. This is the work of a nun.
The octagonal Baptism font is also placed in the north aisle.
At the west end of the north aisle, the organ (1972) is by Hill, Norman and Beard. Beside the organ is a framed list of the Priors, Master or Wardens of Saint John’s from 1257.
Since the Tractarian Revival, the Chapel of Saint John’s has stood in the Catholic tradition of the Church of England. The chapel continues to provide daily and weekly services, and regularly draws a congregation of residents and visitors, offering a daily and weekly round of services from Common Worship, under the direction of the Master, the Revd Sharon Greensmith.
There is a Sung Eucharist in the chapel every Sunday at 10 a.m., an additional Said Eucharist at 8:30 every fourth Sunday of the month, a mid-week Said Eucharist at 10 a.m. on Wednesdays, and Founders’ Prayers at 9 a.m. on Monday, Thursday and Friday, as well as baptisms, weddings and funerals.
At the beginning of this century, the original 1495 east wing of Saint John’s was renovated, enlarged and updated. The hospital façade of this east wing faces Saint John Street has eight large projecting stacks with offsets, and an offset buttress to right end.
The entrance, between the sixth and seventh stacks has a Tudor head in an architrave, with a label mould battened door with strap hinges. The oval plaque above, erected in 1720, records the re-founding of the hospital in 1495, and a cartouche above bears the heraldic arms of Bishop William Smyth.
Most of the windows on this façade are small, with brick sills, chamfered jambs and ashlar lintels, and leaded glazing. There is a larger window to the left of the cartouche, the windows to the right of entrance are larger, where the window on the ground floor has a brick label, while that on the first floor has a two-light casement with small-paned glazing.
The right end has two small windows on the ground floor and a later gabled oriel above, with a 1:3:1-light single-chamfered-mullioned window. The right return next to the chapel has a blocked elliptical-headed window and leaded light. The left end has 1929 additions forming a canted angle and wing to the rear, additions from 1966 of a single-storey return wing and a two-storey rear wing.
The rear elevation has a four-centred entrance to a cross-passage with a brick arch and niche above with a 19th century statue of Saint John the Baptist. There are two-light, three-light and single-light windows to the left; to the right are six two-storey canted bays of 1929 with 1:2:1-light windows.
In recent years, 18 new apartments have been built at Saint John’s without the Barrs. The project was delayed when 50 mediaeval skeletal remains – adults and children alike – were found in shallow graves. Their remains may help archaeologists learn more about the lives, times and habits of mediaeval pilgrims.
A sculpture of ‘Noah and the Dove’ by Simon Manby was commissioned by the trustees in 2006 and stands in the quadrangle. Manby created this statue in his studio in the Weaver Hills in north Staffordshire. It shows the dove returning to Noah with a fresh olive branch at the end of the flood.
With its distinctive row of eight Tudor chimneys fronting Saint John Street, Saint John’s Hospital remains a living landmark in Lichfield, and the grounds remain an oasis of peace and calm in the heart of the cathedral city.
Entering Saint John’s Hospital from Saint John Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Matthew 19: 3-12 (NRSVA):
3 Some Pharisees came to him, and to test him they asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?’ 4 He answered, ‘Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning “made them male and female”, 5 and said, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’ 7 They said to him, ‘Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?’ 8 He said to them, ‘It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but at the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another commits adultery.’
10 His disciples said to him, ‘If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.’ 11 But he said to them, ‘Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given. 12 For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.’
Light pouring into the chapel in Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayer:
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Reducing Stigma.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (18 August 2023) invites us to pray in these words:
We pray for health workers and health centres serving communities around the world.
‘Holy, Holy, Holy’ … remembering a former Master of Saint John’s Hospital (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
The Collect:
Let your merciful ears, O Lord,
be open to the prayers of your humble servants;
and that they may obtain their petitions
make them to ask such things as shall please you;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post Communion Prayer:
God of our pilgrimage,
you have willed that the gate of mercy
should stand open for those who trust in you:
look upon us with your favour
that we who follow the path of your will
may never wander from the way of life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
A statue of Saint John the Baptist facing the chapel court in Saint John’s Hospital (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
The widowed Elizabeth (‘Tetty’) Jervis Porter married Samuel Johnson in 1735 – he was then 25 and she was 46 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
During Lent this year, I am taking time each morning to reflect on words by Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the Lichfield-born lexicographer and writer who compiled the first authoritative English-language dictionary.
The Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum in Lichfield recently displayed a beautiful portrait of Johnson’s step-daughter, Lucy Porter, showing Lucy as a child.
At the time the portrait was loaned to the museum, the museum curator, Jo Wilson, told the Lichfield Mercury that Lucy ‘was very close to Johnson, but also an interesting figure in Lichfield’s history as she often helped in the Breadmarket Street shop, and had Redcourt House built later in her life.’
Thomas Macaulay described Johnson’s wife Tetty as ‘a short, fat, coarse woman, painted half an inch thick, dressed in gaudy colours, and fond of exhibiting provincial airs and graces.’ Other largely negative and unsympathetic descriptions of Elizabeth come from the actor David Garrick, a former pupil of Johnson, and Johnson’s friend the actor and diarist Hester Thrale.
But Johnson was very fond of his wife. Born Elizabeth Jervis, Tetty first married Henry Porter (1691-1734) in 1715, and they became friends of Johnson in 1732. On first meeting him, she said to her daughter Lucy: ‘That is the most sensible man I ever met.’
They married in Saint Werburgh’s Church, Derby, in 1735. Her dowry of over £600 was invested in setting up Edial Hall, a private school at Edial, near Lichfield. After the school’s failure in 1737, Johnson moved to London, where she joined him later that year.
Although the couple went through difficult periods, their marriage was certainly tested throughout their life together, only to be proven at the very end that their love was infinite and true.
Elizabeth died at 63 in 1752. Her gravestone inscription in Bromley Churchyard says in Latin: Formosae, cultae, ingeniosae, piae, ‘Beautiful, elegant, talented, and dutiful.’
The full inscription reads:
Hic conduntur reliquiae Elizabethae, Antiqua JARVISIORUM gent Peatlingae, apud Leicestrienses ortae; Formosae, cultae, ingeniosae, piae, Uxoris, primis nuptiis, Henrici PORTER, Secundis, Samuelis JOHNSON: Qui multum amatam diuque defletam Hoc lapide contexit Obiit Londini, Mense Mart, A.M. MDCCLIII.
The inscription mistakenly gives the year of her death as 1753.
Some years after her death, Johnson prayed in these words:
Almighty God, sanctify unto me the reflections and resolutions of this day. Let not my sorrow be unprofitable; let not my resolutions be in vain. Grant that my grief may produce true repentance, so that I may live and please thee … Grant me that the loss of my wife may teach me the true use of the blessings which are yet left me, and that however bereft of worldly comforts, I may find peace and refuge in thy service … May my affliction be sanctified, and that remembering how much every day brings me nearer to the grave, I may every day purify my mind and amend my life, by the assistance of thy Holy Spirit, till at last I shall be accepted by Thee, for Jesus sake. Amen.
In 1764, 12 years after his wife’s death, Johnson wrote in a diary:
Having before I went to bed composed the foregoing meditation and the following prayer, I tried to compose myself but slept unquietly. I rose, took tea, and prayed for resolution and perseverance. Thought on Tetty, dear poor Tetty, with my eyes full.
Johnson wrote an extended sermon for his wife, describing her vivacious character; although this was not published until after his death in 1788.
When Johnson died, he left Tetty’s wedding ring to his servant Francis Barber, who had the ring enamelled then gave it to his wife as a ring of mourning. This beautiful ring is on display in a small elegant box in the ‘London Life’ room in Samuel Johnson Birthplace and Museum in Lichfield.
