Change Alley off Cornhill in the City of London became home to four generations of the Comerford family

Change Alley off Cornhill in the heart of the City of London was home to at least four generations of the Comerford family in the 19th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

When I was in London last week, I visited Quemerford Street in Islington, wondering whether its name was linked with Quemerford in Wiltshire or the Quemerford origins of the Comerford family in Ireland, and I then went to the City, searching for the Jamaica and Jonathan’s, two of the oldest coffee houses in London, dating back to the mid-17th century.

The Jamaica Wine House is in Saint Michael’s Alley and Jonathan’s was in Change Alley, two of the many parallel narrow laneways running from Cornhill at the north end to Lombard Street at the south end, within three or four minutes of the Royal Exchange and the Bank of England in heart of the City.

Exchange Alley or Change Alley is a narrow alleyway that was once home to some of the best-known early coffeehouses in the City of London. Change Alley is not just one alley but a collection of at least five interconnected labyrinthine passages that have changed shape and direction down the centuries and with five access points: two off Cornhill, two off Lombard Street and one leading out of Birchin Lane.

Change Alley, with the site of Jonathan’s to the immediate left, is a collection of at least five interconnected labyrinthine passages (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The 17th and 18th century coffeehouses of Exchange Alley, especially Jonathan’s and Garraway’s, were early venues for lively trading in shares and commodities, leading to the formation of both the London Stock Exchange and Lloyd’s of London.

Change Alley was one of the main stages of the South Sea Bubble of 1720, when feverish buying and selling of South Sea Company stock sent prices soaring to over £1,000 a share before a dramatic collapse ruined many investors.

A fire on 30 March 1748 that began in a wigmaker’s shop in Exchange Alley destroyed between 90 and 100 houses and premises in the alley and nearby streets, killing several people. The blaze consumed many coffeehouses and taverns, including Jonathan’s, Garraway’s, the Swan, the Fleece and the George and Vulture, and the area had to be extensively rebuilt.

The shops that once lined Exchange Alley included ship chandlers, makers of navigation instruments such as telescopes, and goldsmiths from Lombardy in Italy, and the King’s Arms Tavern, where the Marine Society was founded in 1756.

But Change Alley was also the home for at least four generations in an interesting branch of the Comerford family in London, which was involved in book collecting for three generations and in medicine for two generations.

James Comerford (1764-1833) lived and worked for much of his life in Change Alley (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Although there are some traditions that this branch of the Comerford family originated in Coventry, family tradition insists that the family originated in Ireland and moved to London in the mid-18th century, and traces the family back to Thomas Comerford (1738-1812), who may have been born in Ireland and is the first-known ancestor of this family.

Despite family tradition that Thomas Comerford came from Ireland, Ashworth-Hill, in his paper on the Bosworth Crucifix, which was in the possession of James Comerford’s family from around 1810, wonders whether this Comerford family was related to the Comerford family who lived in Saint Michael’s Parish in Coventry in the first half of the 19th century.

Thomas Comerford was a tobacconist in London. He was twice married and married his first wife Alice Davenport (1735-1769) on 26 October 1759 in Saint Mary’s Church, Whitechapel. They lived in Leman Street, Whitechapel (1759-1768), and they were the parents of three sons:

1, William Davenport Comerford (1763-1763), died in infancy.
2, James Comerford (1764-1833), of whom next.
3, Thomas Comerford (1769-1810), draper, of Bond Street, who married Charlotte Watson (1772-1851), and has a large number of living descendants.

Alice died in childbirth in 1769, and Thomas Comerford married his second wife, Ann Underwood (1734-1807), in Saint Botolph’s Church, Aldgate, on 28 October 1770. Thomas and Anne Comerford were the parents of two more children, a daughter and a son:

4, Mary (1775-1839)
5, Charles Comerford (1784-1849), solicitor. He married Elizabeth Edings Morgan (1797-1867) in Saint Luke’s Church, Chelsea, on 1 May 1813. He lived at East Street, Lamb’s Conduit Street, off Great Ormond Street in Bloomsbury (1807), 16 Clement’s Inn, off the Strand in Saint Clement Danes parish(1838-1840), 72 Old Broad Street (1848), and 21 Oxford Square, Paddington (1849).

Thomas Comerford died on 29 June 1812 in the Parish of Saint Botolph, London. Hissecond but eldest surviving son was:

James Comerford (1764-1833) was buried at Saint Mary Woolnoth and his son James William Comerford (1829-1917),who was born in Change Alley, was baptised in Saint Mary Woolnoth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

James Comerford (1764-1833) lived and worked for much of his life in Change Alley, where he traded as a tobacconist and snuff maker. He was born in 1764 and was baptised on 22 November 1764 at Saint Mary’s, Whitechapel. He was living at Tower Hill, London, on 7 November 1780, when he was indentured to a seven-year apprenticeship as a cooper. By 1790 he was a tobacconist and snuff maker at 50 Holywell Street, subsumed into the Strand years later when the street was widened. He then lived at Bayley’s Place, Tower Hill (1791-1795), before moving his home and his business to Change Alley.

James Comerford and his wife Elizabeth (1773-1833) were the parents of at least two sons:

1, William Comerford (1785-1801)
2, James Comerford (1787- )

When James Comerford died in 1833 at the age of 68, he was a tobacconist, living at Change Alley. He was buried at Saint Mary Woolnoth Church, close to Change Alley. His remains and those of four other people were removed on 14 December 1892 and reburied at Ilford Cemetery.

His second named son:

James Comerford (1787- ) was born on 26 October 1787 and was baptised at Saint Botolph Without Aldersgate Church on 28 January 1788. He married in Saint Andrew’s Church, Holborn, on 6 March 1805 Sarah (or Anne) Suffolk, then living in Saint Andrew’s Parish.

A family tradition says Anne Suffolk may have had a Jewish mother, and there was a tradition in the family – later dismissed – that her father was one of the many illegitimate sons of King George III.

This James Comerford started the book collection that his son, also James Comerford continued.

His son:

The miniature portrait of James Comerford (ca 1829) by François Theodore Rochard, in the Lady Cohen Collection at Kenwood House … probably pained to mark his marriage to Sarah Anne Bissett

James Comerford (1807-1881) was a Victorian book collector, antiquarian and notary. He was born on 7 November 1807, in Castle Street, now Furnival Street, Holborn, and was baptised in Saint Andrew’s Church, Holborn, in March 1808.

James first practised as a notary public in partnership from December 1827 with TS Girdler as Comerford and Company at 27 Change Alley, which may have been his grandfather’s former tobacco shop. Later, he practised from premises at 7 Tokenhouse Yard, Lothbury, close to the Bank of London. He was also a magistrate or Justice of the Peace (JP). James Comerford was secretary to the Society of Public Notaries of London in 1833. He was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquarians (FSA) on 27 December 1840. His heraldic bookplates, with the motto So Ho Ho Dea Ne, are much sought-after collectors’ items.

James married Sarah Anne Bissett (1809- ), daughter of Captain James Bissett, in Wilmington, Sussex, on 16 July 1828. Her father was a sea captain who died in the American War in 1812. Her eldest sister, Anna Maria Bissett, married the Revd Robert Philip Blake (1801-1841), curate of Wilmington and of Stoke, near Guildford, who drowned at Niton, Isle of Wight, while swimming with his son; this son, the Revd Professor John Frederick Blake (1839-1906), was lecturer in Comparative Anatomy, Charing Cross Hospital, London (1878-1881) and Professor of Natural Science, University College Nottingham (1881-1888).

After their wedding, Sarah and James Comerford took a honeymoon during the Belgian/Dutch civil war. From 1829 and 1851, James and Sarah Comerford and their family were living at No 7 Saint Andrew’s Place, Regent’s Park, London. By 1872, the family had moved to Framfield, Sussex.

Family tradition says James was something of a rake, took fencing lessons from a well-known fencing master named Angelo, and fought a duel with a man named Atwood over his future wife.

James Comerford is best remembered as a book collector and antiquarian. He built on his father’s earlier book collection, and amassed a library that included a large collection of county histories, local topographies and books of Catholic religious piety.

James Comerford died on 8 March 1881 in the last cholera epidemic in London. After his death, Sotheby’s sold his library at auction on 16-20 November 1881, realising a sale total of £8,372 13 s. His books occasionally come back on the market, but more often they are valued for his heraldic bookplates than as antique books.

The Bosworth Crucifix … the most notable antiquarian item in James Comerford’s private collection, is now in the collection of the Society of Antiquarians

The most notable object of antiquarian interest in Comerford’s private collection was the ‘Bosworth Crucifix’, a 15th-century bronze processional crucifix, measuring 585 mm x 280 mm, now in the collection of the Society of Antiquaries of London. The Bosworth Crucifix is said to have been dug up on the Field of Bosworth in Leicestershire around 1778, and came into the possession of the Comerford family around 1810.

The crucifix was owned by the Carter family of Saint Michael’s Parish, Coventry, before it passed to the Comerford family – probably James Comerford’s father. However, it is still unclear how the crucifix passed from Joseph Carter, sexton of Saint Michael’s Church, Coventry, who died in June 1808, and whose will was granted administration in the Consistory Court of the Diocese of Lichfield on 7 October 1808. The cross may have been bought from Carter’s widow Mary between 1808 and 1810.

Sarah and James Comerford were the parents of two son and a daughter:

1, James William Comerford (1829-1917), who shared many of his father’s antiquarian interests, and of whom next.
2, Charles Frederick Comerford (1831- ), born on 2 July 1831, at Change Alley.
3, Emily Sarah (1842-1909). She was born in 1842, and was married twice: (1), Henry Burchett, and (2) the Revd Hamilton Brand in 1873and she was the parents of six children, with descendants living in Australia and South Africa.

James Comerford died on 8 March 1881. His elder son:

Colonel James William Comerford (1829-1917) was born in Change Alley on 6 November 1829 (Comerford family collection)

Colonel James William Comerford (1829-1917), was born in Change Alley on 6 November 1829, and was baptised on 19 January 1830 in Saint Mary Woolnoth. James and his siblings, who were born in Change Alley, were the last generation of the family to have an immediate connection with Change Alley, meaning four generations of the family members of four generations of Comerfords had a link with Crown Alley.

James W Comerford was a notary public, of 7 Tokenhouse Yard, London. By 1871 he was living at Coleshill Street, London, now Eaton Terrace. Following his father’s death, he sold his father’s and grandfather’s book collections in 1881. At the end of that year, in December 1881, James William Comerford exhibited and presented the Bosworth Crucifix to the Society of Antiquaries ‘in the name of his late father, James Comerford, Esq, FSA.’

James William Comerford lived at 38 Cambridge Street, London, and Saint George’s Road, London. He was a lieutenant-colonel and honorary colonel in the 13th Middlesex (Queen's Westminster) Volunteer Rifle Corps. He married Marianne Rouse (1829-1900) and their descendants included another generation of notaries public and athree or four generations of distinguished medical practitioners and surgeons.

James Comerford’s bookplates have become collectors’ items … they perpetuate the claims of the Comerford family in Ireland to descent from the Comberford family of Staffordshire

The oldest coffee house from 17th century London survives at the Jamaica Wine House in Cornhill

xxx (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Over the years, I have tried to search for the oldest coffee house in England. The story of these early coffee houses is told in the cafés on Queen Street in Oxford and the street names on the Coffee Hall estate in Milton Keynes.

While I was London last week, I went in search of the oldest coffee shops in London. But they are long predated by two coffee shops in Oxford that vie for the title of the oldest coffeehouse in England.

Gianfrancesco Morosini – whose family gave their name to the Morosini Fountain in Lion Square in Iraklion, Crete – first brought coffee to the attention of Venetians in 1585. He reported how the Turks had developed a taste for drinking ‘a black water, boiled up as hot as they could bear it, which is distilled from a seed called kahvé and which they say has the property of making a man stay awake.’

By the mid-17th century, coffee was being sold in Venice as a medicine, and the first coffeehouse beyond the Levant opened in Venice in 1647. However, although Caffé Florian on Saint Mark’s Square claims to be ‘the first real café in Europe’, it did not open until 29 December 1720. The Café Procope on the Rue de l’Ancienne Comédie, which claims to be the oldest café in Paris in continuous operation, opened in 1686.

‘Jacob the Jew’ from Lebanon is said to have opened the very first coffeehouse in England at the Angel Inn on the High Street in Oxford in 1650. Jacob’s coffeehouse in Oxford is believed to have been the first European coffeehouse after Venice, and the Grand Café now stands on the same site on the High.

According to the diarist Samuel Pepys and others, Jacob opened his coffeehouse in Oxford in 1650. Anthony à Wood, the Oxford antiquarian, records that ‘Jacob the Jew opened a coffey house at the Angel’ in Oxford in 1651, ‘and there it was by some, who delighted in noveltie, drank.’

Some years later, across the street, Cirques Jobson, a Jewish merchant from the Levant or Syria, opened the Queen’s Lane Coffee House in 1654. Anthony à Wood records Cirques Jobson sold coffee ‘in a house between Edmund Hall and Queen College Corner’ – the site of today’s Queen’s Lane Coffee House. It claims to be the oldest coffeehouse to continually serve coffee in Europe.

xxx (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Both cafés in Oxford opened around the same time as the Jamaica Wine House first opened as a coffeehouse in the City of London. I found this Grade II listed building last week behind Saint Michael’s Church, Cornhill, hidden away in St Michael’s Alley, amid a labyrinth of mediaeval courts and backstreets just off Cornhill and near the Royal Exchange.

Today it is one of the Square Mile’s most popular pubs and wine bars, known to many as ‘The Jampot’. It is a traditional London pub, with a wood-panelled bar and high ceilings. But it claims to be the birthplace of London’s coffee house scene and a history stretching back hundreds of years.

The Jamaica Wine House stands on the site of on the site of what is widely regarded as London’s first coffee house. It was opened by Pasqua Rosée in 1652 and counted Samuel Pepys amongst its earliest patrons.

Pasqua Rosée was born in the early 17th century into the ethnic Greek community in Ragusa, now southern Croatia, and by 1651 he was living in Smyrna (İzmir) in the Ottoman Empire, where he became the servant of Daniel Edwards, an English merchant of the Levant Company.

Edwards brought Pasqua Rosée to London in 1651 to prepare coffee for him and his household. A year later, Edwards helped his former servant to open his own coffee house, where some claim coffee was made and sold to the public for the first time in England. The coffee house quickly became a meeting place for merchants and traders, and is known in some accounts as the Turk’s Head.

Rosée’s own profile was depicted in the sign at his coffeehouse sign. He was shown resplendent in a turban, with a twirly moustache. The image of the head of a man of Turkish origin became the default sign for all coffee houses, and may explain why the ‘Turk’s Head’ became a popular name for pubs.

xxx (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

After the Great Fire of London destroyed much of the surrounding area, a new Jamaica coffee house was established on the same site between 1674 and 1680. Rosée’s coffee house was probably destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, but its replacement escaped the fire of 1748, which began nearby in Exchange Alley or Change Alley.

Coffeehouses in England became melting pots of independent thinking and political debate from the mid-17th century, and were known as ‘penny universities’ – a penny was the price of a coffee, with unlimited refills and a newspaper to read.

But the coffeehouses were soon identified with egalitarian and republican politics. Charles II considered banning them in 1675, claiming that ‘by occasion of the meetings of such persons therein, diverse False, Malitious and Scandalous Reports are devised and spread abroad, to the Defamation of His Majesties Government, and to the Disturbance of the Peace and Quiet of the Realm.’ In the face of a public outcry, the king relented after two weeks.

xxx (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

By the 18th century, the Jamaica had become closely associated with trade between London and Jamaica and the wider British West Indies. The Jamaica Coffee House was to the West India trade what the Jerusalem Coffee House was to the East India trade. Merchants, ship owners, insurance brokers and traders used it for business meeting. By the mid-18th century, the Jamaica, London, was recognised as a reliable address for receiving letters and documents destined for Jamaica.

Most of the coffee houses in 17th and 18th century London were involved in the slave trade in some way. The Jamaica Coffee House accommodated all sorts of individuals buying and selling cargo from Jamaica, including people bought and sold as slaves. London newspapers often printed appeals for information regarding enslaved and bonded runaways that gave the Jamaica coffee house as their point of contact.

The popularity of coffeehouses began to decline in the 18th century, as tea became more popular and as exclusive gentlemen’s clubs began to develop. As tastes changed and tea became increasingly popular, the traditional coffee house evolved into a tavern, and it began trading as the Jamaica Wine House in 1869. The building now on the site, a Victorian public house, dates from 1885. A plaque on the wall reads, ‘Here stood the first London Coffee house at the sign of the Pasqua Rosee’s Head 1652.’

xxx (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

There were several coffee houses close to the Royal Exchange and Lloyds. The Jerusalem and East India Coffee house was in Cowper’s Court, Lloyd’s Subscription Coffee house was at the west end of the Royal Exchange, and Jonathan’s Coffee House was a significant meeting place in London in the 17th and 18th centuries, famous as the original site of the London Stock Exchange.

Jonathan’s coffee house was opened around 1680 by Jonathan Miles in Change Alley, or Exchange Alley, in the City of London. By 1694, Jonathan’s was one of a few coffee houses where clients could meet stockbrokers and obtain prices. But in 1696, several patrons were implicated in a plot to assassinate William III, and it was thought to be associated with the ‘Popish’ Plots.

One broker, John Castaing, used the coffee house to post the prices of stocks and commodities in a list titled ‘The Course of the Exchange and Other Things’ in 1698. That year, dealers expelled from the Royal Exchange for rowdiness migrated to Jonathan’s and Garraway’s.

Jonathan’s was described in The Anatomy of Exchange Alley’, a pamphlet by Daniel Defoe in 1719. It was the scene of a number of critical events in the history of share trading, including the South Sea Bubble and the panic of 1745, and the London securities market was working from Jonathan’s by 1748.

Jonathan’s was destroyed by fire that year but was rebuilt. A club of 150 brokers and jobbers was formed in 1761 to trade stocks. The club built its own building In 1773 in Sweeting’s Alley, which was dubbed the New Jonathan’s. It was later renamed the Stock Exchange, and is now the London Stock Exchange.

xxx (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

While I was in Change Alley, I failed to find the site of Garraway’s Coffee House. Its original proprietor, Thomas Garraway, was said to be the first person in England to sell tea before he opened his coffeehouse. The Hudson’s Bay Company held its first sale of furs at the coffee house in 1671.

Daniel Defoe wrote of it being frequented by wealthy traders from the City, and Charles Dickens makes many references to Garraway’s in his writings. Garraway’s was also famous as a sandwich and drinking room, and it was said the sandwich-maker spent two hours preparing each day’s food.

All three coffeehouses that I went in search of last week – Jamaica, Jonathan’s and Garraway’s – and many more have given their names to streets on the Coffee Hall estate in Milton Keynes: Jamaica is a laneway or passage off Jonathans, but with no street sign; there is Jonathans [sic] and Jonathans Court that provides sheltered housing; while Garraway’s is an appropriate name in Milton Keynes as Robert Hooke (1635-1703), who was in Garraway’s almost every day while he worked as Wren’s surveyor in London after the Great Fire, was also the architect of Saint Mary Magdalene Church, Willen.

I was also in Change Alley looking for some 19th century connections with the Comerford family. But that’s another story from London for another day, hopefully.

xxx (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

A visit to Islington in search of street names including Quemerford Road and possible Comerford links

Visiting Quemerford Road in Islington this week in search of links with the Quemerford and Comerford family names (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Islington, an inner-city area in north London, is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington High Street to Highbury Fields and Regent’s Canal, and encompassing the area around the busy High Street, Upper Street, Essex Road and Southgate Road to the east.

Islington is known for left-wing and radical politics, and the local MPs are Jeremy Corbyn ( Islington North) and Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury).

I was in Islington briefly earlier this week because I have long been intrigued by the name of Quemerford Road. Despite the strong links over the centuries between the Comerford family in Kilkenny, Wexford and Waterford and the Comberford family of Comberford family of Comberford Hall near Lichfield and Tamworth in Staffordshire, the name Comerford actually derives from Quemerford, a small village that is now part of Calne in Wiltshire.

The first member of the family using the name of Quemerford village was Bartholomew de Quemerford, who was living 800 years ago, ca 1230-1240. By the early 14th century, Philip of Cummerford or Philip de Quemerford and his family were living in Co Kilkenny, and the spelling Quemerford continued to be used in the family in Kilkenny, Wexford and Waterford until the late 16th century.

As I caught the underground from King’s Cross to Caledonian Road to visit Islington earlier this week, I wanted to find out whether the name of Quemerford Road was linked with the early family members or was associated with Quemerford in Wiltshire.

Quemerford Road in Islington … given its name by Lord Islington in December 1911 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Mediaeval Islington was a part of the estates of the Bishop of London and the Dean and Chapter of Saint Paul’s Cathedral. The first recorded church, Saint Mary’s, was built in the 12th century and was replaced in the 15th century. A greatest expansion in housing transformed the whole parish the 19th century. The population was 10,000 in 1801, but by 1891 it had expanded to almost 320,000.

At first, large well-built houses and fashionable squares attracted clerks, artisans and professionals to Islington. However, from the mid-19th century the poor were being displaced by clearances in inner London to build new railway stations and goods yards. Many of the displaced people moved to Islington, where houses became homes to many families, and Islington moved from being attractive for the ‘better off’ and became ‘unfashionable’.

Locations in Islington appear in many works by Charles Dickens, including: Oliver Twist (1837-1839), where Mr Brownlow’s house is in Pentonville, and several scenes are set in Islington; David Copperfield (1849-1850), in which Wilkins Micawber lives in City Road; and Bleak House (1852-1853), where William Guppy lives in Pentonville.

The completion of the Victoria line and the redevelopment of Angel tube station created the conditions for developers to renovate many early Victorian and Georgian townhouses in Islington and to build new developments. But Islington fell into a long decline, and by the mid-20th century it was largely run-down and a by-word for urban poverty.

The remaining Georgian terraces were rediscovered by middle-class families from the 1960s on. Many houses were rehabilitated, and the area became newly fashionable with gentrification. The new residents included people who were central in the New Labour movement, including Tony Blair before his 1997 general election victory. According to The Guardian in 2006, ‘Islington is widely regarded as the spiritual home of Britain's left-wing intelligentsia.’

Islington is the most densely populated borough in the UK, with a density of 138.7 people per hectare, compared to an average of 52.0 for London. It is a diverse district with private houses and apartments not far from social housing in neighbouring wards such as Finsbury and Clerkenwell to the south, Bloomsbury and King’s Cross to the west, and Highbury to the north-west, and the Hackney districts of De Beauvoir and Old Street to the north-east.

Quemerford Road in Islington takes its name from Quemerford Gate Farm, sold by Lord Islington in 1914 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Quemerford Road, Islington, is a small, quiet residential road in London N7, near the Holloway area. It was formed and named at the end of 1911 from a section of what was previously Widdenham Road, which in turn dates from 1906. The street was named after Quemerford, a small village on the outskirts of Calne in West Wiltshire.

According to local records and local history, this specific portion of Widdenham Road was re-designated as Quemerford Road in December 1911. It connects Biddestone Road, Stock Orchard Crescent and Widdenham Road, all of which were part of the wider residential development of the Holloway and Barnsbury fringes of Islington in the early 20th century.

The name of Quemerford Road was formalised when the local council approved an order of the London County Council to rename ‘the street leading out of Stock Orchard Crescent.’

But I learned that the cluster of names of Quemerford Road, Stock Orchard Crescent, Widdenham Road, Hillmarton Road, Beacon Hill and Biddestone Road all come from places in Wiltshire and all were suggested by John Poynder Dickson Poynder (1866-1936), 1st Baron Islington, who was MP for Chippenham (1892-1910) in Wiltshire and owned much property in both Chippenham and Islington.

Widdenham Road in Islington once extended through to Quemerford Road (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Quemerford Gate Farm belonged to the Street family in the 18th century. It was bought by 1774 by the Revd James Mayo, Vicar of Avebury, and by the early 19th century it belonged to Thomas Poynder, lord of Hilmarton Manor. Quemerford Gate Farm descended with Hilmarton Manor and Upper Whitley farm in the Poynder family until 1914, when it was sold by John Dickson Poynder, Lord Islington.

Hilmarton is a village in North Wiltshire, between the towns of Calne and Wootton Bassett.

Stock and Stockley are immediately west of Quemerford and the Poynder family owned Stock Orchard Farm from 1822 or 1823. By 1885, the farmhouse at Stock Orchard had been demolished and all the buildings of Stock Orchard Farm had been demolished by the late 20th century.

Biddestone is a village 3 or 4 miles west of Chippenham. Widdenham is a small, isolated rural locality within the civil parish of Colerne and near Box in the Wiltshire.

Biddestone Road off Quemerford Road in Islington takes its name from Biddestone, a village near Chippenham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Lord Islington, John Poynder Dickson-Poynder (1866-1936), who gave the names of Quemerford and other places in Wiltshire to these streets in Islington, was a Conservative and then a Liberal politician, and was the Governor of New Zealand in 1910-1912.

He was born John Poynder Dickson on the Isle of Wight 160 years ago on 31 October 1866, the son of Rear Admiral John Bourmaster Dickson and Sarah Matilda (née Poynder) Dickson, and was educated at Harrow and Christ Church, Oxford. He was still only 17 In 1884 when he succeeded to the title of baronet given to the Dickson family in 1802 for their naval exploits.

When he succeeded to his maternal uncle’s property four years later, he added the additional surname of Poynder in 1888 and became known as Sir John Poynder Dickson-Poynder. The Poynder estates in Wiltshire included a farm in Quemerford, Hilmarton near Calne, and Hartham near Corsham.

His wife Anne Beauclerk Dundas (1869-1958), was a granddaughter of Robert Cornelis Napier (1810-1890), Baron Napier of Magdala, Viceroy of India and Governor of Gibraltar, whose military career included the Anglo-Sikh wars and the Indian Mutiny in India, the Opium Wars in China, and British invasions of Abyssinia (Ethiopia).

Dickson-Poynder became High Sheriff of Wiltshire in 1890. He was MP for Chippenham in 1892-1910 elected first as Conservative, but then joining the Liberals in 1905. He also was a member of London County Council (1898-1904). As a captain in the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry, he went to South Africa in March 1900 during the Second Boer War. Later he was aide-de-camp to Lord Methuen, who lived at Corsham Court in Wiltshire. He was decorated with the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in 1900, and later was an honorary major in the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry.

Dickson was Governor of New Zealand in 1910-1912. On his appointment he was made a peer with the title of Baron Islington of Islington, and as Lord Islington he was asked to name some of the streets in Islington, including Quemerford Road, drawing on the names of his properties near Calne in Wiltshire.

Lord Islington was the last Governor of New Zealand to hold the title before it was changed to Governor-General. He was made a KCMG and Privy Counsellor in 1911, and in 1912 became President of the Royal Commission on the Public Services of India.

During World War I, he held minor government positions as Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (1914-1915), and Under-Secretary of State for India (1915-1918). He was given higher grades of knighthood in 1913 (GCMG) and 1926 (GBE).

Lord Islington died 90 years ago on 6 December 1936 aged 70 at Hyde Park Gardens, London, and was buried at Hilmarton, Wiltshire. His titles of baron and baronet died out with his death, but the names he gave to tree-lined suburban streets in Islington, including Quemerford Road, survive to this day.

The name of Quemerford Road still survives 90 years after Lord Islington died in 1936 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The sculptures of Thessaloniki: 7, the Monument of the Jewish Holocaust by Nandor Glid, Eleftherias Square

The Jewish Holocaust Memorial in Eleftherias Square (Liberty Square), Thessaloniki … a bronze sculpture by Nandor Glid of a menorah whose flames are wrapped around human bodies (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I was recalling last week how I came across a collection of photographs of modern sculptures in the streets and parks of Thessaloniki and how I realised that I had written little about these sculptures over the years.

Rather than leave the photographs and memories in forgotten files on my laptop or in the cloud, I started an occasional series of blog postings on some of those modern sculptures I have rediscovered in Thessaloniki. Over the next few weeks, I am inviting you to join me in a minor odyssey of recovery and discovery as my mind wanders through Thessaloniki, looking at these sculptures again.

The sculptures I looked at last week include the monumental statues of Aristotle, Alexander the Great and Eleftherios Venizelos, the Jewish Memorial by Konstantinos Lentaris in the campus of the Aristotele University of Thessaloniki, and the bust of Admiral Nikolaos Votsis in front of the White Tower.

The Monument for the Jewish Holocaust on the edge of Eleftherias Square is a sculpture in bronze with faltering human figures in the shape of a seven-light lamp or menorah, a flame that symbolises destruction, a cloud representing the angels who witnessed the slaughter, and a tree symbolising rebirth and hope. All these figures are represented by intertwined human forms and shapes.

By 1940, Thessaloniki had a Jewish population of about 56,000 in a city that had grown to about 250,000 residents. The community had survived fires, political upheaval, and demographic transformation, they kept open their synagogues, schools and cultural institutions, and they remained a vital part of the city’s fabric. But nothing prepared them for what came next.

On 9 April 1941, German forces occupied Thessaloniki. Within a week, Nazi authorities arrested Jewish community leaders, confiscated Jewish homes and hospitals, and began the systematic looting of Jewish cultural property. Tens of thousands of books, religious artifacts, and artworks were shipped to Germany.

On 11 July 1942 – a date remembered to this day as ‘Black Saturday’ or as the ‘Black Shabbat’ – the Nazis forcibly rounded up 9,000 Jewish men aged between 18 and 45 in Plateia Eleftherias (Πλατεία Ελευθερίας, Liberty Square). For hours in the blazing summer heat, German soldiers beat and humiliated them before the crowds. About 2,000 were sent to forced labour. The rest were eventually ransomed by the community, which sold its ancient cemetery to raise the demanded sum.

The Jewish cemetery, with 20 generations and over 500 years of burials, was destroyed. The tombstones were purloined as building materials for footpaths, university stairs, and barrack latrines. Aristotle University now stands where the Jewish dead had been buried rested.

In February 1943, Adolf Eichmann sent Dieter Wisliceny and Alois Brunner to Thessaloniki. They were specialists in Jewish deportation and they implemented the Nuremberg Laws immediately, imposing yellow stars, movement restrictions, property confiscation. Within days, Jews were forced into three ghettos. The largest, the Baron Hirsch transit camp, was beside the railway station.

The tracks to Auschwitz … old railway tracks at the port where the convoys left for the death camps (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The first train left Thessaloniki on 15 March 1943. Between March and August 1943, 19 trains took as many as 46,000 Jews from Thessaloniki to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Each train held 1,000 to 4,000 people crammed into cattle cars. The seven-day journey across Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary, Austria, and Czechoslovakia was torture itself, with no food, no water and no sanitation, bodies crushed together in suffocating heat or freezing cold.

When the trains arrived at Auschwitz, SS doctors carried out ‘selections’ on the platform. Most were sent directly to gas chambers. Of the 46,000 deported, about 1,950 or 4 per cent survived. The Jewish population that had comprised 68 per cent of Thessaloniki in 1613; 96 per cent of the city’s Jewish population was exterminated in 1943. In five months, the Nazis accomplished what four centuries of disasters – plagues, fires, wars, and economic transformations – had failed to do: they destroyed the Jerusalem of the Balkans.

The survivors who returned found a ghost community. Fewer than 2,000 Jews remained in Thessaloniki. Their synagogues were destroyed or vandalised, their homes had become the homes of others, their cemetery was razed, their archives were burned, their commercial networks were shattered. Many survivors could not bear to stay and emigrated to Palestine, the USA or other diaspora communities. Others rebuilt what they could, establishing small institutions to preserve memory.

About 1,000 Jews live in Thessaloniki today – less than 0.2 per cent of the city’s population of over 800,000. Three synagogues remain of the original 42. The Monastir Synagogue survived only because Nazis used it as a Red Cross warehouse. The Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki, which attracts about 30,000 visitors a year 2023, documents the community’s history.

The Jewish Museum in Thessaloniki … the city was known to Jews as ‘la Madre de Israel’ or ‘the Mother of Israel,’ and to non-Jews as ‘the Jerusalem of the Balkans’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Holocaust memorial by Nandor Glid was erected in 2008 at Eleftherias Square (Liberty Square), where Jewish men were beaten on Black Saturday. Nandor Glid was a Serbian Jewish sculptor whose father and family members were murdered in Auschwitz. However, Glid did not manage to finish the work, and it was completed by his son. There is a similar sculpture by the artist in Dachau concentration camp.

There are two inscriptions at the base of the monument, one with the dedication and the date of the unveiling, and the second commemorating the visit of President Katsav Israeli.

The monument has been vandalised several times by antisemites, but it has always been restored. It is the starting point of the annual memorial procession, which ends at the old train station from which thousands of Jews were forced to leave the city for the death camps.

One of Thessaloniki’s last Holocaust survivors, Heinz Kounio, died earlier this year (April 2026) at the age of 98. The Holocaust Museum of Greece (Μουσείο Ολοκαυτώματος Ελλάδος) in Thessaloniki is due to soon. It will be the first museum dedicated specifically to telling the story of Sephardic Jews in the Holocaust.

May their memories be a blessing, זצ״ל

Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום‎

In this series:

1, Introduction (21 September 2026)

2, Aristotle by Giorgos Georgiadis, Aristotelous Square (22 September 2026)

3, Alexander the Great by Evangelos Moustakas, Alexander’s Garden (23 September 2026)

4, Eleftherios Venizelos by Giannis Pappas, Plateia Dikastirion (24 September 2026)

5, The Jewish Monument by Konstantinos Lentaris, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (25 September 2026)

6, Admiral Nikolaos Votsis by Georgios Dimitriadis, in front of the White Tower (1 October 2026)

7, The Monument of the Jewish Holocaust by Nandor Glid, Eleftherias Square (2 October 2026)

Next: ‘The Woman of Pindos’ by Kostas Domboulas, Fanarioton Square

The old railway station in Thessaloniki … more than 46,000 Jews were sent by rail to Auschwitz and Belsen in 19 convoys in 1943 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A walk down memory lane along Jack Straw’s Lane in Oxford, looking for signs of a long-gone youth hostel

Jack Straw’s Lane in Headington still has a semi-rural, almost rustic, feeling to it (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

I was in Headington in Oxford twice last week, with an appointment for an ECG in John Radcliffe Hospital, and taking time to visit many of the churches in the Headington area and to explore some of the literary links in the area with CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien.

But there was a sentimental reason or a search for memories too during those visits. After I left school in 1969, I spent many weekends and much of my holiday time in my late teens hitchhiking around Ireland and England, usually staying in youth hostels. Some of the youth hostels in England I remember well were in Chester, Lichfield, Oxford, Cambridge, Stratford-on-Avon, Shrewsbury and London, and at Ilam Hall in Derbyshire and Wilderhope Manor in Shropshire.

I remember the youth hostel in Oxford because it was in Cowley House on Jack Straw’s Lane. In those days, youth hostelers could stay in any one hostel for no more than three nights and were expected at hostels run by An Oige and the YHA to arrive on foot or on bicycles. It seemed that among seasoned youth hostelers it was déclassé to be seen to arrive in a car, even a car one had hitched a lift in, and probably even to arrive by bus.

And so I remember arriving at the youth hostel in Oxford late in the afternoon on foot, and leaving again to enjoy an evening out in Oxford or setting out in the morning to explore the city, walking down Jack Straw’s Lane, with its peculiar name, and catching a bus into Oxford at the corner of Marston Road.

I retraced those youthful steps taken over 55 years ago last week when I walked from Headington down the hill along Jack Straw’s Hill, wondering whether I could recognise Cowley House, the former youth hostel where I stayed when I first visited Oxford in my late teens back around 1969 or 1970.

Jack Straw’s Lane is a residential road in suburban Oxford, but still has a rural, almost rustic, atmosphere to it, despite its proximity to the centre of Oxford. It runs from the north end of Pullens Lane on Headington Hill down to Marston Road.

That part of Headington was still in the parish of Saint Andrew’s Church until the 20th century, and the lands of the Lords of the Manor of Headington included the whole of Jack Straw’s Lane. Until well into the 20th century, the lane had no name. It was originally a track at the end of Pullen’s Lane that led to Jack Straw’s farmhouse or Jack Straw’s Castle. The name of the road only dates from about 1932, and was not officially adopted until 1954.

Cowley House on Jack Straw’s Lane opened as Oxford Youth Hostel 90 years ago in 1936 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

When I stayed at the youth hostel, Jack Straw was already well-known and the elected as President of the National Union of Students from 1969 to 1971, and he went on to become a prominent Labour politician and cabinet minister. But he was not the Jack Straw who gave his name of Jack Straw Lane.

Tradition says the Jack Straw of the lane had been a farmer who lived on Headington Hill. Although many highwaymen were active in the area, they had no one leader. But the story goes that when Jack Straw died, the cellars beneath his kitchen were found to have rolls of silk, gold, silver, spices and other valuable goods that had been stolen from travellers and merchants. Yet, no one named Jack Straw was ever buried at Saint Andrew’s Church.

By 1850, Jack Straw’s Castle and farmland were owned by the Lord of the Manor of Headington and leased to John Plowman, who also leased the brickyard on Marston Road and owned another house near the Britannia in central Headington.

Plowman was an architect who had lived in St Peter-in-the-East parish in Oxford, and he was a brickyard-owner rather than a farmer. By 1861, Jack Straw’s Farm covered 105 acres in Old Headington John Plowman was a farmer living in ‘Jack Straw’s Castle’ and employing five men and a boy. His son-in-law Joseph Jones Bickerton was the Town Clerk of Oxford.

The Ordnance Survey map in 1876 shows only three buildings pn Jack Straw’s Lane, with Jack Straw’s Farmhouse, popularly known as Jack Straw’s Castle, towards the north-west. The Plowman family left around 1879, and the castle was let as a private house and the land was farmed separately. The castle was renamed as Belle Vue Lodge. The Revd Charles Morris, the Vicar of Marston, lived there from 1893 until he died in 1899.

The house was known once more as Jack Straw’s Castle by 1901. Ten years later, in 1911, all the land to the north and east of Jack Straw’s Lane, including the farm, the brickworks, and six cottages on Marston Road were sold at auction. The site of Jack Straw’s Castle and Hillside is now occupied by the Rectory Homes development at No 35-43.

The former youth hostel on Jack Straw’s Lane is now a nursery for the children of university staff and children (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Cowley House and the adjoining Cowley Cottage were built on the south side of the lane in 1898. Cowley House was built in about 1898. It was occupied by Hugh Hall from 1899 to 1902, a Mrs Valpy lived there from 1903 to 1907, and Miss Michaelson from 1909 to after 1929.

YHA Oxford Regional Group was formed in the very early days of the Association, in December 1931. Cowley House on Jack Straw’s Lane in Headington had been unoccupied for four years when it was bought for £2,100 by the YHA. It opened as Oxford Youth Hostel on Maundy Thursday, 9 April 1936, with grants from the Carnegie Trust and the Cadbury Trust, and gifts of furniture from Jesus College.

A new annexe was completed in 1939, when the accommodation increased to 98. But the youth hostel was unavailable during World War II and was used as a school. To compensate for the wartime requisition a temporary summer hostel opened in a building on the corner of Mansfield Road and Holywell Street belonging to Manchester College.

The original hotels was returned to the YHA in June 1945 and reopened on 2 January 1946. For decades, it was one of the most popular youth hostels in England, often needing extra accommodation in temporary seasonal hostels in public or educational buildings that were loaned or hired.

The youth hostel on Jack Straw’s Lane eventually closed on 14 May 2001 when a purpose-built hostel opened on Botley Road near the railway station.

Bryant Homes planned to demolish the former youth hostel on Jack Straw’s Lane and replace it with flats in 2001, but this proposal was rejected. A year later, St Hilda’s College hoped to turn the building into flats in In 2002. But eventually it was converted into the college nursery, run by Kids Unlimited. It was renamed Dorothea Beale House after one of the college’s two founders, and its address is now 32B Jack Straw’s Lane.

Field House, to the right of Dorothea Beale House, was built in the late 1920s. It was designed by the architect Herbert Luck North (1871–1941), who had formerly been an assistant to Sir Edwin Lutyens.

Other houses on the lane include Hillside, now 69 Jack Straw’s Lane, was once the home of Henry Habberley Price (1899-1984), who was Wykeham Professor of Logic.

The Milham Ford School opened on a 16-acre site at Jack Straw’s Lane in 1938, and later became a maintained grammar school for girls then a girls’ comprehensive. The school closed in 2003, it was sold and became the site of the School of Health Care of Oxford Brookes University.

Today, Jack Straw’s Lane is a residential area with high-priced houses and lined with large mature trees. The former youth hostel is now Kids Planet, an exclusive nursery for staff and students at the University of Oxford.

I continued on down Jack Straw’s Lane that afternoon last week and visited Saint Michael and All Angels Church on the corner of Marston Road, before catching a bus back into the centre of Oxford.

Jack Straw’s Lane leads from Headington to New Marston in suburban East Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Michael and All Angels, New Marston: a 1950s church in suburban Oxford with important works of modern art

The Church of Saint Michael and All Angels on the corner of Jack Straw’s Lane and Marston Road, Oxford … today is the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Today is the Feast Day of Saint Michael and All Angels (29 September), and in anticipation of this feast day, I visited the Church of Saint Michael and All Angels in New Marston in suburban Oxford last week when I was visiting churches in the Headington area last week.

During my two visits to Headington last week, and in between appointments in the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, I visited some of the churches in the area, including Saint Andrew’s Church, Headington, Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry, Headington Baptist Church, Corpus Christi Catholic Church, and Saint Michael and All Angels, New Marston.

I found Saint Michael’s Church, which was built as a chapel of ease for Saint Andrew’s Church, Headington, at the bottom of Jack Straw’s Lane on the corner with Marston Road.

Inside Saint Michael and All Angels Church, New Marston, facing the High Altar, chancel and east end (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

New Marston is a suburb about 2 km (1.25 miles) north-east of the centre of Oxford. The area is built on land that was originally part of the Manor of Headington, and it was rural until the 19th century, when housing began to develop along Marston Road from St Clement’s towards the village of Marston.

Saint Michael and All Angels Church was built 70 years ago in 1954-1956 on the corner of Marston Road and Jack Straw’s Lane as a chapel of ease for the parish of Saint Andrew, Headington. New Marston’s early Anglican needs were first met by a mission hall built on Ferry Road in 1919 until the new church was consecrated in September 1955.

Saint Michael and All Angels Church was designed in an Italianate style by the architect Thomas Lawrence Dale (1884-1959), who was the Oxford Diocesan Surveyor for 23 years. At first, Dale specialised in designing houses for private clients. From the 1930s, he was the Oxford Diocesan Surveyor and he was noted for designing, restoring and furnishing Church of England parish churches.

Like Charles Ponting (1850-1932) to whom he had been articled, Dale’s church architecture was strongly Anglo-Catholic. However, whereas Ponting continued to work in the Gothic Revival idiom long after it had passed out of fashion, Dale adopted Italianate architecture for his churches.

Inside Saint Michael and All Angels Church, New Marston, facing the west end … the church was designed in an Italianate style by the architect Thomas Lawrence Dale (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Dale was born in London and was educated at University College School, Hampstead. He began trained at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in 1900, was articled to Charles Ponting in Marlborough, Wiltshire (1901-1904), was assistant to the architect Edmund Buckle (1904-1906), and qualified as an architect in 1906.

He was a captain in the Army Cyclist Corps during World War I and was mentioned in despatches. After World War I, Dale moved to Banbury and designed a series of council houses in several villages. Two of his earlier works are Edwardian houses in Hampstead Garden Suburb, one of which has been described as ‘an excellent house of the Lutyens school’. Dale later moved to Oxford, where he designed his own house on Woodstock Road, and later moved again to Bradmore Road.

As Oxford Diocesan Surveyor, Dale designed at least four parish churches in the Oxford area, and also designed restoration work or new furnishings for a number of parish churches. His churches in the Diocese of Oxford include: Saint Francis of Assisi (1930-1931), Cowley, built on a site provided by Morris Motors as a temporary daughter church of Saint James, Cowley; Saint Alban the Martyr (1933), Oxford, replacing a chapel of ease built for Saint Mary and Saint John Church in 1889; Saint Michael and All Angels (1954-1956), New Marston, built as a chapel of ease for Saint Andrew’s Church, Headington; and Saint Swithun (1956-1958), Kennington.

The sculpted reliefs on the main front include a small figure of Saint Michael and two large reliefs of angels, by John Bunting and Michael Groser (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Dale died in 1959 and was buried in Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford. His son Simon Dale (1919-1987) was also an architect. He was beaten to death at The Heath, the house he and Susan had restored at Hopton Castle, Herefordshire.

The only suspect, Dale’s former wife, Baroness Susan de Stempel, was cleared of his murder due to insufficient physical evidence. The case remains ‘one of West Mercia Constabulary’s relatively few unsolved murders’. But that’s a story for another evening, perhaps.

TL Dale’s churches reflect the various brands of classicism popular in church architecture in England in the mid-20th century and Saint Michael and All Angels, New Marston, is perhaps his most ambitious. It is an interesting essay in a sort of stripped Italian baroque manner, typical of Anglo-Catholic taste from the 1920s on.

The statue of Saint Michael by the sculptor Michael Groser (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Michael’s was built as a chapel of ease for Saint Andrew’s Church, Headington. Although the building is slightly limited by its corner site, it is substantial in scale and has been described as being in a ‘vaguely Italian renaissance style’. Its notable features include its campanile, its elliptical windows and its tall, box-like chancel.

The sculpted reliefs on the main front include a small figure of Saint Michael in a niche at the top of the gable, and two large reliefs of angels flanking the oval window, by John Bunting (1927-2002) and Michael Groser (1918-2009). The Latin wording above the west door says: Gloria in Altissimis Deo et in Terra Pax (‘Glory to God in the Highest and on Earth Peace’).

Bunting and Groser were probably responsible for the carvings inside the church, including a suspended rood with the Crucified Christ flanked by figures of the Virgin Mary and Saint John, the frontal to the altar and the Stations of the Cross. The statue of Saint Michael is by Groser, the painting of the Annunciation and a series of reliefs are by Bunting, and the reredos above the High Altar was painted by Leon Underwood (1890-1975).

The suspended rood, with figures of the Crucified Christ, the Virgin Mary and Saint John, is by John Bunting and Michael Groser (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

John Bunting was one of Leon Underwood’s students. He later taught for many decades at Ampleforth College in Yorkshire, where his students included Antony Gormley, creator of the ‘Angel of the North’, Martin Jennings, whose works include the statue of John Betjeman at St Pancras station and the statue of Philip Larkin in Hull, and the painter Andrew Festing.

Michael Groser was born in his grandfather’s rectory in St Winnow, Cornwall. His father, the Revd St John Beverley Groser (1890-1966), was an Anglican priest and a prominent Christian socialist. He was said to be ‘the best-known priest in the East End’ and Kenneth Leech said that he was ‘one of the most significant Christian socialist figures in 20th century Britain’. He was present at the Battle of Cable Street in 1936. He was appointed the Warden of the Royal Foundation of Saint Katharine in 1948. He played Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the 1951 film adaptation of TS Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral, produced and directed by George Hoellering.

Michael Groser moved to London with his parents in the 1920s and attended the Mercers’ School. After a degree in English Literature at Leeds University, he studied for the priesthood at the College of the Resurrection in Mirfield, Yorkshire, where his father had once been a student. As a conscientious objector during World War II, he was sent to a coalmine near Huddersfield, but managed to study sculpture part-time at Leeds School of Art.

He later moved to Kirtlington, Oxfordshire, and then to Banbury, and sang occasionally with the choir at New College, Oxford. As an actor, he played the Third Priest in Murder in the Cathedral (1951), alongside his father. He moved to Co Cork in 2004, and when he died in Bantry in 2009, he was buried at Church Cross, near Skibbereen.

The painting of the Annunciation by John Bunting above the altar in the Lady Chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Michael's Church, New Marston, was consecrated in September 1955 and superseded the Ferry Road mission hall, which was then deconsecrated and sold for secular use.

Saint Michael’s became a parish church in its own right in the Diocese of Oxford in 1963, with a new parish formed from parts of Headington, Marston and Saint Clement’s parishes.

The church built by Kingerlee & Sons. The ground for the new vicarage in Jack Straw’s Lane was bought in 1952, but the vicarage was not built until 1966-1967.

In recent years, a problem with subsidence has left the church needing extensive repairs and when I visited the church last week much of the south side of the building was covered in scaffolding.

The campanile at the Church of Saint Michael and All Angels, New Marston (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

• The Revd Elaine Bardwell has been the Vicar of Saint Michael and All Angels, New Marston since 1996. Saint Michael’s uses modern Catholic worship and has a smallish congregation that welcomes all comers. The main Sunday service is the Parish Eucharist at 10 am, and there is a short said Eucharist on Wednesday mornings at 10:30 am.

The tall, box-like chancel and south side of Saint Michael’s Church seen from Jack Straw’s Lane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Two contrasting churches in Headington, Baptist and Catholic, illustrate church diversity in Oxford

Headington Baptist Church is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the present building this year, but the church dates back to early 19th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

During my visits to Headington in Oxford last week, in between visits to the John Radcliffe Hospital, I visited a number of churches in the area, including Saint Andrew’s Church, Headington, Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry, Saint Michael and All Angels, New Marston, Headington Baptist Church and Corpus Christi Catholic Church.

Headington Baptist Church is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the present building later this year. But the story of the congregation dates back to the early 19th century, when New Road Baptist Church in Oxford started one of its first ‘mission stations’ for dissenters in Old Headington. This means the Baptist Chapel was the first nonconformist chapel in Headington, until a Methodist chapel was built in Trinity Road, Quarry, in 1830.

Headington’s first purpose-built Baptist chapel opened 1836 in what is now a private house known as Croft Hall. Croft Hall stood on land owned by the Latimer family, then the lords of the Manor of Headington and the owners of Headington House, and the freehold was acquired in 1841.

The chapel acquired more land In 1875 to extend its burial ground. However, the chapel was no longer big enough by the end of the 19th century, and the Baptists built a new chapel in Old High Street in 1901.

The cottage to the south of the new chapel was demolished in 1916, and two years later the vacant plot was bought by the Baptist Chapel. Most of the male members of the congregation were then away at war, and women and children helped to clear the site to grow vegetables. The site was to remain a vegetable plot for 16 years.

After World War I, a war memorial organ by Martin & Coate of Oxford was installed in the church in 1920.

The chapel was extended for the first time In 1934 over part of the vegetable plot, and the rest of the plot was turned into a garden. The garden was lost In 1971 when the church was extended again, and the new enlarged church was used for another 23 years until 2004.

The old church was demolished in August 2004 and the first service in the new church took place 20 years ago, on Sunday 5 November 2006.

The Baptist Church continued to own the old chapel in the Croft until the mid-1970s. Initially it was used as a Sunday school, but this was closed in 1924 because the building had fallen into disrepair.

The Freemasons offered to refurbish the building in 1937 as part of a leasing arrangement, and the continued to use the building until 1944. After that, the Exclusive Brethren used the building, and it was then used by a carpet shop. Croft Hall was sold in 1976 and has been converted into a private house.

Corpus Christi Church on the corner of Margaret Road, was built in two phases, beginning 90 years ago in 1936 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Corpus Christi Church on the corner of Margaret Road and Wharton Road in Headington was built in two stages in the 1930s and 1950s. The first Mass in Headington was said by Father Fabian of Greyfriars in 1932, and for about three years a Sunday Mass was celebrated at 9 am for a congregation of 30 to 40 in a café in New High Street.

Father William Flint had been sent to Headington by the Archbishop of Birmingham in November 1935 and Mass was celebrated for the first time in the new Parish Hall on the Feast of Corpus Christi, 12 June 1936. The construction of the church began that month.

Cardinal Arthur Hinsley (1865-1943), Archbishop of Westminster (1935-1943), laid the foundation stone on 1 October 1936. The first stage of the church – the east end – was blessed and opened on 18 February 1937 by Thomas Williams (1877-1946), Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham (1929-1946).

The church was designed by Gilbert Thomas Francis Gardner (1880-1955), who was an architect in Oxford for many years. His projects included the Oxford War Memorial (1921), Twinings shop, Oxford (1924), and shops and flats in Park End Street, Oxford (1925).

Corpus Christ Church in Headington was built in two phases: the east half was built in 1936-1937, and the second phase, the west half, was completed in 1953, although without the tower shown on the original plans. The break between the two parts can still be seen in the different coloured roof tiles and the different types of timber used for the woodblock floor.

The church is built with brick laid in English garden wall bond with a tiled roof and aluminium windows. The plan consists of a longitudinal aisleless nave with a narrower chancel, and a short west tower flanked by transepts. Above the moulded west doorway is a niche with a statue of Christ in Majesty.

The south elevation has gables over five of the central nave bays which project above the roofline. The central gable is wider, presumably due to the original porch below, which is now a niche with a Sacred Heart statue. The east end has a shallow curved extension of the early 1970s to the original blind east wall.

Inside, the church has a tunnel vaulted seven-bay nave. The lobby at the north-west was originally the baptistery, and retains its wrought-iron gates. The sanctuary is flanked by two side chapels. The stone altar, tabernacle stand and lectern date from the reordering in 1980. In the early 1970s, the east end was remodelled, with the addition In the 1970s of a curved dalle de verre window by Leslie Sheels, depicting the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

The north chapel has an icon of Mary Mother of God by the icon writer Alexander Gormatiuk of Moscow, installed in 2000. The south chapel has a copy of Michelangelo’s Pietà. Only the north side chapel retains its altar rails.

The Stations of the Cross (1985-1988) are circular reliefs in bronze by the Oxford sculptor Faith Tolkien (1928-2017), first wife of Christopher John Reuel Tolkien (1924-2020), a lecturer in New College, Oxford. Faith Tolkien’s bust of her father-in-law, JRR Tolkien, is in the English Faculty Library at Oxford University. Her other subjects include Iris Murdoch and CS Lewis.

When the church was refurbished in 2022/2023, the Oxford Preservation Society presented Corpus Christi Church with its 2023 Award for small projects.

• The Revd Ian McDonald is the Minister at Headington Baptist Church, where Sunday morning services begin at 10:30 am. Corpus Christi parish is part of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham, and Canon Mervyn Tower is the parish priest. Sunday Masses are at 9 am, 11 am and 6:30 pm.

The first service in the new Headington Baptist Church was held on 5 November 2006 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

For my guide to Oxford churches and chapels, visit here