Daily prayer in Advent 2025: 19, Thursday 18 December 2025

‘When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him’ (Matthew 1: 24) … a mosaic in the Cathedral of Christ the King, Mullingar, Co Westmeath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in the final days of the Season of Advent, and Christmas Day is just a week away. This week began with the Third Sunday of Advent (Advent III, 14 December 2025), also known as Gaudete Sunday.

We are catching a train to London later this morning for some pre-Christmas family meetings and perhaps lunch together. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

The betrothal of Saint Joseph and the Virgin Mary … a panel in the Saint Joseph Window by the Harry Clarke studios in the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Kilmallock, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 1: 18-24 (NRSVA):

18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ 22 All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

23 ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel’,

which means, ‘God is with us.’ 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife.

Saint Joseph with the Christ Child … a statue at Saint Joseph’s Cathedral, Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Reflections:

In the Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Matthew 1: 18-24), we continue in a series of readings before Christmas that draw on the two nativity narratives found in Matthew 1: 1-24 and Luke 1: 5-79.

During the week before Christmas, the great canticle Magnificat at Evensong traditionally has a refrain or antiphon attached to it proclaiming the ascriptions or ‘names’ given to God through the Old Testament. Each name develops into a prophecy of the coming of the Messiah.

The Advent carol O come, O come, Emmanuel is a popular reworking of the seven ‘O Antiphons’.

O Sapientia, or O Wisdom, is the first of these days, and was marked yesterday (17 December). It is followed today (18 December) by O Adonai, O Root of Jesse tomorrow (19 December), and then O Key of David, O Dayspring, O King of the Nations, and, finally on 23 December, O Emmanuel.

In the old Sarum rite, these were sung one day earlier, beginning on 16 December, requiring another ascription for 23 December, this being O Virgin of Virgins. Since this was clearly apposite to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and not a ‘title’ of God, it was not adopted much beyond Sarum and, with the revision of the Calendar, Anglicans have adopted the more widely-used formulæ and dating.

The seven majestic Messianic titles for Christ are based on Biblical prophecies, and they help the Church to recall the variety of the ills of humanity before the coming of the Redeemer as each antiphon in turn pleads with mounting impatience for Christ to save his people.

The Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Matthew 1: 18-24), continues the Nativity narrative in the first Gospel. This is a reading about choices, about obedience to God’s plans, and about the fulfilment of God’s plans for all nations.

So often we talk about the Virgin Mary and her obedience, about Mary’s ‘Yes’ to the birth of Christ But it means Joseph is often pushed to the side of the stage. Joseph says ‘Yes’ too, but he says it silently; he has no scripted lines; he has no dramatic part or role; he is mute; but he is obedient.

And, like the earlier Joseph, his Biblical namesake, he too is dreamer of dreams and a doer of deeds.

Saint Matthew’s nativity story lacks the romantic imagery of Saint Luke’s account, whose heady mixture of heavenly angels with earthy shepherds is missing. Instead, the hope of all the earth takes shape under the sign of arrangements being made for a betrothal that is apparently violated. The gifts of God’s grace and the promise of God’s reign are hidden, are to be searched for and to be found in the midst of what appears be a tawdry story.

The Virgin Mary may have been a mere teenager at the time, just 14 or 15. And, like so many other teenage brides, she turns up for her wedding – pregnant! Joseph knows he could not possibly be the father. He decides to do the right thing and take off, quietly dropping out of the arrangement.

If Joseph goes ahead, then this child is going to be known in his family, among his neighbours, perhaps by everyone who needs to know, as illegitimate for the rest of his life. His critics indelicately remind Jesus of this in Saint John’s Gospel: ‘You are indeed doing what your father does.’ They said to him, ‘We are not illegitimate children; we have one father, God himself’ (John 8: 41). The original Greek is more direct, crude and blunt: they taunt him that they were not conceived through illicit intercourse.

These fears and sneers, those social judgments and wagging fingers, must have been confronting Joseph like a nightmare. Yet the angel of Joseph’s dream makes a startling suggestion. He tells him to marry Mary, and then he is to name the child. To take on naming the child requires becoming his father. And this is suggested not as a nice thing to do, a courteous thing to do, a gallant or gentlemanly sort of thing to do. Joseph is told why: ‘You are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins’ (verse 21).

It is not a promise of immediate reward. Joseph is not promised that if he does this he is going to earn points towards the forgiveness of his own sins; that God will see him as a nice guy; that unexpected prosperity is on the horizon; or even that if he lives long enough, this child may grow up, be apprenticed to him, take over the family business, and act as a future pension plan.

If Joseph is not the father of the Child Jesus, he must have wondered what the angel meant by ‘his people’ and ‘their sins.’ But the forgiveness here is spoken of in apocalyptic terms. It is the declaration of a new future. To be forgiven is to receive a future. Forgiveness breaks the simple link between cause and effect, action and reaction, failure and disaster, rebellion and recrimination.

Advent is a time of repentance, forgiveness and expectation. It is a time of preparation, anticipation and hope. It is a time for dreaming dreams, and putting behind us all our nightmares.

Joseph dreams something wonderful. God would enter the world; God would be born to his new, young wife, Mary. But to believe this, Joseph had to trust not only his dream, but to trust Mary, to trust the future child, to trust God.

Do you love the people you trust and trust the people you love?

To trust the Virgin Mary, Joseph must have truly loved her. But trust in this predicament must have gone beyond trust. Joseph must have truly glimpsed what it is to trust God, to have hope in God, to love God, to have faith in God.

Joseph dreams a dream not of his own salvation, but of the salvation of the world.

Sometimes, like Joseph, we are supposed to trust God and then get out of the way. Do you trust that God is working through the people you love? Do you trust that God is working through people you find it difficult not to love but merely to like … working through God’s people for their salvation?

Too often we forget about poor Joseph. We tend to focus on the story of the Virgin Mary, but the Annunciation occurs not just to Mary, but to Joseph too. And they both say ‘Yes.’

And Joseph says a second ‘Yes’ too later when he agrees to the angel’s prompting to flee with Mary and the Christ Child to Egypt.

Joseph listens, God sends a messenger again, Joseph dreams again, and he remains true to God, he answers God’s call.

Joseph has no speaking part; he just has a walk-on part in this drama. But his actions, his obedience to God’s call, speak louder than words. Yes, God appears over and over again, to men, women, to ‘all sorts and conditions of people.’

Joseph’s ‘Yes’ is not only a ‘Yes’ to the Christ Child but a ‘Yes’ to all children who seem unwanted and who are easily pushed to one side. Joseph’s ‘Yes’ is not only a ‘Yes’ to the Christ Child but a ‘Yes’ to the promises the Coming Christ brings to all who are marginalised and in danger today, for because of his ‘Yes’ God is among us.

Advent is an opportunity to echo that ‘Yes’, time and time again.

Mary’s ‘husband Joseph [was] a righteous man’ (Matthew 1: 8-19) … Joseph and the Christ Child depicted at Saint Joseph’s Cottage in Thame, Oxfordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 18 December 2025):

The theme this week (14 to 20 December 2025) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘The Floating Church’ (pp 10-11). This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by Sister Veronica of the Community of the Sisters of the Church in Melanesia.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 18 December 2025) invites us to pray:

We pray for the Sisters as they travel across the islands by boat, canoe, and on foot. May their journeys be safe, and may their pastoral care, Scripture teaching, and witness bring encouragement to isolated communities.

The Collect:

O Lord Jesus Christ,
who at your first coming sent your messenger
to prepare your way before you:
grant that the ministers and stewards of your mysteries
may likewise so prepare and make ready your way
by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just,
that at your second coming to judge the world
we may be found an acceptable people in your sight;
for you are alive and reign with the Father
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

We give you thanks, O Lord, for these heavenly gifts;
kindle in us the fire of your Spirit
that when your Christ comes again
we may shine as lights before his face;
who is alive and reigns now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

God for whom we watch and wait,
you sent John the Baptist to prepare the way of your Son:
give us courage to speak the truth,
to hunger for justice,
and to suffer for the cause of right,
with Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Saint Joseph depicted in a stained-glass window in Saint Joseph’s Cathedral, Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

JO Scott’s hospital is a hidden gem in Buckingham that has survived NHS changes and threats of closure

Buckingham Hospital was designed by John Oldrid Scott (1841-1913) and was built as Buckingham Nursing Home in 1886 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I regularly change buses or stop briefly in Buckingham on my way from Stony Stratford to Oxford and other towns and villages in Buckinghamshire and neighbouring Oxfordshire.

The open space on High Street, east of the Old Gaol that now serves as the town’s bus station and market square was once the site of the cattle market in Buckingham but now has the function of a market square and bus stop. This area was once known as Cow Fair, North-East End and Hubbard Boulevard, and was only properly laid out in the late 19th century after Buckingham Hospital was built in 1886.

With the decline in importance of Buckingham Castle in the 12th and 13th centuries, the economic centre of the town moved eastwards to the present site of Market Square, Market Hill and High Street.

The rectangular open area of High Street between the Old Gaol and the bus stop forms a square that is divided into two islands. It has benefited from an environmental enhancement scheme in the 1990s, and one report declared ‘the former Cow Fair has a rather continental feel.’

Buckingham Hospital was given to the town of Buckingham in 1886 by John Gellibrand Hubbard (1805-1889), a year before he became Lord Addington (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Buckingham Hospital was built as Buckingham Nursing Home in 1886, with its entrance on the north-west side of the former Cattle Market, between No 19 and No 21 High Street. The entrance, across the street from the bus stop, has attractive curved metal railings atop a low brick boundary wall and metal gates.

The line of the this wall runs around the north-east and north-west boundaries of the hospital, and was built originally to enclose the Buckingham Union Workhouse. The workhouse was built in the late 1830s to a design by the architect Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811-1878), who was born in Gawcott, a village about 2.4 km (1.5 miles) south-west of Buckingham where his father where his father, the Revd Thomas Scott (1780-1835), was the perpetual curate or vicar.

Scott began his career as a leading designer of workhouses and became a prolific Gothic Revival architect, working on the design, building and renovation of churches and cathedrals. He designed or altered over 800 buildings and his other workhouses in Buckinghamshire included Winslow and Amersham. His workhouse in Buckingham was demolished in the 1960s.

Buckingham Hospital was built in 1886 to designs by Scott’s son, the architect John Oldrid Scott (1841-1913). He was a son of Sir George Gilbert Scott and Caroline (Oldrid) Scott; his brother George Gilbert Scott junior and nephew Sir Giles Gilbert Scott were also prominent architects.

John Oldrid Scott was responsible for many significant churches, and his works in this area include Saint George the Martyr Church, Wolverton (transepts, 1894) and Saint George’s Sunday School and Church Institute, Wolverton (1907-1908).

Buckingham Hospital was built as Buckingham Nursing Home (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Royal Buckinghamshire Hospital is in Aylesbury, but Buckingham Hospital is in Buckingham.

Buckingham Hospital was given to the town in 1886 by John Gellibrand Hubbard (1805-1889), 1st Baron Addington, a City of London financier and a Conservative politician. He gave his name to Addington Road in Buckingham, behind the hospital, and to the former Hubbard Boulevard.

Hubbard was the MP for Buckingham from 1859 until he lost the seat in the 1868 general election, and then for the City of London from 1874 until 1887, when he was made a peer with the title of Lord Addington.

Hubbard bought the Addington estate near Buckingham in 1854, demolished Addington House which had fallen into disrepair, and commissioned the architect Philip Charles Hardwick (1822-1892) to design Addington Manor in 1856-1857.

A of flight of stone steps leads up to the central doorway of Buckingham Hospital (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Buckingham Hospital stands on raised ground and Scott’s main building is largely obscured from view from the High Street and the bus stop, tucked away in the west corner of the site to the rear of 21 to 23 High Street and Toombs Yard.

It is a substantial, handsome building, built with vitrified bricks laid in a header bond with red bricks that emphasise its architectural details. The principal elevation is symmetrical with a central bay and two shallow gable wings to each end of the façade. A flight of stone steps leads up to the central doorway, which has a stone surround and pediment above. Each floor of the gable wings has canted sash bay windows.

The roof is tiled and elegant banded brick and stone ridge stacks punctuate the ridgeline.

The roof of Buckingham Hospital is tiled and elegant banded brick and stone ridge stacks punctuate the ridgeline (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The hospital has been greatly extended in more recent years with a substantial addition to the rear and a number of other buildings in the grounds. None of these additions contribute to the character or setting of the Victorian building or the Conservation Area.

The hospital first appeared on official maps as the ‘Nursing Home’, but it was known as Buckingham Hospital on maps from as early as the 1930s. It was privately financed until 1948, when it became part of the National Health Service.

GG Scott’s workhouse was demolished in the 1960s, and his son’s hospital was threatened with closure in the decade from 1966 to 1977 because of its small size. But local funds were raised to provide staff wages and to expand facilities in 1970s and 1980s and the hospital was kept open. The hospital buildings were extended in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The railings and entrance Buckingham Hospital, facing the bus stand on High Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Between Moreton Road and the entrance to the hospital, along the north-west side of High Street and the former cattle market, Nos 21 to 37 High Street include a picturesque mixture of two-storey and three-storey cottages, many built in brick and stone and with timber framing. They range in date from the 15th and 16th centuries through to the 17th, 18th and 19th century, and some of them have earlier origins than their appearances suggest.

Most of these cottages open onto the very edge of the footpath and they form an almost unbroken row that gives them a prominence in the streetscape of Buckingham and that helps to define and enclose the north-west side of the former Cattle Market in front of the hospital.

Picturesque cottages along the north-west side of High Street add to the colour and character of the street beside the hospital entrance (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 159, Saturday 18 October 2025, Saint Luke the Evangelist

Saint Luke depicted in a fresco in the Church of the Transfiguration in Piskopianó in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and tomorrow is the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVIII, 19 October 2025). Today in the Church Calendar is the Feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist (18 October).

Later in the day, I hope to spend some time at the AGM and annual conference of Christian CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament). Originally, it was going to take place in Cardiff Qaker Meeting House, but due to expected rail strikes today, it is going online. The guest speaker, Paul Ingram, is speaking talk as planned. He is a former Senior Fellow of the British American Security Information Council (BASIC), a think tank focusing on nuclear disarmament based in London and Washington DC. He has been vice-president of the Oxford University Student Union (1998-1999), co-leader of Oxford City Council (2000-2002), Warden of Oxford Quaker Meeting House (1994-1997), and has served on the Quaker Council for European Affairs and several Quaker committees.

Meanwhile, before the day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

Saint Luke depicted in a window in Saint Joseph’s Church, Thame, Oxfordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Luke 10: 1-9 (NRSVA):

1 After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. 2 He said to them, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest. 3 Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. 4 Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. 5 Whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace to this house!” 6 And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. 7 Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the labourer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. 8 Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 9 cure the sick who are there, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you”.’

Saint Luke in a spandrel beneath the dome in Analipsi Church (Εκκλησία Ανάληψη) or the Church of the Ascension in Georgioupoli in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

In the Church Calendar, today [18 October] is the Feast of Saint Luke (Λουκάς) the Evangelist, traditionally remembered as the author of the Third Gospel and of the Acts of the Apostles.

I have never quite worked out why Saint Luke among the four evangelists is traditionally represented in Church art and architecture as a winged ox. But I find he is an interesting Biblical figure, not just as an evangelist, but as a writer who provided fascinating accounts of his travels – in all, he names 32 countries, 54 cities and nine islands – but also as a key figure in the tradition of icons and iconography.

Although Saint Luke is not one of the Twelve, he figures throughout the New Testament. Apart from the Gospel he gives his name to and the Acts of the Apostles, he is also mentioned in the Epistle to Philemon (verse 24), Colossians (4: 14) and II Timothy (4: 11), which is part of the Epistle reading in the Lectionary readings for today.

Later traditions claim Saint Luke is one of the Seventy at the heart of the Gospel reading at the Eucharist today, that he is one of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, or even that he is closely related to the Apostle Paul. But Saint Luke, in his own statement at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, tells us he was not an eyewitness to the events of the Gospel. On the other hand, he repeatedly uses the word ‘we’ as he describes Saint Paul’s missionary journeys in the Acts of the Apostles, indicating he was personally there so many times.

Yet, both Saint Luke’s Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles are detailed in history, expression, and narrative that are held in regard by Biblical historians and archaeologists for their historical accuracy and trustworthiness.

Saint Luke is also known as the ‘glorious physician,’ and – especially in the Eastern Church – as an icon writer.

It is said that Saint Luke was born in Antioch in Syria (now in Turkey) to Greek-speaking parents. As a physician, he was said to have had a skill for healing, but that he left all this behind around the year 50 CE and joined Saint Paul after they met in Antioch.

He may have accompanied Saint Paul on his missionary journeys before staying on in Troas (Troy) after Saint Paul left, although it is also possible that he was with Saint Paul in Rome until Saint Paul was martyred (see II Timothy 4: 11; Acts 28: 16). Tradition says Saint Luke died in Thebes, in central Greece, at the age of 84.

Saint Luke gives us the great poetry of the canticles Magnificat (Luke 1: 46-55), Benedictus (Luke 1: 68-79) and Nunc Dimittis (Luke 2: 29-32). He alone gives us the Annunciation, the Visitation, the birth of Saint John the Baptist, and the Presentation of the Christ Child in the Temple. He introduces us to Elizabeth and Zechariah, the angels and the shepherds at the first Christmas, Simeon and Anna, the Christ Child lost in the Temple, the Good Samaritan, the unjust steward, the Prodigal Son, the healed Samaritan, Zacchaeus the tax-collector in Jericho, and the Disciples on the Road to Emmaus.

Saint Luke devotes significantly more attention to women. He presents Christ as the constant friend of the poor, the downtrodden, the marginalised, the sidelined, healing the sick, comforting even the despairing thief on the cross beside him.

As I am challenged by the ways of the world, I sometimes wonder how – like Saint Luke the Gospel writer and Saint Luke the Iconographer – I can present the world with meaningful and accessible accounts and images of who Christ is.

As I pray each morning about the work of the Anglican mission agency USPG, I find inspiration in the commitment of Saint Luke the early missionary, with his accounts of the missionary work of the early Church.

Without Saint Luke, we may wonder how we would have come to know about the earliest missionary endeavours of Saint Paul and the Apostolic Church.

Saint Luke remains an attractive and interesting Biblical figure … as an evangelist, as someone who presents Christ in ways that can be understood in the language of the people, whether word or image, as someone who gives healing a proper place in ministry, as a friend of the poor and the sick, the marginalised and the stereotyped, as someone who, in all his travels and travails, remains faithful unto death to the ministry he is called to and is charged with.

Saint Luke depicted in a stained-glass window by Catherine O’Brien of An Túr Gloine in Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale … Saint Luke’s Day is on 18 October (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 18 October 2025, Saint Luke the Evangelist):

The theme this week (12 to 18 October) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been ‘A Life Dedicated to Care’ (pp 46-47). This theme was introduced last Sunday with a programme update on Sister Gillian Rose of the Bollobhpur Mission Hospital, Church of Bangladesh.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 18 October 2025, Saint Luke the Evangelist) invites us to pray:

Lord, we thank you for the example of Saint Luke, a healer and servant of your word. May we, like Saint Luke and Sister Gillian, serve others with compassion and care, offering both physical healing and spiritual comfort to all in need.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you called Luke the physician,
whose praise is in the gospel,
to be an evangelist and physician of the soul:
by the grace of the Spirit
and through the wholesome medicine of the gospel,
give your Church the same love and power to heal;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Almighty God,
who on the day of Pentecost
sent your Holy Spirit to the apostles
with the wind from heaven and in tongues of flame,
filling them with joy and boldness to preach the gospel:
by the power of the same Spirit
strengthen us to witness to your truth
and to draw everyone to the fire of your love;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Collect on the Eve of Trinity XVIII:

Almighty and everlasting God,
increase in us your gift of faith
that, forsaking what lies behind
and reaching out to that which is before,
we may run the way of your commandments
and win the crown of everlasting joy;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Saint Luke depicted in a window in Saint Mary the Virgin Church in Thame, Oxfordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

ss window in Saint Michael’s Church, Tipperary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Saint Joseph’s Church in Thame has stories of secret priests and links to the ‘Gunpowder Plot’

Saint Joseph’s Church in Thame, Oxfordshire, was designed by John D Holmes and was built in 1996-1997 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

After visiting Saint Mary’s Church, the mediaeval Church of England in Thame, I visited Saint Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church on Brook Lane. It is a modern church, built in 1996-1997, but the church also led to me learning more about the traditions and stories surrounding the Roman Catholic presence in the south Oxfordshire market town.

There were few Roman Catholics in the Thame area in the centuries after the Reformation, although at times they may have had a safe house at Thame Park.

Roman Catholic worship is known to have taken place at Thame Park in the early 17th century, when Lady Agnes Wenman lived there. She was a Catholic and the wife of Sir Richard Wenman (1573-1640), who was later given the Irish peerage titles of Baron Wenman of Kilmainham, Co Meath, and Viscount Wenman of Tuam, Co Galway, in 1628.

Agnes Wenman came from a Catholic family and was the daughter of Sir George Fermor of Easton Neston, near Towcester, Northamptonshire, and his wife Mary, daughter and heiress of Thomas Curzon and a god-daughter and maid of honour of Mary I of England.

The Jesuit missionary priest John Gerard had stayed as her guest disguised as a layman, and she was a friend of Elizabeth Vaux, a sister-in-law of Anne Vaux, an ally of Henry Garnet, the Jesuit priest. This led to suspicions that she was involved in the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, and both she and her husband were questioned separately in December 1605m but Henry Garnet was executed in May 1606. Agnes Wenman died in 1617.

Inside Saint Joseph’s Church, Thame, looking towards the liturgical east (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

In the following century, another Lady Wenman was also a prominent Roman Catholic at Thame Park. Lady Eleanor Bertie (1737-1804) was a daughter of Willoughby Bertie, 3rd Earl of Abingdon, who was suspected of having Jacobite sympathies. She was brought up a Catholic by her mother, Anna Maria Collins, and at the age of 29 she married the 24-year-old Philip Wenman, 7th and last Viscount Wenman, in 1766.

The Roman Catholic population of Thame in 1767 was five: Lady Eleanor Wenman, her sister, her two servants and a hatter’s widow. Lady Eleanor allowed Mass to be celebrated in the chapel at Thame Park, with the approval of her husband, and she supported a number of Jesuit chaplains at Thame Park, including Father Bernard Cassidy (1713-1788), also known as Bernard Stafford. He was from Ireland and had been the Jesuit Superior in Oxford from 1771. When he died, he was buried in the chapel at Thame Park.

The last chaplain at Thame Park, Father William Hothersoll, left in 1799 to join a fellow Jesuit priest at Saint Clement’s in Oxford, after the Catholic mission moved there. Eleanor Wenman died in 1804. The date of the last Roman Catholic mass at Thame Park chapel is not known. The chapel at Thame Park was substantially renovated and enlarged in 1836 and became an Anglican chapel.

Inside Saint Joseph’s Church, Thame, looking towards the liturgical west end (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

For a while, the town welcomed French priests escaping persecution during the French Revolution. But there was no formal Catholic provision in Thame until the early 20th century.

Colonel Harman Grisewood and his Roman Catholic wife open the chapel in the grounds of the Prebendal House in Thame on 5 January 1913 as the Chapel of the Holy Family. Father Randolph Traill was sent by the Diocese of Birmingham to begin a mission in the area, and he living in the Prebendal Lodge in 1920. The chapel within the grounds of the Prebendal House is thought to have been built ca 1234.

The Grisewood family left the Prebendal by 1924. Colonel Grisewood’s son, Harman Joseph Gerard Grisewood (1908-1997), had a long career with the BBC. In his autobiography, One Thing at a Time (1968), he recalled his Catholic childhood in the 1910s and 1920s in the rambling 13th century house at Thame, with its own chapel and its own resident priest, Father Traill.

He recalled a terrifying incident when one day he and his brother, on an outing with their nanny and a nursemaid, were stoned in their prams by villagers as they approached Saint Mary’s Church of England parish church.

A new church was built in in Brook Lane, Thame, in August 1922, and was dedicated to Saint Joseph. Father Traill brought a statue of Saint Joseph from the Prebendal chapel to the new church.

The population of Thame started to grow rapidly after World War II as employment changed from farming to engineering, and by 1958 the parish numbered 270 people. Saint Joseph’s Hall, a prefabricated timber building was built beside the church in 1963 as a parish hall.

The church was extended in 1972 and 1983, but the town grew rapidly yet again in the 1980s, bringing increased pressures for a larger church. Building work on a new church began in September 1996, the church from 1922 was demolished in January 1997, and the new church was – completed in June 1997. Many of the stained glass windows in the original church were preserved and restored in the new church.

The church was blessed and opened by Archbishop Maurice Couve de Murville of Birmingham on 20 June 1997.

Saint Luke and Saint John depicted in a window in Saint Joseph’s Church, Thame (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Joseph’s Church in Thame is one of the newer churches in the Archdiocese of Birmingham. It has a traditional design, with a large, well-lit interior and furnishings and stained glass of some quality.

The new church and parish rooms were designed by the architect John D Holmes. The church faces south, has a spacious, well-lit interior and high-quality furnishings and stained glass. This description follows conventional liturgical orientation.

The church has brick-faced walls in stretcher bond with a slate roof. The plan is nearly square, with a narrower sanctuary in the liturgical east. There are two cross-roofs over each side with large windows. At the east end of the nave roof is a small flèche. There are diamond-shaped windows in the apex of east and west gables.

The entrance is in a link building at the liturgical west that leads into a narthex connecting the church and the parish hall. A large slate plaque commemorating the opening of the church is set below a window beside the entrance.

An abstract design in a window on the (liturgical) south side of Saint Joseph’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The four-bay interior has a boarded timber ceiling on laminated timber portal frames. The dadoes under the windows, the west wall and the east chancel arch are all of brown exposed brick. The chancel is plastered, with a timber ceiling.

The sanctuary furnishings are by David John in matching stone. The semi-circular sanctuary steps project beyond the chancel arch. A modern crucifix hangs above the tabernacle. The font at the west end has a circular bowl on a square stem.

All the windows have stained glass by Bowman’s Stained Glass of Aylesbury (1997). Those at the north-west, north-east, south-east and to the sides of the sanctuary depict the Sacred Heart, Our Lady of Thame, apostles, evangelists and saints, while those to the north and south are largely abstract. The small gable window at the west depicts the Ecce Homo, and the east window the dove of the Holy Spirit. There is an etched glass screen at the narthex.

Saint Joseph’s Cottage near Saint Joseph’s Church was once a convent for the Sisters of Providence (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Joseph’s Cottage nearby was once a convent for the Sisters of Providence, who ran a nursing home and care facilities and provided support for a local hospice. The legacy of the convent and the sisters continues through a local foundation, the Foundation for the Sisters of Providence.

As for the chapel at the Prebendal House, it is still in private hands but it no longer functions as a chapel.

• The Sunday Masses in Saint Joseph’s Church, Thame, are: 6 pm Saturday, Vigil Mass; 9 am and 11 am, Sunday. The Parish Priest is Father Michael Puljic.

The sanctuary furnishings in Saint Joseph’s Church, Thame, are by are by David John (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Mary’s Church, Thame, and the patronage and influence of a local Oxfordshire magnate

Saint Mary’s Church in Thame, Oxfordshire, seen from Church Meadow and the grounds of Thame Cricket Club(Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

One of the nearby towns that I have enjoyed exploring recently is Thame, a pretty market town in South Oxfordshire, about 21 km (13 miles) east of Oxford, 16 km (10 miles) south-west of Aylesbury, and with a population of about 12,000.

The River Thame on the north side of the town and forms part of the county border between Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. I have passed through Thame on the bus between Aylesbury and Oxford at times, and I wanted to see the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, which is an impressive sight when seen from the bus, looking across Church Meadow and the grounds of Thame Cricket Club.

Thame was founded in the Anglo-Saxon era, when it was part of the kingdom of Wessex. The town began as a settlement by the river from which it takes its name, and was probably founded in 635 CE as the administrative centre of the endowed lands of the Bishop of Dorchester. After the Norman Conquest, the diocese moved to Lincoln and a royal charter was granted in 1215 for the market that is still held every Tuesday.

Saint Mary’s Church, Thame, was first built in the 13th century on the initiative of Bishop Robert Grosseteste of Lincoln (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The earliest feature in Saint Mary’s Church, Thame, is the 12th century base of the font (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Thame had a lengthy monastic presence for 400 years, and the Cistercians founded Thame Abbey in 1138. The abbey church was consecrated in 1145, but the abbey was supressed at the Dissolution of the Monasteries during the Tudor reformation in the 16th century, the church was demolished, and Thame Park was built on the site.

Saint Mary’s Church was first built in the 13th century on the initiative of the Bishop of Lincoln, Saint Robert Grosseteste. He has been described as ‘the greatest product of Oxford University’ and the real founder of the tradition of scientific thought in mediaeval Oxford’, and he gives his name to Lincoln College, Oxford. The first reference to a bell being rung was while Saint Mary’s was still being built in the mid-13th century and Bishop Grosseteste lay dying in 1253. It is said that the bell rang without mortal assistance.

Parts of the original church can still be seen, including the pillars and arches in the nave and the aisle windows that date from the early 14th century. The earliest feature is the 12th century base of the font. The font’s octagonal bowl was re-cut in the 13th century.

The impressive sights in Saint Mary’s include the Tudor-era tombs in the chancel and the south transept, including the very dominant tomb of John Williams, a local magnate, and the chancel stalls with linenfold panelling.

Inside Saint Mary’s Church, Thame, looking towards the east end, chancel and east window (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The church and the neighbouring prebendal houses were both attacked repeatedly in the early 1290s during a violent conflict between the Bishop of Lincoln, Oliver Sutton, and Sir John St John.

Saint Mary’s is a cruciform church. The chancel is Early English Gothic and was built ca 1220, with six lancet windows in its north wall and presumably a similar arrangement in the south wall. It was twice altered in the next few decades: a three-light plate tracery window was inserted in its north wall in the mid-13th century and the five-light east window with geometrical tracery was inserted ca 1280.

If there were lancet windows in the chancel south wall, they were replaced with three two-light Decorated Gothic windows with reticulated tracery, and a double piscina was added at the same time.

The transepts and tower arches also date from the early 13th century. The nave has five-bay north and south aisles with arcades built ca 1260. The aisles were widened in the 14th century, when they acquired their Decorated Gothic windows and doors. The Decorated Gothic south porch has two storeys and a two-bay quadripartite vault.

Inside Saint Mary’s Church, Thame, looking from the chancel screen towards the west end (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Perpendicular Gothic clerestory is 14th or early 15th century. The tower piers were strengthened in the 15th century and the two upper stages of the tower were built. The north transept was rebuilt in 1442 with five-light Perpendicular Gothic north and east windows with panel tracery. At about the same time, the south transept acquired similar windows and was extended eastwards to form a chapel with a 15th-century piscina.

The south transept was known as Saint Christopher’s Chapel and houses two table tombs belonging to the Quartermain family. The tomb of Richard Quartermain, his wife Sybil and their godson Richard Fowler, dates from 1477 and is notable for the armour depicted on its brasses.

The stalls with linenfold panelling in the chancel came from Thame Abbey in 1540.

The Perpendicular Gothic nave west window was inserted in 1672-1673, making it an example of Gothic survival.

The tomb of John Williams and his wife Elizabeth dominates the chancel of Saint Mary’s Church, Thame (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The chancel has several interesting tombs. The most prominent tomb is that of John Williams (1500-1559), 1st Baron Williams of Thame, and his wife Elizabeth. Williams was a man of great influence and wealth and a courtier during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth I.

The chancel also has the tomb of Sir John Clerke, who was knighted by Henry VIII for his part in the capture of Louis I d’Orléans, Duke of Longueville, at the Battle of the Spurs in 1513.

Clerke died in 1539 and his effigy in the chancel in Thame shows him in armour, kneeling at a prayer desk with a prayer book. The scroll above his head is inscribed Sancta Trinitas Unus Deus Misere Nobis, ‘Holy Trinity, One God, have mercy on us’.

Sir John Clerke is depicted in Saint Mary’s Church, Thame, kneeling at a prayer desk with a prayer book (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The north aisle north wall was rebuilt in 1838 under the direction of George Wilkinson. The church was substantially restored between 1889 and 1897 by the architect John Oldrid Scott (1841-1913).

Saint Mary’s tower has a ring of eight bells in F# tenor of approximately 580 kg, all cast by Mears and Stainbank of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in 1876 from the metal of the former ring of six, and hung in a 19th century oak frame.

The present bells were named in 1997, from the Fruits of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5: 22-25. They are, from treble to tenor; Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Gentleness, Faithfulness, Humility and Forbearance. There is also a Sanctus bell dedicated to the Virgin Mary which probably dates back to the late 1500s.

The Prebendal House facing the west end of Saint Mary’s Church, Thame (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Facing the west front of the church, the Prebendal House is known to have existed by 1234, and it has and Early English Gothic chapel built ca 1250. The solar room was also 13th century but was enlarged in the 14th century, when the present crown-post roof was added. The rest of the Prebendal House dates from the 15th century.

The hall is 14th century in plan but was later divided, and one part now has a fine 15th century roof. The antiquarian Anthony Wood reported in 1661 that the house was ruinous, and early in the 19th century the remains were in use as a farmhouse and barns. It was restored in 1836.

The Prebendal House was the home of singer songwriter and member of the Bee Gees Robin Gibb and his wife Dwina from 1984. He is buried in Saint Mary’s churchyard.

John Williams was heavily involved in the Dissolution of the Monasteries and was the receiver of Thame Abbey in 1535 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Lord Williams, who is buried with his wife in the chancel, was heavily involved in the Dissolution of the Monasteries and became receiver of Thame Abbey in 1535. He was related by marriage to the last Abbot of Thame, Robert King.

Williams also obtained the Priory of Elsing Spittle in Cripplegate, London, and had a palace at Rycote which Henry VIII and Catherine Howard visited on their honeymoon. When he died at Ludlow Castle on 14 October 1559, his body was brought back to Rycote and then taken to Thame for burial.

He built the almshouses in Church Lane in 1550. He died in 1559, and his will established the local grammar school. Its original building, completed in 1569, stands next to the almshouses. The school moved to its current premises in Oxford Road in 1880, and it became a comprehensive school in 1971 with the name Lord Williams’s School.

The Perpendicular Gothic nave west window in Saint Mary’s Church, Thame, was inserted in 1672-1673 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

A statue of the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child above the south porch (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Thame Church brings together Saint Mary’s Church, Thame, Barley Hill Church and Saint Catherine’s Church, Towersey. The ministry team includes the Revd Mike Reading, Team Rector since 2020; the Revd Andy McCulloch, Team Vicar, the Revd Graham Choldcroft, Associate Minister, and the Revd Heather McCulloch, Associate Vicar.

• There are two Sunday services at Saint Mary’s Church, Thame: 9 am Holy Communion (Common Worship); 11 am informal service, with Holy Communion on the first Sunday of each month. Morning Prayer is said every weekday morning at 9 am and Compline at 8 pm.

The five-light East Window with geometrical tracery was inserted ca 1280 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

There are two Sunday morning services in Saint Mary’s Church, Thame: Holy Communion at 9 and an informal service at 11 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Four churches or chapels in Bicester tell the stories of Methodists and of Dissenters in Bicester

Bicester Methodist Church on the corner of Sheep Street and Bell Lane was built in 1927 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

During my recent walkabouts in Bicester, I have visited both Saint Edburg’s Church, the Church of England parish church, and the Church of the Immaculate Conception, the Roman Catholic parish church.

I also went in search of the site of the pre-Reformation Augustinian priory in the Oxfordshire market town. Little remains of the original Priory but excavations and written accounts have provided a picture of the priory and what life was like there.

Old Place Yard with its turreted dovecote, is believed to occupy part of the site of the 12th century priory. The present dovecote at Old Place Yard was heavily altered in the 1960s after the original structure and stable buildings were damaged in a fire in the 1960s.

But as I walked around I found four other churches or chapels in Bicester: two Methodist churches, one still active and the other now a shop on Sheep Street; a former Congregational church on Chapel Lane; and the unusual Dissenters’ chapel in the cemetery beside Saint Edburg’s Church.

A cross embedded in the brick work on the north side of Bicester Methodist Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Bicester Methodist Church in the centre of the town is at the end of Sheep Street on the corner with Bell Lane. It was built in 1927 to replace the original Methodist church on the opposite side of Sheep Street, and was originally known as the Grainger Hargreaves Memorial Church.

Methodism in Bicester began after a Mrs J Bowerman was ‘awakened’ while she heard John Wesley preaching in Brackley in Northamptonshire, close to Banbury, Bicester and Buckingham, in 1748. When she and her husband settled in Bicester, they first attended Saint Edburg’s Church, but they soon arranged for the Methodist minister in Brackley to visit Bicester. A room in a farmhouse on what became the site of the later Wesley Hall was used for those early services, and a building in Sheep Street was licensed as a chapel in 1816.

As the Methodism grew in Bicester, it was threatened with schism. In May 1843, preachers of the Primitive Methodists or ‘Ranters’ in Oxford began to preach in the Market Square and attempts by local people to stop them preaching created a disturbance.

Over time, two separate branches of Wesleyanism emerged in Bicester. One stayed on the site of the farmhouse and eventually built what became the Wesley Hall; the other bought a site in North Street and built a chapel there in 1840. A schoolroom was added 40 years later. The chapel was enlarged, new seats were installed in 1892 and the gallery was added, and an organ was installed in 1904.

The two separate churches eventually outgrew their buildings and outgrew their differences. They came together in 1890 and formed the United Methodist Free Church. They decided to build one shared church, a site was acquired by 1919 and a row of cottages at 72-78 Sheep Street was demolished to clear the site for the church. The old chapel in North Street was sold in 1925 to the Jersey Lodge of Masons and became the Masonic Weyland Hall.

Wesley Hall on Sheep Street, Bicester, is now a bedding and furniture shop (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Wesley Hall in Sheep Street continued to be used as a church until the new one was built. It was then used as a church hall and as a Sunday School until a new hall was built behind the new church. Wesley Hall was sold to Woolworths in 1955. It later became Coxeters furniture shop and is now Home Comforts.

When the new church opened in 1927, it was named the Grainger Hargreaves Memorial Church in memory of the Revd Grainger Hargreaves (1855-1923) who had spent many years of his ministry in China and then in Australia and New Zealand. He was chair of the Oxford District and Superintendent of Wesley Memorial Church for 18 years. He moved to Bicester in 1921 but died on Christmas Day 1923.

The foundation stone was laid on 23 September 1926, and new church was opened by Mrs J Vanner Early of Witney on 23 June 1927. The builders were Cannon, Green and Co of Aylesbury.

The name Wesley Hall and the date 1863 can still be seen on the Sheep Street facade (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The architectural historian Sir Niklaus Pevsner, has described Bicester Methodist Church as ‘an extraordinary mixture’ of architectural styles and motifs. The three tall lancet windows in the centre of the front façade harken back to the earliest mediaeval Gothic design, the flowing curvilinear tracery at their heads is typical of art nouveaux, while the central fielded panel with its very unusual flanking geometric pilasters has art deco styling.

Methodist churches were often built as rather simple chapels, with a single main entrance opening into an open meeting hall. The form of the building in Bicester, however, is much more complex with small projecting wings on the side elevations and an imposing façade with decorative stone and brickwork. A tower was originally planned for one corner.

Inside, the central hall or nave faces a raised platform with pointed arches and carved foliate capitals and it looks like a Victorian gothic revival chancel in all but name. The ceiling is fashioned like a Tudor hammer-beam roof. The curvilinear motif outside is repeated in the pierced wooden panels between the collar beams. The windows have domestic Edwardian stained glass flower motifs, but great swags of art nouveau tracery.

A two-manual organ by Albert Keates of Sheffield installed in 1942 was a gift from George Layton, one of the church the organist for 50 years. He had opened the first garage in London Road in Bicester in 1910.

The planned tower was never built, but an extension, built at the rear in Victoria Road in the 1950s, hosts many community events.

The Revd Jocelyn Bennett is the minister of Bicester Methodist Church. Sunday services are usually at 10:45 am and 6:15 pm, and the church provides opportunities through the week for times of prayer and worship. The church is also used by Bicester Elim Church on Sunday afternoons.

The former Bicester Congregational Church on Chapel Street, Bicester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The story of Dissenters in Bicester goes back to the reign of Elizabeth I, when a dispute over doctrinal matters broke out between the vicar and his parishioners. Order was restored, but Nonconformity resurfaced in 1654 when the Cromwellian commissioners appointed as vicar William Hall, a ‘godly and painful’ preacher who had been the curate in Bicester for some years.

The Bicester Congregational Church emerged after Presbyterians and ‘Independents’, the heirs of the Puritan tradition, were ejected from parish churches in 1662.

A Presbyterian congregation met secretly before being formally licensed in 1672 after a meeting in Bicester with John Troughton, who had been ejected from Saint John’s College, Oxford. Troughton was licensed as a preacher under the Declaration of Indulgence, and when he died in 1681 he was buried at Bicester parish church.

By 1669, ‘separatists’, said to be 100 to 200 in number, met in the barn of a baker, Thomas Harris. Samuel Lee, an eminent Puritan divine who lived at Bignell in 1664-1678, also ‘sometimes kept conventicles at Bicester’. Nevertheless, the Compton Census of 1676 and Bishop Fell in a report ca 1685 recorded no dissenters.

Henry Cornish became the first pastor of the congregation in 1690. A contemporary, critical pamphlet said he preached ‘for profit’s sake to silly women and other obstinate people’. Cornish died in 1698.

A chapel was first built Water Lane, now Chapel Street, and was licensed for public worship in 1728. The chapel became an important centre for Nonconformists in the surrounding area and a Sunday school was established in 1794. The chapel was enlarged and licensed for marriages in 1839 and a schoolroom was added in 1873.

A Presbyterian congregation met secretly in Bicester before being legally licensed in 1672 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The exterior front of the chapel is built of chequer brick with a hipped roof and broken pediment. There are some ashlar dressings and Welsh-slate roofs. There are tall round-arched windows and the left bay has been altered to form a rose window above an added pedimented porch, with a round-arched doorway surrounded by rusticated stone blocks. The arched windows in the front gable walls have wooden Gothic-style tracery.

The denominational labels used by the Bicester congregation are interesting. After the Toleration Act of 1689, Presbyterians and Independents in England formed what was known as the ‘Happy Union’ until it ended in acrimony in 1694.

In Bicester, on the other hand, Presbyterians and Independents continued to work together late into the 18th century. In 1738 and 1759, the vicar described them as Presbyterians; in 1808, he said they described themselves as Independents. The earliest surviving minute-book, from 1771, refers to ‘the Congregation or Society of Protestant Dissenters from the Church of England commonly called Presbyterians’.

John Ludd Fenner, who was the pastor in 1771-1774, was a Unitarian, but later returned to the Congregationalists; Edward Hickman, who died in 1781, was a Calvinist; another minister was from the Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion; while other preachers and ministers included Calvinists, Arminians, Arians, Socinians, Baptists and Methodists.

In the 19th century, the church was served by Independents or Congregationalists, as they were beginning to be called. The seven young men who entered the ministry from Bicester chapel in 1810-1855 included three became Baptists.

Some of the colourful pastors from the past included: Samuel Park (1739-1766), who was ‘gay and light in his practices, fond of convivial company’; David Davis (1768-1771), ‘a slave to his ale and pipe’, who absconded with unpaid debts; and TH Norton (1899-1902), who abandoned his wife and ran away with the wife of one of the deacons.

The Revd SG Burden was appointed to a part-time post in Bicester in 1952 and was also the pastor of Launton. When the Presbyterians and Congregationalists united, it became Bicester United Reform Church in 1972.

The church closed in 1978, the building was converted into a private house, and the war memorial was moved to Bicester Methodist Church. The building was later used as a snooker hall and is now a restaurant.

The Dissenters’ Chapel in the cemetery beside Saint Edburg’s Church, Bicester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Dissenters’ Chapel in the cemetery beside Saint Edburg’s Church in Bicester, was built in 1861 to accommodate non-conformists in the town. The ground was separate to the main Anglican churchyard, but the Bicester Herald reported concerns among some residents that dissenters would be allowed access through the main churchyard entrance.

To mollify the parishioners and the congregation of Saint Edburg’s, it was agreed that the dissenters would instead use the Piggy Lane entrance.

The turreted dovecote on Old Place Yard is believed to occupy part of the site of the 12th century priory (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)