Saint John’s Church, Wilton Road, a lost church near Victoria station and a tribute to Frank Lloyd Wright

A tribute to Frank Lloyd Wright at 129 Wilton Road, Victoria, the site of Saint John’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

It would be easy to walk past 129 Wilton Road in Victoria, thinking it is just one more commercial office building in the City of Westminster. The building is close to Victoria Station and home to corporate tenants like Trident Energy and the events company IQPC.

But as they rush to and from Victoria Station, commuters may not notice the terrace above on the first floor of 129 Wilton Road or realise that the commercial and office building has been inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright and designed to provide a mixture of open plan or collaborative and quiet workspace with break-out zones and meeting rooms.

Were we alone in noticing the large, tall sculpted stonework by the entrance? It is engraved with the words ‘Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children – Frank Lloyd Wright’.

Perhaps the building was designed as a tribute to the great American architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1957). But I was interested in it first because it is site of the former he Church of Saint John the Evangelist, destroyed during the Blitz in World War II.

Saint John’s Church was designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield and built in 1874 (Photograph: A Corbett / Saint Peter’s)

I was in Pimlico and Belgravia last week, visiting a number of churches in the area, including Saint Peter’s Church, Eaton Square, Saint Saviour’s Church, Saint George’s Square, and Saint Gabriel’s Church, Warwick Square.

Wilton Road is on land between Pimlico and Victoria that was once part of the larger Grosvenor Estate. The street was named after Lady Eleanor Egerton, daughter of Thomas Egerton (1749-1814), 1st Earl of Wilton, who married Robert Grosvenor (1767-1845), 1st Marquess of Westminster.

Saint John’s Church, Wilton Road, was consecrated in 1874 as a chapel of ease to Saint Peter’s, Eaton Square, in order to reach out to the poor in the heavily populated area around Victoria Station.

The Revd George Howard Wilkinson (1833-1907), who was the Vicar of Saint Peter’s, Eaton Square, in 1870-1883, wished the church to be open to all. It was built with some difficulty on soft ground where barges used to unload their goods from the Grosvenor Basin, and this needed a foundation built on piles.

Fundraising for building the new church attracted a donation of £2,000 from Hugh Grosvenor (1825-1899), 1st Duke of Westminster, while he attending Saint Peter’s Church one Sunday morning, and Queen Victoria donated £150, on the grounds that she was a parishioner.

The church was built on the west side of Wilton Road, between Hudson’s Place and Gillingham Street. The building stood on the site that is now No 129 Wilton Road, Pimlico. It was designed in the Early Gothic style by the architect Sir Arthur Blomfield (1829-1899), who at the time was working on Saint Peter’s Church, Eaton Square, when he enlarged and reordered in 1875, adding a chancel at the east end and north and south transepts, and ‘fiercely normanised’ the interior.

Blomfield’s other works include Saint Luke’s Chapel at the former Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford (1864), Saint Barnabas Church, Jericho, Oxford (1869), Selwyn College, Cambridge (1882-1889), rebuilding the nave of Saint Saviour’s Church, now Southwark Cathedral (1890-1897), and Saint Saviour’s Church, Arklow, Co Wicklow (1899).

Inside Saint John’s Church, Wilton Road, once known for its quiet reverence and absence of fussiness (Photograph: A Corbett / Saint Peter’s)

Saint John’s Church on Wilton Road was built in brick with stone dressings, with a broad nave, a short chancel, and a thin square tower topped by a squat slate spire. Embellishments were added in succeeding years, including mosaics, a marble high altar and triptych, seven sanctuary lamps in the Anglo-Catholic style, and textiles designed by the architect George Frederick Bodley (1827-1907).

Saint John’s had a ring of eight bells, supplied by John Warner and Sons. They were dedicated on 2 October 1878 by the Archdeacon of London, Piers Claughton (1814-1884), former Bishop of Saint Helena and of Colombo. The bells were later removed when they proved to be too heavy, although some sources they were lost with the church during the Blitz in 1940.

Wilkinson later became Bishop of Truro (1883-1891), Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane (1893-1907), and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church (1904-1907).

Meanwhile, Saint John’s became a popular and thriving church in the late 19th century and into the 20th century, with a strong preaching and teaching tradition and a congregation drawn from across London.

It is said the church was known for its work, quiet reverence and absence of fussiness. The Eucharist was the main Sunday service, and Eucharistic vestments were adopted in 1908 – by then, they were in use at Saint Peter’s for over a decade.

Many men from Saint John’s were killed during World War I, and during those years there was a shortage of clergy and little money.

After the war, incense was introduced into the liturgy in 1924, and the sacrament was reserved. A large bronze crucifix was set up facing Wilton Street as a War Memorial, which is now on the south wall of Saint Peter’s Church, near the side entrance to the church office and the Knightsbridge Kindergarten.

When World War II broke out in 1939, the church was first closed, as it was too far from an air raid shelter. It then reopened for weekday masses, with Sunday services taking place in Saint Peter’s.

Saint John’s Church received a direct hit on Friday 11 October 1940 and was mostly destroyed. The remains were pulled down a few years later. The valuable vestments were restored and other items from the interior that survived were given to Saint Peter’s and other churches.

The engraved inscription at the entrance to 129 Wilton Road is ascribed to the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, one of the most influential figures in the architectural movements of the 20th century. He believed in designing in harmony with humanity and the environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture.

But the quotation is a well-known saying about stewardship of the environment for future generations sustainability. It is variously attributed to Crazy Horse, or as an ancient proverb, or a Native American or Kenyan saying. Written records trace variations of it to mid-20th century environmental campaigns and indigenous advocacy, but in Jewish tradition there is also a similar saying in the Midrash: ‘Take care not to spoil or destroy My world, for if you do, there will be no one to repair it after you’ (Midrash Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:13).

The revolving door at the entrance to 129 Wilton Road obscures the engraved words and makes them difficult to read. Perhaps the building could do with an explanatory panel, and a plaque recalling Saint John’s Church, which stood on the site for 66 years from 1874 to 1940.

No 129 Wilton Road may have been designed as a tribute to Frank Lloyd Wright (Photograph: www.129wiltonroad.com)

‘A little too gorgeous and complete’: the Catholic church in Cambridge owes much to a former ballerina

The Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and the English Martyrs (OLEM) stands on the corner of Hills Road and Lensfield Road in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

It is impossible not to notice the exuberantly massive Roman Catholic Church that stands tall on a prominent street corner on the way from the train station into the heart of Cambridge city centre.

This impressive – if not overpowering – castellated Gothic building is known locally as the Catholic church, or simply as ‘the Catholic,’ although local Cambridge Catholics often refer to it affectionately by its acronym, OLEM – Our Lady and the English Martyrs.

It was the first church my friend from Ireland and I visited during our walk-about in Cambridge two weeks ago. She was taking a short ‘top-up’ course in theology, and I was happy to show off the Cambridge I have known for almost 20 years.

The Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and the English Martyrs, also known as the Church of Our Lady and the English Martyrs (OLEM), stands on the corner of Hills Road and Lensfield Road, a busy junction facing Regent Street and Gonville Place and a prominent corner in south-east Cambridge sometimes known locally as ‘Hyde Park Corner’.

It is a large Gothic Revival church built in 1885-1890, a Grade I listed building and the tallest building in Cambridge at 65 metres (213 ft), including the spire.

The Church of Our Lady and the English Martyrs is a large Gothic Revival church in Cambridge designed by Archibald Dunn and Charles Hansom (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

For the first quarter of the 19th century, the nearest place for Catholic worship in Cambridge was at Sawston Hall, about 10k m south of the city. Saint Andrew’s Church was designed in 1842-1843 by AWN Pugin (1812-1852), the great architect of the Gothic revival, and built on Union Road. At the same time, Pugin published his trenchant critique in the Ecclesiologist of the architecture and style of Saint Paul’s Church, close-by on Hills Road. A few years later, Pugin would play an important role in the restoration, decoration and furnishing of the mediaeval chapel in Jesus College in 1846-1849.

The parish priest Canon Thomas Quinlivan (1816-1885) was born in Co Clare, and arrived in Cambridge in 1843. He quickly became a popular figure and acquired additional adjacent land In 1865, but he could not raise adequate funds a new building project needed.

The ban on Roman Catholics attending the university, receiving degrees or holding fellowships in Cambridge colleges, was finally lifted in 1871. Until then, Saint Andrew’s had served the small Catholic community in Cambridge, but the increasing number of Catholic students at the University of Cambridge created the need for a new, much larger church.

With the aid of the Duke of Norfolk, the Lensfield estate was bought in 1879, and the task of raising more funds fell to Canon Quinlivan’s successor, Monsignor Christopher Scott. The new church was all made possible by Yolande Lyne-Stephens (1812-1894), a wealthy widow and famed French-born former ballerina at the Paris Opera and Drury Lane.

Monsignor Scott wished to commemorate the Catholic Martyrs who died between 1535 and 1681, over 30 of whom had been in residence at the University. On the Feast of the Assumption, 15 August 1884, she offered Scott £70,000 – the equivalent of almost £10 million today – to finance building the new church in its entirety, ensuring that it was to be built to her taste. She also paid for other churches, convents and schools in England and for the bishop’s house in Northampton.

Yolande Lyne-Stephens bankrolled the construction of the ‘mini-cathedral’ in Cambridge, one of the largest Catholic churches in England (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Yolande Lyne-Stephens was the widow of Stephens Lyne-Stephens (1801-1860), a wealthy landowner who was said to be the richest commoner in England, and she bankrolled the construction of this ‘mini-cathedral’ – one of the largest Catholic churches in England.

In her biographical study, The beauty of her age, Jenifer Roberts tells the dark side of the story of Yolande Lyne-Stephens. She was born Pauline Duvernay in poverty in Paris, and by today’s standards, the adults involved in her life in her teens would all be accused of abusing her and her fellow dancers.

Roberts describes how Yolande was sold for sexual assignations from puberty, gave birth to two children, and became the mistress of a succession of men by the age of 18, including Louis Veron, manager of the Paris Opera.

When Yolande married Stephens Lyne-Stephens, the wealthy heir to the Lyne-Stephens glass fortune, she retired from the stage. They were married for 23 years before Stephens Lyne-Stephens died. Numerous court cases followed but Yolande inherited the family fortune and became the wealthiest woman in England – even richer, it was said, than Queen Victoria.

She dedicated the rest of her life to philanthropy and Catholic piety, despite living in a barely disguised ménage-à-trois with General Edward Stopford Claremont (1819-1890) and his Frances Charlotte (Wetherall) – Stopford Claremont was an illegitimate grandson of the 2nd Earl of Courtown.

The church is designed in the Gothic revival style, inspired by the Early Decorated or Middle Pointed style of the late 13th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The new church was designed by the architects Archibald Dunn (1832-1912) and Charles Hansom (1842-1900) of Newcastle. Their work includes the tower of the Catholic cathedral in Newcastle (Grade I), and the chapel of Stonyhurst College (Grade II*).

The building work by Rattee and Kett began in 1885, and the foundation stone was laid in June 1887. Despite the ill health of Yolande Lyne-Stephens, the church was completed and then consecrated on 8 October 1890. By the time of its completion, the total cost had risen from £30,000 to £70,000.

The first Mass was attended by all the Roman Catholic bishops of England and Wales except for Cardinal Manning and Bishop Vaughan.

The church is one of the largest Catholic churches in the United Kingdom. Outside and inside, it is a riot of detail and decoration: Gothic gargoyles and sleeping dogs, angels and saints, apostles and martyrs, all decorate and embellish the church in stone and in glass.

It is designed in the Gothic revival style, inspired by the Early Decorated or Middle Pointed style of the last quarter of the 13th century, and follows the traditional cruciform layout. Although it is not traditionally oriented – the High Altar and liturgical east face the geographic south-east – my references follow the conventional liturgical compass points.

The church has a polygonal apse and a central lantern tower. Casterton stone was used for the foundation, Ancaster stone for the plinth, the remainder is Combe Down stone, while the interior is built in Bath stone, Plymouth marble and Newbiggin stone.

The spire, the tallest in Cambridge, is 65 metres (214 ft) high and can be seen for several miles. The approximate internal dimensions are: length 48 metres (157 ft), width across the aisles 16 metres (52 ft), width at the transepts 22 metres (72 ft), and the height of the nave 15 metres (49 ft).

The west front and west door of the church in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The (north) entrance porch is richly carved and ornamented, with a trumeau featuring Saint John Fisher (1469-1535), cardinal, Bishop of Rochester, Lady Margaret’s Professor of Divinity and Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, who was martyred on 22 June 1535. In the tympanum is a figure of the Virgin Mary surrounded by sensing angels and a scrolling vine populated by martyrs.

The best general impression of the interior is obtained from the gateway in the iron screen dividing the nave from the ante-chapel. Inside and over the west door stands the figure of Our Lady of the Assumption crowned with lilies and standing on the crescent moon with the vanquished serpent beneath. The west window shows the English Martyrs arranged in two principal groups, the clergy on the south side with Saint John Fisher in their midst and the laity on the north grouped round Saint Thomas More.

The depictions in the windows include the dedications of Cambridge Colleges and scenes from the lives of English martyrs, in particular Saint John Fisher. The nave windows depict saints connected with the Church in Britain, arranged in chronological order from east to west.

The aisle windows were almost completely destroyed when the church was struck by a bomb on 1941, but were later replaced in their original form. They represent the various sufferings of the English Martyrs, their being brought before the council, racked, hung, drawn and quartered in the sight and sympathy of the faithful.

The north aisle windows depict Carthusians, Saint Thomas Moore, Blessed Margaret Pole and others, while the south aisle is made a ‘Fisher Aisle’, devoted to scenes from the life of Saint John Fisher.

Inside the church, looking from the iron screen dividing the nave from the ante-chapel towards the rood and the liturgucal east end (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Rood, between the nave and the sanctuary, is of the type known as Majestas, with the figure of Christ with glorified wounds, robed in alb, stole and pallium as High Priest and crowned as King ‘reigning from the Tree’. The oak cross is about 6 metres high, the figures of Christ, the Virgin Mary and Saint John are of Kauri pine. They were carved locally by B Maclean Leach and completed and blessed in 1914.

Beyond the present, modern altar is the High Altar with the relics of Saint Felix and Saint Constantia, early martyrs Church. The tabernacle and ornaments of the altar are French work from Lyons. The baldacchino above the High Altar is similar to one over the tomb of Robert the Wise (1275-1343) at Santa Chiara, Naples. The figure of Christ in glory at the top is supported by angels on each side.

The Chapel of the Holy Souls is at the west end of the south aisle. The sculpture above the altar depicts the solace and relief of the Holy Souls in Purgatory through the intercessions of the Virgin Mary and the angel who comforted Christ in Gethsemane.

The organ was built in 1890 by Abbott and Smith to a specification by the Dublin-born composer Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924), Professor of Music at Cambridge; his students included Herbert Howells, Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

The north aisle of the church, looking towards the east end (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The belfry houses a ring of eight bells hung for change ringing, with a ninth for the Angelus. All the bells were cast in 1895 by John Taylor & Co of Loughborough. The tenor bell is believed to be the largest in Cambridgeshire. The chimes heard at each quarter-hour of the clock, made by Potts of Leeds, are based on the ‘Alleluia’ chant for the Easter Vigil.

The church has a 16th-century oak statue of the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child beside the south aisle. The statue is said to have been found in Emmanuel College in 1850, and is said to be the same statue that Thomas Cromwell ordered to be removed in 1538. A notice under the statue the statue of was formerly in the Dominican priory that stood on the site of Emmanuel College.

The one additional donation Yolande Lyne-Stephens consented to was a mediaeval cross from the Austrian aristocrat Baron Anatole von Hügel (1854-1928), curator of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and a prominent Catholic in Cambridge.

The north entrance porch is richly carved and ornamented, with a trumeau featuring Saint John Fisher (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The church was intended to make a strong, dramatic statement of faith in a city that had a strong Protestant tradition. This new Catholic church on such a prominent site, with its dedication to the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales, caused much controversy among local Anglicans and members of the university. The steeple was taller than the then recently-completed All Saints’ Church opposite Jesus College, and such a large church outside the Church of England ruffled the feathers of many people in Cambridge.

Perhaps for these reasons and many others, EM Forster says in The Longest Journey that the Catholic church ‘watches over the apostate city, taller by many a yard than anything within, and asserting, however wildly, that here is eternity, stability, and bubbles unbreakable upon a windless sea.’

After its opening, the church saw a great rise in the number of Catholics in the parish. This was partly due to Monsignor Scott’s pastoral work as parish priest and Father Robert Benson’s reputation as a preacher. Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914) was, perhaps, the best-known priest associated with the church is. He had studied classics and theology at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1890-1893.

Benson was a son of Archbishop Edward White Benson of Canterbury, who had ordained him priest in 1895. But after some time with the Community of the Resurrection, he became a Roman Catholic in 1903, was ordained a priest a year later and was then sent to Cambridge, and was a curate there in 1905-1908.

He found the Church of Our Lady and the English Martyrs ‘a little too gorgeous and complete.’ But his impact on Cambridge undergraduates was so great that leading Cambridge Anglicans tried to put pressure on his family to make him leave.

Most of the windows were shattered and damaged during the Blitz in World War II (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

During the Blitz in World War II, a small bomb struck the sacristy during an air raid in 1941, blowing a 6-ft hole in the roof and another in the wall of the Sacred Heart chapel. The blast also shattered most of the windows and collapsed part of the organ gallery.

To bring the sanctuary in line with the liturgical directives resulting from the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), it was redesigned and reordered by Gerard Goalen (1918-1999), a major architect of the Liturgical Movement in Catholic church design. Bishop Charles Grant of Northampton consecrated a new central altar on 7 April 1973. The original high altar was later used mainly for reservation of the Blessed Sacrament.

The Stanford organ was renovated in 2002 by Nicholson & Co Ltd. The choir is semi-professional and includes former university choral scholars. A second choir, the Schola Cantorum, sings almost exclusively in Latin, and sings polyphony and Gregorian chant at the weekly solemn Latin Mass.

Looking out on Hills Road from the north porch (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The church was upgraded to a Grade I listed building from Grade II* in 2022. The rectory immediately to the south of the church dates from around 1890. In the Tudor style, of red brick with stone dressings and a castellated slate roof, it is a Grade II listed building.

Today, Cambridge is part of the Roman Catholic Diocese of East Anglia. Meanwhile, Pugin’s old church was dismantled and re-erected as the Church of the Sacred Heart in St Ives in Huntingdonshire and is now listed Grade II.

•The Right Revd Monsignor Provost Eugène Harkness is the Rector and parish priest. Mass times are: Saturday, 10 am and 6 pm (Vigil); Sunday, 8 am, 9:30, 11 am, 1 pm (Polish), 4:30 and 6: 30 (Latin); weekdays, 8 am and 12:15. The church is open daily

The rectory beside of the church is in the Tudor style, and is a Grade II listed building (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Greek Festival brings Greek tastes to Stony Stratford on Sunday, with song, dance, food and a special historical focus

Patrick Comerford

The Annual Greek Festival in Milton Keynes takes place in Stony Stratford tomorrow afternoon (Sunday 5 July 2026) in the grounds of Greek Orthodox Church and the Swinfen Harris Church Hall on London Road, from 12:30 to 5.30 pm.

This year’s festival coincides with special services and liturgical celebrations marking is the 1,400 Anniversary of a significant event in the year 626 CE in Constantinople, present-day Istanbul.

While the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius was away on an expedition, a besieging army of Avars appeared outside the walls of Constantinople, also known as Βασιλεύουσα (Basileuousa) or Queen of Cities. The siege dragged on for several months and the outnumbered Byzantine troops were at the point of reaching desperation.

Despite all the odds, the people of the city kept faith, and the clergy processed through the city, with senior officials and many people, walking along the great walls of the city with an icon of The Mother of God and praying for a miracle.

The answer to their prayers seemed to come when a great storm brought huge tidal waves and the destruction of most of the enemy fleet, causing the besieging forces to retreat.

In a spontaneous response, clergy, officials and people poured into the Church of Saint Mary in Vlachernae (modern day Ayvansaray) on the Golden Horn. There they prayed all night standing up, hence the title Akathistos Hymn, giving thanks to Virgin Mary for the deliverance of their city. The Greek title akathistos literally means ‘not sitting’, because the hymn is sung while all remain standing.

The late Metropolitan Kallistos has written about the Akathistos Hymn as one of the greatest marvels of Greek religious poetry, with a richness of imagery that is the despair of any translator. The Akathistos Hymn has 24 main stanzas, alternatively long and short: each long stanza bears the title ‘Ikos’ and ends with the refrain ‘Hail, Bride without bridegroom’, while each short stanza is termed ‘kontakion’ and ends with the refrain ‘Alleluia’.

The Akathist Hymn is one of the most well-loved services of devotion in the Orthodox Church. Many scholars agree that the Akathist was composed by Saint Romanos the Melodist, who died in the year 556.

The original church in Constantinople has a rich and varied history but only a small shrine remains. The Ecumenical Patriarch made special reference in the Ecumenical Patriarchate Yearbook to this year having a focus on Panagia Vlachernae.

The Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford is dedicated to Saint Ambrose and Saint Stylianos. It also houses a chapel dedicated to Saint Mary of Vlachernae, the only such chapel in north-west Europe. Because of this, the Greek community is dedicating this year’s Paniyiri or Annual Greek Festival to commemorating this historic event.

A number of church services have been held since Wednesday (1 July), including Holy Vigils on Wednesday and Thursday, the Paraclete Canon to the Most Holy Theotokos last night, and Solemn Vespers from 6 pm this evening. The celebrations tomorrow (Sunday 5 July) begin with Matins, followed by a Solemn Divine Liturgy, starting at 9 am and ending with a blessing from the Holy Water of Our Lady of Vlachernae in Constantinople.

The festivities continue this afternoon with the Panigyri or Greek Festival 2026 from 12.30 to 5.30 pm. There will be live Greek music, traditional dances, food and drink, desserts, salads, souvlaki, ecclesiastical items and coffees, including Greek coffee and frappé – which is a Greek invention – all bringing a Hellenic and Mediterranean air to the heart of Stony Stratford.

Diavazo Greek Books are bringing with their specially selected range of Greek books, offering an insight into Greek culture and life. The teachers and pupils from the Greek School with also will be present, ready to have a friendly chat about Greek lessons for children and adults at all levels. The school is also having its summer celebrations next Thursday (9 July), with films, a barbecue and family fun from 5 pm.


Greek dancing at last year’s Greek Festival in Stony Stratford (Patrick Comerford)

Holy Rood Church, Oxford, a pioneering building in the Liturgical Movement built before Vatican II

Holy Rood Church, near Folly Bridge, Oxford, was designed by Gilbert Flavel and has been described as ‘a landmark in English Catholic ecclesiology’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

We spent a day in Oxford earlier this week, and as temperatures rose during the day and the heatwave began to take a grip on the land, I went for a walk by the river and in search of some churches and ecclesiastical sites I had not visited before.

Holy Rood Church is near Folly Bridge on the Abingdon Road, and a short walk south from the centre of Oxford, between the late 18th century Grandpont House, now owned by Opus Dei, and the playing fields of Brasenose College.

The church has been described as ‘a landmark in English Catholic ecclesiology’ and is advanced in its liturgical planning. It was designed by the architect Gilbert Flavel, who was inspired by Saint Paul’s Church, Bow Common, designed by Robert Maguire and Michael Murray. It has a large number of works of high artistic merit, including works associated with Eric Gill.

Inside Holy Rood Church, Oxford, built in 1961, a year before Vatican II opened (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Holy Rood Church serves North Hinksey parish, the most northern parish in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portsmouth, whose boundaries mainly follow the old county boundaries. The Hinksey areas were transferred from Berkshire to Oxfordshire in two phases: New Hinksey in 1889; and North Hinksey, South Hinksey and Hinksey Hill in 1974.

Building the church was made possible through an endowment in 1956 by a soldier, diplomat and explorer, Colonel Reginald Schomberg (1880-1958). Schomberg, who was ordained priest late in life, entrusted Father John Crozier (1917-1993), the priest in the North Hinksey parish from 1954 to 1968, with finding a site for a new church for Oxford Catholics living south of the river and in neighbouring villages.

The site was originally the orchard of Grandpont House, the former home of the Salter family, and Crozier bought it from Brasenose College in 1959.

The free-standing altar in Holy Rood Church, Oxford, and the giant circular corona by Michael Murray, symbolising the 12 gates of Jerusalem and the 12 apostles (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Liturgical Movement radically reassessed how churches reflect celebrating the Word of God. It focussed on the Eucharist, and the relationship of the congregation to each other and to God. This movement was accepted by the Roman Catholic Church through the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), although its importance was evident as early as 1947 with Pope Pius XII’s 1947 Mediator Dei et Hominum and the 1955 encyclical De musica sacra.

By the mid-1950s, many church architects were exploring e centralised and circular church plans, moving away from traditional longitudinal plans. The Catholic Herald in 1962 published a list of more than a dozen British churches along this plan form that were recently built or were being built.

In light of the liturgical movement and its architectural effects, the Oxford-based architect Gilbert Flavel was chosen in 1959. Flavel, an Anglican, was chosen because of his sympathetic attitude towards the new liturgical thinking, and Crozier had admired his restoration of Saint Michael at the North Gate, Oxford, and his work at the London College of Divinity in Norwood.

The corner stone by the entrance recalls the deidication of the church in 1961 by Bishop Thomas Holland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

In the years immediately before Vatican II, Crozier travelled widely throughout Europe, studying church design in relation to the liturgical revival. In 1958, he was impressed with James Gardner’s British Pavilion at the World’s Fair in Brussels, ‘which I thought would make an admirable church on a riverside site. Like Coventry Cathedral, however, it was oblong, whereas the new liturgy seemed to demand a building in the round or square. Each of the three towered segments of the pavilion was a square. An enlarged replica of a segment could form the basis of a church, in a style bringing out the symbolism of God’s tent among men.’

Flavel designed the church in an advanced liturgical style, before the reforms introduced at the time the Second Vatican Council. His design conceived of a church ‘in the round’ and tent-like. This enabled Mass to celebrated in the then traditional ad orientem, facing east, as well as versus populum, facing the people, as became normal.

The dedication is to the Holy Rood, (‘Holy Cross’), and the whole building is designed on a plan of a ‘Jerusalem Cross’ with equal arms, and a Jerusalem cross also surmounts the central lantern. The church is octagonal with a square lantern of four glazed gables cutting into the pyramid roof, and the walls are of yellow-brown brick. The tent shape reflects the tent of the Tabernacle in the Old Testament, the dwelling place of the presence of God.

The church was built for £35,000 by Bartlett Brothers of Witney. It was dedicated by Bishop Thomas Holland, coadjutor bishop of Portsmouth as titular Bishop of Etenna, on 16 December 1961, in the year before Vatican II opened. The church was consecrated by Bishop Derek Worlock on 5 February 1962.

To the left of the entrance, the corner stone has the inscription ‘19+61’ and ‘Huius Ecclesiae Lapidem Angularem Iecit + RR DD Thomas Holland Episcopus Etennae’. To the right of the entrance is a spiral staircase to a choir gallery fitted with more pews for the choir and an organ.

The baptismal font is incised with the lettering Fons Vitae Aeternae (Fount of Eternal Life) by Kevin Cribb (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The plan of the church consists of an octagon set within a Greek Cross for the main worship space, with ancillary spaces at the corners making up an overall rectangular plan. The Blessed Sacrament chapel is to one side, outside the rectangle. There is a glazed central entrance, its cruciform glazing subdivisions evoking the dedication. On either side are single-storey, flat-roofed spaces with ancillary functions.

The main double-height worship space rises up behind, with central raised top lighting with a pitched broach roof clad in copper sheeting. The walls are clad in pale brick, overlaying a steel frame construction.

The entrance doors lead into a narthex and baptistry, with ancillary rooms giving off to left and right. At the centre of this narthex and baptistry is a large granite font, the polished inside sufficiently large to allow for total immersion. It is incised with the lettering Fons Vitae Aeternae (Fount of Eternal Life), by Kevin Cribb (1928-2013), a son of Laurie Cribb, an assistant to Eric Gill.

The tent shape reflects the tent of the Tabernacle in the Old Testament, the dwelling place of the presence of God (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Crozier wrote that ‘the calm and simple dignity of Gill’s art harmonises with the new architecture, so the artists were as far as possible drawn from his school’. Cribb also carved the cornerstone on the left hand side of the entrance into the main body of the church.

The sanctuary is placed at the liturgical east end, and not – as at Saint Paul’s, Bow Common – at the centre of the building. However, the altar is and always was well forward of the east wall. The freestanding benches were originally raked at the sides to face towards the sanctuary.

The Blessed Sacrament Chapel to the right of the main seating area, is a low single-storey space and the only area in the church with stained glass windows. The floor of the narthex, nave and chapel is of black and white linoleum squares, producing a chequerboard effect. At the liturgical west end of the main worship space is a gallery with a large organ.

The abstract stained glass windows by Charles Ware are based on designs from Chartres Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The church is also notable for the quality of its furnishings. The altar, like the font, is of granite and inscribed with lettering by Kevin Cribb: Dux Vitae Mortuus Regnat Vivus (‘Life’s champion slain, lives and reigns for ever’). Hanging over this is a giant circular corona by Michael Murray, symbolising the 12 gates of Jerusalem, with the lights symbolising the 12 apostles.

This and the other metalwork are all by Michael Murray (1923-2005). They include a bronze Pantocrator on east wall behind the altar, the bronze Theotokos, based on a Romanesque relief in York Minster, on the wall near the Blessed Sacrament chapel, the tabernacle in the Blessed Sacrament chapel, the ciborium, chalice, sanctuary lamps, altar cross and candlesticks.

The Blessed Sacrament chapel has two abstract stained glass windows by Charles Ware based on designs from Chartres Cathedral.

The small stone carving by Eric Gill of Christ on the Tree of Life, above the tabernacle in the Blessed Sacrament chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The contents of Eric Gill’s chapel at Piggotts, near High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, were given by Gill’s daughter to Crozier in 1963. A small stone carving by Gill of Christ on the Tree of Life was installed above the tabernacle in the Blessed Sacrament chapel, while other furnishings went to Saint Thomas More, Boar’s Hill, also part of the main parish of North Hinksey.

The chapel wall also has tablets by Cribb commemorating Schomberg and Crozier. The bronze Stations of the Cross on the walls of the nave are lit by conical lights. The plaque honouring Our Lady of Poland beside the gallery stairs is a reminder of the contribution of the Polish community to the church.

Tablets by Kevin Cribb commemorate Canon John Crozier and Father Reginald Schomberg (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The church was listed Grade II in 2020 for its architectural interest as a largely intact example of a 1960s church designed to meet the changing worship practices of the period; for its interior and it with high quality, designed fixtures and fittings; and because it is illustrative of post-war churches designed to the principles of the Liturgical Movement.

Inside Holy Rood Church, facing the west end and the organ gallery (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

• The parish priest is Father Daniel Lloyd, a former Anglican. Saturday Vigil Masses are at 5 pm (Divine Worship of the Personal Ordinariate of Walsingham) and 7:30 pm (Portugese); Sunday Masses are at 11:15 am and 5 pm (Latin, 1962). Weekday Masses are at 9 am. The church is open on weekdays from 8:30 to 5:15.

The spiral staircase leading to the organ gallery (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Mary’s Church, Dunstable, typifies the work of the church architect Desmond Williams and his liturgical priorities

Saint Mary’s Church, Dunstable, completed in 1964, is typical of the work of the architect Desmond Williams (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

When I was in Dunstable in Bedfordshire last week, the two buildings I truly wanted to visit are Saint Peter’s Priory Church in the centre of the town, which I wrote about yesterday (31 May 2026), and the Roman Catholic Church, Saint Mary’s Church, on West Street.

Saint Mary’s was designed on a circular plan by the distinguished church architect Desmond Williams (1932-2026) when he was not yet 30. It was built in 1962-1964 and is one of four churches he designed that are listed Grade II. It has been listed for four principal reasons:

• an early example of the impact of the Liturgical Movement on church design and anticipated the reforms adopted at the Second Vatican Council;
• an important early work in the career of Desmond Williams, an architect notable for his innovative church buildings at a time of great change in ecclesiastical architecture;
• its innovative circular form and layout;
• its intact interior, including good quality bespoke furnishings and a highly unusual tetrahedral ceiling.

Saint Mary’s Church, Dunstable, with its circular plan and tetrahedral ceiling of 600 aluminium pyramids, is one of Desmond Williams’s four listed Catholic churches (Photograph © Robert Proctor/The Guardian)

The Roman Catholic Church was growing in England in the late 19th and early 20th, and this growth created the need to build a large number of churches that would serve the religious and social needs of a growing community.

Until 1927, Catholics in Dunstable had to travel to nearby towns to attend Mass. In that year the Bishop of Northampton granted a petition for Mass to be said in Dunstable under the leadership of the Congregation of the Mission or the Vincentians based in Potters Bar.

The new parish was dedicated to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal and the first church was built in 1935. The former building survives as the parish social centre in the grounds of the present church, but has been heavily altered. When the Spanish Vincentians left the parish, they were succeeded by and the Irish Vincentians.

As Dunstable expanded after World War II, plans were drawn up for a larger church in 1961 and the foundation stone of a new church was laid on 29 April 1962. Bishop Leo Parker of Northampton blessed and opened the building on 15 March 1964. The new church, dedicated to Our Lady Immaculate, was designed by Desmond Williams and was built by R Willis and Son at a cost of £72,000.

The church is circular in plan. The internal layout places the altar in front of the congregation, rather than at the centre as was the case at groundbreaking churches of the Liturgical Movement in church design. Nevertheless, Williams’s work was at the forefront of new design and draws the congregation together around the altar, anticipating the emphasis on a greater sense of communion and community in worship that is at the heart of the major reforms of the Second Vatican Council, expressed in Sacrosanctum Concilium, the 1963 Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy.

The liturgical arrangement in Dunstable is very similar to some highly significant later churches such as the Roman Catholic Cathedral at Clifton (1969-1973).

A contemporary presbytery and offices were built alongside the new church and a later hut was built to the north of the church beside a Garden of Remembrance (2000). The church has not been heavily altered since its completion, although the baptistery was later re-purposed as a shop.

Meanwhile, the association of the Irish Vincentians with Saint Mary’s Parish in Dunstable came to end when the parish was officially transferred to the Diocese of Northampton in September 2019.

Saint Mary’s Church, Dunstable, is organised around a circular worship space (Photograph © Historic England Archive)

Desmond Williams and Associates designed a number of modern churches, including Saint Augustine’s Church, Manchester (1966-1968) with a notable reredos by Robert Brumby; Saint Dunstan’s Church, Birmingham (1966-1968), and Saint Michael’s Church, Penn, Wolverhampton (1967-1968). His other churches that I have visited include the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Bicester, Oxfordshire (1963).

Saint Mary’s Church, Dunstable, is built of load-bearing brick and concrete, with walling in red-brown Fletton bricks and stained glass. The roof is of steel trusses covered in copper and asphalt. The interior features ironwork and joinery of pine and laminated tropical hardwoods.

The church is organised around a circular worship space with 12 projecting segments forming petal-like bays around its circumference. To the south-east, three full-height bays extend further outwards and are combined to form an entrance foyer with a baptistry and chapel at either side.

The stairs from the foyer lead to a gallery that cantilevers into the worship space. An ambulatory runs around the perimeter of the worship space cutting archways through brick piers to create a continuous path. Behind the altar, the ambulatory ramps upwards and connects with the sacristy and boiler room in a single-storey projection to the north of the church.

The principal entrance of Saint Mary’s Church, Dunstable, is at the centre of three projecting bays (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The exterior of the church is divided into 12 bays separated by full-height stained glass recesses with rectilinear multi-coloured panes. Set back above these bays is a plain-glazed clerestory beneath a copper roof that rises gently to a needle-like spirelet topped with a Celtic cross.

The principal entrance is at the centre of three projecting bays. Three modern replacement doors are accessed under three segmental concrete hoods to enter the foyer. Above the hoods is the coat of arms of Pope Paul VI, who was Pope when the church opened. On either side is a narrow window and five further windows are above. Most other bays have 10 slit windows arranged across four rows. The three bays at the north-west are not separated by glazing and connect to a single-storey projection with plain windows and a doorway at the top of a small cantilevered flight of concrete steps.

Inside the church, the worship space consists of four polygonal ranks of pews in good quality pine with open backs and upholstered kneelers on hinges. The bench ends follow the geometry of the benches and each has a cross in relief at the uppermost corner.

The nave floor, which has developed large cracks, is original and is laid in diamond patterns of grey and white tiles. Axially positioned opposite the entrance and in front of the pews, a wide polygonal sanctuary has a communion rail of cruciform brass stanchions and a dark marble top. The sanctuary steps are terrazzo and lead to a large white marble altar inlaid with gold mosaic tiles reading: Adoro Te Devote. Iron openwork behind the altar supports a large crucifix and allows views of the only bay to have stained glass in the narrow slit windows.

The whole worship space is unified by a sound-absorbing ceiling of 600 aluminium pyramids in 18 shades of blue and white radiating in concentric rings from a Greek cross in a boss at the centre. Williams’s design for the ceiling evokes mediaeval fan vaulting, especially that of the chapel at King’s College, Cambridge.

Within the ambulatory there are two confessionals clad in tropical hardwood with plain interiors. To the east of the narthex, Williams placed a baptistery entered through a screen of iron openwork of the same design as the reredos and lectern, on which hang two carved doves. The baptistry, now a shop, retains a round font in fine white marble carved with a pattern of squares that echo the stepped square recess in the floor that is now covered, and a suspended wooden square of the same proportions that hangs from the ceiling. The font is supported on a square shaft with a mosaic figure of Saint John the Baptist on the front and water on the back.

The architect Desmond Williams died earlier this year (31 January 2026) aged 93. He is best known for his design of modern Catholic churches, reflecting a rare ability to bring together liturgical function, architectural ambition and artistic collaboration. The quality and significance of his work were recognised during his lifetime with the listing of four of his churches, a distinction that placed him among the leading figures of post-war British architecture.

Saint Mary’s Church, Dunstable, which was completed in 1964, is typical of his work. The building’s circular form cradled the congregation in an expansive embrace, bringing them nearer to the altar. Its real drama, however, lay in its complex tetrahedral ceiling, described as ‘resembling a giant and delicate piece of origami’. It is fashioned from 600 aluminium pyramids bolted together in alternating bands of blue and white – ‘a modern vault of heaven’, as the obituary writer said in The Gurdian.

Desmond Williams explained: ‘The ceiling was inspired by my earlier visits to King’s College Chapel in Cambridge’, with its exquisite stone lattice of mediaeval fan vaulting.

Williams designed churches that are bold yet disciplined, characterised by a confident use of materials, proportion and acoustics. His other listed churches were all completed in 1968.

Collaboration lay at the heart of his practice. At Saint Augustine’s Church, Manchester, he worked closely with the ceramic artist Robert Brumby, whose imposing sculptural reredos, along with Pierre Fourmaintraux’s abstract stained glass, elevate and enrich the architectural fabric. The unified and powerful liturgical space they created exemplifies the progressive, interdisciplinary spirit of 1960s British modernism.

The cot of arms of Pope Paul VI above the entrance to Saint Mary’s Church, Dunstable (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Desmond Williams was born in Whalley Range, Manchester, on 7 July 1932, the son of Sydney Williams, a draughtsman of electrical systems on submarines, and his wife, Eleanor, a staunch Catholic, He was educated at Saint Bede’s College, Manchester, where his early interest in architecture was encouraged.

A formative moment came during a teenage visit to Quarr Abbey on the Isle of Wight. There the abbey’s simple brick interior, its harmonious proportions and powerful combination of architecture, music and liturgy left a lasting impression and instilled a lifelong fascination with the relationship between space, sound and spiritual experience. His teenage interests in architecture were strengthened by a cycling trip through East Anglia, exploring Norwich Cathedral, along with local churches and historic houses.

Williams studied architecture at the University of Manchester School of Architecture, where his contemporaries included Donald Buttress, later the surveyor of the fabric of Westminster Abbey. After qualifying, he was briefly in partnership with Arthur Farebrother in Altrincham, securing early commissions for churches and schools. His first task as project architect was Saint Catherine of Siena Church, Didsbury (1957), designed in the style of a Romanesque basilica.

He was only 28 when he set up his own practice in Manchester, nurturing strong professional links with the Department of Education and Science that led to a steady stream of commissions. One of his first church commissions he received was for Saint Mary’s, Dunstable. The schools and colleges he designed included an extension to Ampleforth College, the Benedictine-run boarding school at Ampleforth Abbey.

Williams formed a partnership with the W & JB Ellis of Liverpool in 1968. This expanded into Ellis Williams Architects, with studios in London, Berlin and across the north of England. He was appointed OBE in 1988 in recognition of his work as a church architect and he continued working until he was in his mid 90s. He died on 31 January 2026.

• Sunday Masses in Saint Mary’s are: Saturday Vigil, 6 pm; Sunday mornings, 9:30 and 11:30; weekday Masses are generally on Monday to Friday at 9:30, or 10 am on bank holidays.

A statue of the Virgin Mary in the grounds of Saint Mary’s Church, Dunstable (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Words of consolation and hope in Psalm 34 and the collects at Evening Prayer in Lichfield Cathedral

The Choir, Chapter Stalls and High Altar in Lichfield Cathedral before Evening Prayer yesterday (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

As the lies, mistruths, half-truths and misrepresentations continue to flow like torrents from the members of the Trump administration, from the Oval Office and from the White House, it is becoming increasingly difficult to imagine the depths to which these people can descend in a destructive vortex.

This week alone has seen Trump compare himself to Christ, healing the sick and raising the dead. He has virulently attacked the Pope and wrongly accused him of wanting Iran to have nuclear weapons.

We have seen JD Vance audaciously presuming to teach theology to the Pope.

We have seen Pete Hegseth quote a verse from Ezekiel that is not in the Bible but is, instead, from Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, as Jules murders an unarmed man in cold blood.

It all descended into absolute alcoholic farce when Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent mistakenly referred to the Strait of Hormuz as the ‘Straits of Vermouth’.

The very survival of the planet hangs on the decision-making capacity of these people. Where are we to find comfort, consolation and hope?

After a day of walking through the Staffordshire countryside, by canals and in fields, and through Rugeley, Armitage and Lichfield yesterday, I ended the day at Evening Prayer in Lichfield Cathedral.

Words of consolation in Psalm 34 at Evening Prayer in Lichfield Cathedral last night (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Some of the verses in Psalm 34, the psalm appointed for Evening Prayer, offered some of that much-sought comfort, consolation and hope in the face of these lies, misrepresentations, cruelty and bellicose war-mongering:

4 I sought the Lord and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears …
6 This poor soul cried, and the Lord heard me
and saved me from all my troubles.
7 The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him
and delivers them.
8 O taste and see that the Lord is gracious;
blessed is the one who trusts in him.
9 Fear the Lord, all you his holy ones,
for those who fear him lack nothing.
10 Lions may lack and suffer hunger,
but those who seek the Lord
lack nothing that is good.
11 Come, my children, and listen to me;
I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
12 Who is there who delights in life
and longs for days to enjoy good things?
13 Keep your tongue from evil
and your lips from lying words
. 14 Turn from evil and do good;
seek peace and pursue it.
15 The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous
and his ears are open to their cry.
16 The face of the Lord is against those who do evil,
to root out the remembrance of them from the earth.
17 The righteous cry and the Lord hears them
and delivers them out of all their troubles.
18 The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
and will save those who are crushed in spirit.
19 Many are the troubles of the righteous;
from them all will the Lord deliver them.
20 He keeps all their bones,
so that not one of them is broken.
21 But evil shall slay the wicked
and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.
22 The Lord ransoms the life of his servants
and will condemn none who seek refuge in him.

Words of consolation the collects at Evening Prayer in Lichfield Cathedral last night (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

There was comfort and some consolation too last night in the Second Collect at Evening Prayer and the Third Collect, for Aid against all Perils:

O God, from whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed: Give unto thy servants that peace which the world cannot give; that both our hearts may be set to obey thy commandments, and also that by thee we being defended from the fear of our enemies may pass our time in rest and quietness; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.

Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Evening lights in the Cathedral Close in Lichfield before Evening Prayer in Lichfield Cathedral last night (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

At the Chrism Eucharist in Christ Church, Oxford: both a cathedral and a college chapel

Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, is unique in its dual role as a cathedral and a college chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

I was at the Chrism Eucharist in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, this week, with the renewal of ordination vows by deacons, priests and bishops on Maundy Thursday (2 April 2026).

It was one of the last public services for Bishop Steve Croft before he retires as Bishop of Oxford, and he reminded as sharply of the words in the ordinal that ‘the trust that is now to be committed to your charge. Remember always with thanksgiving that the treasure now to be entrusted to you is Christ’s own flock, bought by the shedding of his blood on the cross. It is to him that you will render account for your stewardship of his people.’

The Diocese of Oxford has more church buildings than any other diocese in the Church of England and has more paid clergy than any other diocese except London. The diocese includes Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, with another five churches in nearby counties.

Inside Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, looking east from the choir towards the High Altar and the Rose Window (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, is both the college chapel of Christ Church and the cathedral church of the Diocese of Oxford. It was founded by Henry VIII with Cardinal Wolsey, and Christ Church is the largest Oxford college.

This was my second time as a priest living in the Diocese of Oxford since 2022 to take part in the Chrism Eucharist. Holy Week and Easter 2022 had been fraught times in the immediate aftermath of a stroke. I was at the Chrism Eucharist in Oxford in 2023, but missed it again in 2024 due to a hospital appointment in Milton Keynes, and in 2025, when I spent Holy Week and Easter in Crete.

I was a teenager when I first visited Christ Church more than 55 years ago. Despite the size of the diocese, this is one of the smallest cathedrals in the Church of England, and its dual role as cathedral and college chapel is unique.

Inside Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, looking west from the choir towards the organ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The cathedral was originally the church of Saint Frideswide’s Priory. The site is said to be the location of the nunnery founded by Saint Frideswide, the patron saint of Oxford, and her shrine is now in the Latin Chapel. It once held her relics, brought there in 1180, and it was the focus of pilgrimage from at least the 12th until the early 16th century.

Osney Abbey was surrendered in November 1539 and dissolved at the dissolution of the monastic houses. The last abbot was Robert King, who became the first Bishop of Oxford.

The Diocese of Oxford was formed out of part of the Diocese of Lincoln in 1542, and from September 1542 until June 1544, Osney Abbey was the seat of the bishop of the new diocese.

However, Osney was costly to run as a cathedral and in 1545 the bishop moved to the smaller and cheaper cathedral at Christ Church. Later, during the reign of Queen Mary, Bishop King was one of the judges at the trial of Thomas Cranmer.

Great Tom, described as the ‘loudest thing in Oxford’, now hangs in Tom Tower (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The abbey buildings soon fell into decay and were despoiled for the sake of the new foundation. Much of the stone found its way into local buildings, including Saint Frideswide’s as it was transformed into Christ Church. Osney Abey has been described as the greatest building that Oxford has lost.

Great Tom, the bell described as the ‘loudest thing in Oxford’ and now hanging in Tom Tower at Christ Church, was taken from the tower of Osney Abbey at the dissolution. Much of the monastic property was also transferred to Christ Church.

A statue of Cardinal Wolsey, founder of Christ Church, above the entrance to the Great Hall (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Frideswide’s Priory was surrendered in 1522 to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who had selected it as the site for his proposed college. However, in 1529 the foundation was taken over by Henry VIII. Work stopped, but the college was refounded by the king in June 1532. Henry VIII transferred the recently-created See of Oxford from Osney to Christ Church in 1546.

There has been a choir at the cathedral since 1526, when John Taverner was the organist and master of the choristers. The statutes of Wolsey’s original college, initially called Cardinal College, mentioned 16 choristers and 30 singing priests.

The nave, choir, main tower and transepts are late Norman. There are architectural features ranging from Norman to the Perpendicular style and a large rose window of the ten-part or botanical type.

The monument to the Irish philosopher Bishop George Berkeley of Cloyne in Christ Church, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Visitors to Oxford are often pointed to monuments such as those to the Wesley brothers, John and Charles Wesley, who were ordained in Christ Church, or the memorial to the poet WH Auden.

But this week I also noticed a number of monuments of Irish interest.

The philosopher George Berkeley (1685-1753), who was born in Co Kilkenny, was Bishop of Cloyne when he died in Oxford on 14 January 1753, and he was buried in Christ Church Cathedral.

The monument to William Brouncker, who was almost ruined when he bought an Irish peerage weeks before he died (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

A monument in the south transept remembers Colonel William Villiers (1614 -1643), 2nd Viscount Grandison of Limerick, who was killed during the First English Civil War. His father Sir Edward Villiers (1585-1626) was the older half-brother of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, a favourite of both James I and Charles I, and was the Lord President of Munster when he died in Cork in 1626.

William Villiers inherited the Irish peerage title of Viscount Grandison from his great-uncle Oliver St John (1559-1630). He fought as a royalist at the Battle of Edgehill and at the Storming of Bristol, where he was wounded in the right leg. He was taken to Oxford and died there he died on 29 September 1643. His daughter Barbara Villiers (1640-1709) was later a mistress of Charles II and Duchess of Cleveland.

Close by, another monument commemorates William Brouncker (1585-1645), 1st Viscount Brouncker of Castle Lyons and Baron Brouncker of Newcastle. His father, Sir Henry Brouncker, was Lord President of Munster (1603-1607). Malicious gossip said William Brouncker paid the then enormous sum of £1,200 for his titles in the Irish peerage, which he given on 12 September 1645, and was almost ruined as a result. He died a few months later.

The 17th century window by Abraham Van Linge shows the prophet Jonah looking over the city of Nineveh (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The cathedral has a fine collection of stained glass, the oldest being the 14th century Becket Window in the Lucy Chapel. It is one of very few images of Thomas Becket to survive the Reformation.

The glass at the west end of the north aisle is by the 17th century Dutch artist Abraham Van Linge. It dates from the period of Laudian Reform, around 1630, and shows the prophet Jonah looking over the city of Nineveh. A second window by Abraham van Linge is dedicated to Bishop King.

The window by Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris in the Latin Chapel is a tribute to Saint Frideswide (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The cathedral also has windows designed by Edward Burne-Jones, best known for his work with William Morris. The east window in the Latin Chapel was designed by Burne-Jones when he was still in his mid-20s and was made in 1859 by James Powell and Sons. It is a bold and colourful tribute to Saint Frideswide, and perhaps the finest of his early works, but also a dramatic contrast to his later work with Morris.

The Vyner window by Edward Burne-Jones (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Vyner memorial window remembers two undergraduates who were murdered in the late 19th century. This Pre-Raphaelite window is a also pun on their family name, with vine leaves prominent in upper part of window.

The Saint Cecilia Window by Edward Burne-Jones in the North Choir aisle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Saint Cecilia Window by Burne-Jones depicting scenes from the life of Saint Cecilia and her martyrdom is the East Window in the North Choir aisle or Saint George’s Chapel. The angels in the tracery at top were designed by William Morris. Malcom Bell was of the opinion in 1895 that the source of the three panels showing the saint’s life was in Chaucer’s ‘Second Nun’s Tale’.

The Saint Michael Window by Clayton and Bell in the north transept (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Clayton and Bell created the dramatic Saint Michael Window in the north transept in 1870.

A window unveiled in 2023 as a memorial to EH Burn. It depicts Saint Francis of Assisi and is by John Reyntiens.

The newest stained-glass window in Christ Church Cathedral is the Prodigal Son Window by the British artist Thomas Denny. It was commissioned through the generosity of an anonymous donor and unveiled last September.

The chrism oils on a side altar in Christ Church Cathedral on Maundy Thursday (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Dean of Christ Church is both the Dean of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, and the head of the governing body of Christ Church, a constituent college of the University of Oxford.

The chapter of canons of the cathedral has formed the governing body of the college since its foundation, with the dean as ex officio head of the chapter and ipso facto head of the college.

The Very Revd Dr Martyn Percy stepped down as the Dean of Christ Church in 2022 after a lengthy and acrimonious dispute. Previously, he had been the principal of Ripon College Cuddesdon (2004-2014). The governing body of Christ Church voted in 2023 to separate the ecclesiastical role of dean from the position of head of house of the college.

The Very Reverend Sarah Foot has been the Dean of Christ Church since 2023. She is also the Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Oxford since 2007, the first woman ever to hold that chair.

The other senior cathedral clergy include the Sub Dean, the Revd Canon Peter Moger, who introduced the Chrism Eucharist on Thursday and welcomed us to Christ Church, and the Archdeacon of Oxford, the Ven Jonathan Chaffey. The university’s four senior theology professors are also ex officio canons residentiary.

Looking towards the North Transept from the font and the pulpit (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

In his poem ‘Thyrsis’, the Victorian poet Matthew Arnold called Oxford ‘the city of dreaming spires’, describing the architecture of the university buildings. WB Yeats refers to Christ Church in his poem ‘All Souls’ Night, Oxford’:

Midnight has come and the great Christ Church bell
And many a lesser bell sound through the room;
And it is All Souls’ Night …

The Communion vessels after the Chrism Eucharist on Maundy Thursday (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

• The Easter Vigil with the Confirmations and the First Eucharist of Easter is at 8:05 in Christ Church Cathedral this evening. The Easter Day services tomorrow (Sunday 5 April 2026) are: 8:05 am, Holy Communion (1662 Book of Common Prayer); 9:35 am, Choral Matins for Easter Day; 11:05 am, Choral Eucharist for Easter Day; 6:05 pm, Festal Evensong for Easter Day. Choral Evensong takes place in the Cathedral each evening at 6pm and is open to the public.

Prayers for Peace in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, this week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)