Dial House on Bristle Hill and the extraordinary story of a hidden but very modern sundial in Buckingham

The sundial at Dial House at 7 Bristle Hill, Buckingham, with its Latin inscription, was commissioned by Anthony Gordon Randall and designed by David Harber (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Wandering through the streets of Buckingham, I have often gazed at Dial House at 7 Bristle Hill, and wondered about the sundial that fills the lower of two recesses above the front door, and its Latin inscription and Roman numerals.

I could find no reference to house or the sundial in architectural guides, local histories or tourist leaflets, nobody in the tourist information office in the Old Gaol in Buckingham seemed to know about the dial or the house, and so last week I began to wonder about the origins, antiquity and purpose of the dial and the story of Dial House.

Dial House is at the bottom of Bristle Hill, at its north-west end, where it meets School Lane, close to a bend on the River Great Ouse.

Across the top of this vertical declining dial on the first floor is the Latin inscription Super collem saetigerum septem / semper luceat sol. Below there is a fading translation, Upon seven Bristle Hill let the sun shine still, though this is now difficult to make out, and a peculiar sequence of letters and numbers ‘AGR 080808’ that seem to create a puzzling conundrum.

The blue painted slate dial plate is set in a recess about 30 mm deep. The hours XI to X are shown with full length hour lines originating from a sun, below may be the letters ‘GMT’. There are declination lines labelled for the solstices and equinoxes, although they may not be accurately drawn, and another dashed line that is not identified. All the remaining dial lettering appears to be gold or gold leaf.

I inquired around and eventually learned that the initials AGR are those of an interesting and creative local figure, the late Anthony Gordon Randall (1933-2021), and learned too how he erected the dial almost 18 years ago to mark his 75th birthday on 8 August 2008 – hence the puzzling numbers 080808 beside his initials.

Dial House is at the bottom of Bristle Hill, at its north-west end, where it meets School Lane, close to a bend on the River Great Ouse (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Anthony Gordon Randall, once a website developer and printing entrepreneur, was born into Quaker family in Woking on 8 August 1933, the third and youngest of three children. He was educated at Leighton Park, a Quaker-run public school in Reading, and at Trinity College Oxford (BA 1957), Insead (MBA 1962) and the University of Buckingham (MA 2012).

He moved from Richmond to Buckingham in 2007 and there, at the beginning of 2008, as he was looking forward to his 75th birthday, he began thinking of suitable ways to celebrate that milestone. He heard how the number 8 is regarded as lucky in China because the word eight sounds similar to the word that means ‘prosper’ or ‘wealth’. The date 08.08.08 would be a particularly auspicious one in China, and coincided with the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.

His house on Bristle Hill was originally a couple of old two-storey cottages with a third floor probably added shortly after the canal arrived in Buckingham in the early 19th century and with a Georgian façade added to form the front of the house.

Above the front door and between the two windows on each of the upper floors are niches, probably designed to resemble windows in more stately houses that were blocked up in the 18th century to avoid Window Tax. Randall decided the lower of the niches would be a suitable place for a sundial.

An online search led him to David Harber, whose list of commissions included Oxbridge colleges, stately homes and international corporate head offices. The wording for the Latin inscription was provided by Bishop Stephen Verney (1919-2009), a former Bishop of Repton, who lived near David Harber’s workshop.

Randall wanted a motto related to the house at the bottom of Bristle Hill. He thought of the words in the funeral, Lux aeterna luceat …, ‘Let light eternal shine …’, and transformed this into ‘Let the sun always shine’ (Semper luceat sol …), ending (or beginning) with ‘upon 7 Bristle Hill’.

But he met some problems with his efforts at creating a Latin phrase. When he looked up ‘bristle’ he got saeta, and so he submitted to Bishop Verney Super collem saetae (‘of the bristle’) septem … He got back Super septem (before, not after, the street name) collem saetigerum (‘bristle-bearing’).

Meanwhile, during a visit to Naples, he thought he might find the correct position for the number seven (VII) during a visit to Pompeii. But the people of Pompeii did not use numbers for addresses: ‘this was a new-fangled Greek idea, which might be all very well in Alexandria, but really wouldn’t do for us Romans in Campania.’ And so, imagining the modern Italian method of putting the house number after and not before the street name was perhaps based on some Roman precedent, he decided to do likewise.

The bishop’s opinions about the word ‘Bristle’, however, were supported by a family member who had won a classical scholarship in Oxford college. He was convinced that forming adjectives from nouns by adding ‘-bearing’ in cases such as this was a common occurrence and was derived from Greek practice. They arrived at what they agreed was a reasonable Latin motto, adding a translation into English in small print at the bottom. There he produced a rhyming couplet to render semper (‘always’) as ‘still’, or continuing until this time, and produced: ‘Upon Seven Bristle Hill / Let the sun shine still’.

In addition, he chose the typeface Trajan for the wording on the dial.

Anthony Randall and David Harber worked with Bishop Stephen Verney to complete the inscriptions on the dial at Dial House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

At the installation of the sundial at No 7 Bristle House, David Harber and Anthony Randall discussed a follow-up project for the empty niche above, with Harber suggesting a weather cock on the chimney that would link through gears to a pointer on a compass rose in the niche: ‘This birthday you’re tracking the sun: the next big one, track the wind!’

No 7 Bristle House became Dial House, the sundial was nominated for a prize for the best recent embellishment of the town of Buckingham, and Anthony Randall began planning for his 80th birthday on 8 August 2013. But those plans never saw the light of day, and he died on 18 January 2021.

The house at the bottom of Bristle Hill was sold recently and is being refurbished. I hope the sundial is restored to its original glory, and that the new owners have a vision for the second-storey niche above.

As for Bishop Stephen Verney, he died on 9 November 2009, just over a year after the dial was installed. As a conscientious objector during World War II, he first served with Friends Ambulance Unit but later became an undercover agent in occupied Crete, working with the Greek resistance.

He was as an Oxford classicist and his Water into Wine (London: Fount Paperbacks, 1985) had a profound influence on my understanding of Saint John’s Gospel. Perhaps I should return to his story in the weeks to come.

Looking down Bristle Hill in Buckingham towards School Lane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Sculptures welcome visitors to Watford and celebrates football, friendship and printing

‘Welcome to Watford’ designed by Dallas-Pierce-Quintero and Stephen Barrett (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

Walking out of Watford Junction Station, before walking into the town centre, an installation of large, colourful letters outside the station spells out ‘Watford’. It was designed by Dallas-Pierce-Quintero to create a welcoming first impression of the town and as a tribute to the printing heritage of Watford.

The graphic designer Stephen Barrett worked with project to create bespoke fonts that could be used sit, lean, lie on. It incorporates text engraved into the largest W that introduces Watford to new visitors and alludes to the town’s printing heritage while revealing the meaning of each letter:

W is for Welcoming
A is for Artistic
T is for Town Centre
F is for Football
O is for Open Spaces
R is for Railway
D is for Diversity

To help intuitively lead people to the town centre without the need for additional signage, they designed bespoke in-laid Ws that are based on the council’s logo and that form a trail from the station entrance to the town centre.

The work draws inspiration from Watford's printing heritage, and the playful super graphic letters are multi-functional to reduce clutter while providing seating, lighting, planting and wayfinding day and night. The symmetrical nature of the letters and their arrangement lead visitors to the high street and make them legible from all directions.

‘Welcome to Watford’ was part of the Watford Cultural Strategy 2018-2025, and was facilitated by the creation of a new cycle hub, decluttering the station forecourt of cycle parking and creating a new and playful public realm.

The aim was to transform what was once a nondescript place for passing through into a welcoming and friendly environment, encouraging visitors to stay longer and return again. The work includes embedded content promoting Watford, and it has becomes a real landmark for Watford and a great first ‘gateway’ impression for visitors.

‘Welcome to Watford’ promises to surprise visitors to its eight square miles, and refers also to ‘a much-loved football team’ as well as the town’s shopping, restaurants, bars, theatres and parks.

‘We celebrated all that Watford has to offer with a playful public realm response designed to lift people’s mood on a daily basis. We hope this project will demonstrate the immense value of quality public space by encouraging both social and physical interaction,’ said Juliet Quintero of Dallas-Pierce-Quintero.

Three friends formed Dallas-Pierce-Quintero with the aim of bringing joy to places and spaces. But after 15 years of practicing art, architecture ‘and everything in between’, including placemaking and public art commissions, they decided recently to cease trading to allow the directors to pursue new opportunities. Jon Dallas is focussing on architecture and interiors in Mallorca with Isla-Atelier; David Pierce joined London Authority of Croydon as a Public Practice associate; and Juliet Quintero established a new placemaking studio, Public Art Matters.

For many years to come, their ‘Welcome to Watford’ will continue to welcome arrivals at Watford Junction.

The Hornet Sculpture by Heather Burrell, at the corner of High Street and King Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

And, if the F in Watford symbolises Football in Watford, two other sculptures celebrate football in Watford. There is a sculpture of Graham Taylor in the plaza in front of the stadium at Vicarage Road, while the Hornet Sculpture by Heather Burrell, installed at the corner of High Street and King Street in 2001, is a reminder that Watford have been known as ‘the Hornets’ since 1960 when the side changed to a yellow and black kit.

Watford FC was founded in 1888 and moved to Vicarage Road since 1922. Graham Taylor’s time as manager from 1977 to 1987 is still celebrated, with memories of Watford reaching the FA Cup final in 1984, and there are memories too of promotion to the Premier League in 2015.

Elton John is a keen, long-time supporter of Watford FC and a former club chairman and he remains an Honorary Life President.

The sculpture of Graham Taylor in the plaza in front of the stadium at Vicarage Road (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

An early public sculpture is ‘Man and Woman’ by Andrew B Miller (1967) on Exchange Road, a few steps away from Saint Mary’s Church. I came across it by accident while I was trying to find my way from Saint Mary’s Church and Holy Rood Church.

Now, almost 60 years after this work was unveiled, Exchange Road is on a busy stretch of the ring road, and few people now notice this sculpture. It inaccessible to most pedestrians and looks lost and forlorn on almost neglected waste ground between a car park, the churchyard and an underpass.

‘Man and Woman’ by Andrew B Miller (1967) on Exchange Road (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Friendship Columns in Saint Mary’s Square are columns topped with masks that relate to Watford’s twin towns in France (Nanterre), Germany (Mainz), Italy (Pesaro), Russia (Novgorod), and the US (Wilmington).

Each column comprises a tower of three stainless steel tubes that support two cast bronze masks one metre high, and a dome base with a relief map showing the location of each town.

Wilmington was chosen as the home town of Joe Biden when he was the US President. I can’t imagine a rush to add another column referring to Queen’s in New York as the home of Donald Trump, as the world slides into a greater need for global friendship.

The Friendship Columns in Saint Mary’s Square (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Watford Junction leaves me wondering whether I am now living north or south of Watford

Watford High Street follows the line of an ancient trackway … 70-79 High Street, designed by Sydney Dawe in the 1920s, is on the footprint of an older building (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I pass through Watford regularly on the train from Milton Keynes into London. It is just 24 km (15 miles) or 16 minutes from Euston, and it is also close to several motorway junctions on both the M1 and the M25. But until this week, I had never stopped to visit Watford itself.

In popular conversation and journalism, Watford Gap marks the divide between Northern England and Southern England, and the phrase ‘North of Watford’ usually refers to the north of England, especially to places remote from London. Watford in Northamptonshire is close to the north/south isogloss of the three key hallmarks of Northern English and Southern English: foot–strut split, bad-lad split and the Bath vowel.

Some writers say the original expression refers not to Watford in Northamptonshire but to the much larger Watford town in Hertfordshire and Watford Junction railway station, once the last urban stop on the main railway line out of London to the north of England.

I have been to Watford in Northamptonshire in search of Comberford family links. But Watford Junction is in the other direction from Milton Keynes, and while M1 Watford Gap services lead to the Midlands and the North, Watford Junction is the last urban stop on the main line to Euston for rail users.

I spent much yesterday in Watford, a modern town in Hertfordshire with a population of 102,000 or more. The name Watford is first mentioned in an Anglo-Saxon charter of 1007. The name Watford may come from the Old English waet (full of water) or wath (hunting), and -ford, and the High Street follows the line of part of an ancient trackway from the south-east to the north-west.

Watford developed on the banks of the River Colne on land belonging to St Albans Abbey, which claimed the manor of Casio (‘Albanestou’), dating from a grant by King Offa in AD 793, although it is not mentioned in the Domesday Book (1086).

By the 12th century, the area was part of St Albans Abbey’s manor of Cashio. The Abbey was granted a charter allowing it to hold a market, and Saint Mary’s Church began to be built. The town also grew because it was on the route to Berkhamsted Castle and the royal palace at Kings Langley.

The Cassiobury estate, which came to include Cassiobury House and Cassiobury Park, was granted to Sir Richard Morrison in the 16th century, and became the family seat of the Earls of Essex.

Arthur Capell (1631-1683), 1st Earl of Essex, rebuilt Cassiobury House, which he inherited from his mother, Elizabeth Morrison, daughter and heiress of Sir Charles Morrison (1587-1628). He was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1672-1677, and gave his name to Capel Street, Essex Street and Essex Gate in Dublin. Essex was convicted for his role in the Rye House Plot to assassinate Charles II and his brother the Duke of York, the future James II, and he died in the Tower of London in 1683 while awaiting execution for treason.

From 1753-1923, The Grove was the seat of the Villiers family, who were descended from the Capell and Morrison families and who became Earls of Clarendon in 1776.

The Bedford Almshouses, built in 1580, are the oldest houses in Watford, were built in 1580 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Bedford Almshouses, built in 1580, are the oldest houses in Watford. They were endowed by Francis Russell (1527-1585), 2nd Earl of Bedford and godfather to Sir Francis Drake, and Russell’s second wife, Bridget Manners, former wife of Sir Richard Morison. They were built in Parsonage Barn Yard, close to Saint Mary’s Church, to provide housing ‘for eight poor women.’

The almshouses are Grade II listed and continue to provide housing as a charitable trust under the Bedford, Morison and Cordery Almshouses for 18 single men and women over the age of 60.

The earliest known schools in Watford include one run by George Redhead in 1595, a Free School near Saint Mary’s churchyard in 1640, and a Free School endowed by Elizabeth Fuller (1644-1709) of Watford Place in 1704. Her home was at Watford Place, although the white villa on the site is said to be the third house there, built around 1790.

Elizabeth Fuller of Watford Place endowed a Free School in 1704 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

When Daniel Defoe visited Watford in 1778, he described it as a ‘genteel market town, very long, having but one street.’

Watford remained an agricultural community with some cottage industry for many centuries. The Industrial Revolution brought the Grand Junction Canal (now Grand Union Canal) from 1798 and the London and Birmingham Railway from 1837. The canal and the railway brought rapid growth, with paper-making mills such as John Dickinson at Croxley, followed by the development of printing, as well as two brewers, Benskins and Sedgwicks, who flourished in Watford until the late 20th century.

As the town expanded, King Street, a new street off the High Street, opened in 1851, followed by Queens Road and Clarendon Road in the 1860s. Watford expanded rapidly in the decades that followed, with new inhabitants moving in from London, resulting in cramped and unsanitary houses that partly explain riots that erupted in 1902. A slum clearance programme was interrupted by World War I in 1914, but resumed in the 1920s.

By then, printing had become the biggest industry in Watford, with Sun Printers and Odhams Press, and for a time Watford was the biggest printing centre, until the printing industry went into decline after World War II. Odhams Press closed in 1978 and the Sun moved out of Watford in the 1980s.

In the Atria shopping centre in the heart of Watford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

In the heart of Watford, the High Street has a high concentration of bars, clubs and restaurants. The Harlequin Shopping Centre, which opened in 1992, was renamed ‘intu Watford’ in 2013, and is now known as Atria Watford.

In recent decades, Watford’s proximity to London and good rail and road links have attracted several businesses to the town. Watford has the head offices of a number of national companies such as JD Wetherspoon, and is the UK base of many multinationals, including Hilton Worldwide and JJ Kavanagh and Sons, Ireland’s largest private coach operator, was founded in 1919 with a service connecting Urlingford and Kilkenny City.

The Grove in Watford has been the venue for many international conferences and sporting events, including the 2006 World Golf Championship, the 2013 Bilderberg Conference and the 2019 NATO summit.

Watford has 92 listed buildings in Watford, including Saint Mary’s Church, which dates from the 12th century, and Holy Rood Church, dating from 1890. Cassiobury House was demolished in 1927, but the park has become one of the best green spaces in England. Other public parks and gardens in Watford include Cheslyn House and Gardens and Woodside Park.

The Palace Theatre in Watford opened in 1908 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Watford Palace Theatre opened in 1908 and is the only producing theatre in Hertfordshire. The Palace Theatre was built in 1908 by WA Theobald and the red brick front was added in 1909-1910 by Wylson and Long. At the ends are tall towers with leaded domes and a frieze has a panel inscribed ‘Palace Theatre’. The entrances are under a flat canopy. Inside are two curved galleries and stage boxes.

The Pump House Theatre and Arts Centre is based in an old pumping station off the Lower High Street. Watford Colosseum has been the venue for concerts by Maria Callas (1954) and Luciano Pavarotti (1995), and is also a venue for plays, charity events, snooker championships and boxing fixtures.

Watford Museum has a collection that includes works by JMW Turner, Sir Joshua Reynolds, William Blake and Jacob Epstein.

Perhaps the major tourist attraction in Watford today is the Warner Bros Studios, an 80-ha film studio complex at Leavesden, about 4 km (2.5 miles) north of the town centre, in the former de Havilland factory.

The studios have been the location for many Hollywood productions, but the big attraction is that this is where the Harry Potter films were made. There are queues outside Watford Junction station throughout the day for a special shuttle bus to the studios.

However, I was not in search of Harry Potter or the Philosopher’s Stone … nor was I wondering whether I now live north of Watford or south of Watford. Instead, I wanted to see some of the churches, especially Saint Mary’s and Holy Rood, the synagogues, mosques and gurudwaras and the sculptures around the town, and learning about some of the town’s football history. And so, more about them in the days to come, I hope.

Watford has the head offices of a number of national companies and is the UK base of many multinationals (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Frating Hall Farm in Essex was once home to a pacifist experiment in community living

‘Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice’ (Psalm 96: 12) … the sun sets behind the fields at Frating Hall Farm, near Colchester in Essex (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I have been writing these evenings about our visit to Colchester earlier this week. But for two of us the primary purpose in being in that part of Essex on Monday was to visit Metallic Elephant, a printing machinery business based in Frating Hall Farm Industrial Estate.

Frating is almost half-way between Colchester and Clacton and the home of Metallic Elephant, a family-owned business with a lengthy experience in the printing industry and a team of dedicated, skilled craft workers and engineers.

Frating is a small village with a population of about 540, on the Tendring Peninsula, about 8 km (5 miles) east of Colchester and 15 km (9 miles) north-west of Clacton-on-Sea. The nearest railway station is 3 km (2 miles) away at Great Bentley, so Charlotte and I took a taxi from Colchester through the village of Elmstead Market.

Frating includes both Frating Green and Hockley. The parish church is now a private house and Frating also has a village hall, Frating War Memorial Hall, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2022, and one public house, the King’s Arms.

Frating is recorded as Fretingham in the Domesday Book and Frating Church dates from the 12th century. Frae is the Saxon word for a lord, and the name means the settlement of the people of Fraete.

The village sign incorporates a fruited apple tree, recalling the apple-growing industry in Frating during the 20th century, a bell representing the three church bells of Frating Church, a cartwheel representing the 19th century wheelwright of Haggar’s Lane, and a ram’s head from the coat of arms of the Bendish family of Steeple Bumpstead.

Sir Thomas Bendish (1540-1603) of Steeple Bumpstead married Eleanor Ford, a daughter of John Ford of Frating Hall, and was buried at Frating Church. Their son, Sir Thomas Bendish (1568-1636), was created a baronet in 1611 and was High Sheriff of Essex in 1618-1619 and 1630-1631. His son, the royalist Sir Thomas Bendish (1607-1674), was the English ambassador to the Ottoman court in Constantinople in the mid-17th century. Another son, Richard Bendish, inherited Frating Hall.

The barns on Frating Hall Farm, near Colchester in Essex, probably date from the 17th or 18th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The barns on Frating Hall Farm probably date from the 17th or 18th century. The more recent history of Frating Hall Farm is an interesting chapter in the history of pacifist communitarianism, and the links between pacifism and agrarianism, or the ‘back-to-the-land’ movement, in the mid-20th century, when farm work offered a way for pacifists and conscientious objectors to remain within the law.

Frating Hall Farm is associated with key figures in the pacifist and anti-war movements from the 1930s to the 1950s, including Vera Brittain, author of Testament of Youth and a founding figure in the Peace Pledge Union (PPU) in 1936, along with the Dean of Canterbury, Dick Sheppard (1880-1937), the poet Max Plowman and the literary critic John Middleton Murry, a friend of DH Lawrence.

For many years, a photograph of Dick Sheppard, a former Vicar of Saint Martin-in-the-Fields, hung over my desk in my study in the house in Firhouse where I lived for 20 years until the mid-1990s. His pacifism and his social activism were among the many influences on the development of my Anglicanism and my spirituality.

By the end of the 1930s, the Peace Pledge Union had almost 100,000 members, all of whom had signed a pledge declaring: ‘War is a crime against humanity. I renounce war, and am therefore determined not to support any kind of war. I am also determined to work for the removal of all causes of war.’

Two pacifist settlements in Essex played a major role in developing the link between the peace movement and farming: the Adelphi Centre in Langham (1934-1942) and Frating Hall Farm (1943-1954).

The Adelphi Centre at the Oaks, a rural Edwardian mansion at Langham near Colchester, was a socialist education centre with a degree of agricultural self-sufficiency, and had links with George Orwell, John Middleton Murry and other intellectuals.

Frating Hall Farm, on the other hand, was a Christian pacifist community where a 300-acre arable and livestock farm was home to more than 50 people, including refugees and former prisoners-of-war. The story of Frating Hall Farm is told by Ken Worpole in his recent book No Matter How Many Skies Have Fallen: back to the land in wartime Britain (2001). The title of his book is from the opening paragraph of DH Lawrence’s novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928), and Worpole charts the history of the Frating community over 11 years.

The pacifist community at Frating Hall Farm lasted from 1943 to 1954 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

A group from Murry’s failing project in Langham took over Frating Hall Farm in 1943 and ran it as a radical pacifist settlement until 1954. At its peak, more than 50 people lived and worked at Frating, one of the most successful of the pacifist rural initiatives providing legitimate alternatives to conscription during World War II.

The settlement also provided shelter and accommodation for visiting supporters at harvest time, and offered sanctuary to refugees and former German prisoners-of-war. Over time, Frating Hall Farm became a centre for the arts, winning the grudging respect of their neighbours.

It was an extraordinary geographical and international cultural mingling of religious and political interests – between the steelworks and mines of north-east England, bohemian London, rural Anglicanism, Russian anarchism and Jewish phenomenology. Many of the community members at Frating Hall shared strong religious beliefs and an interest in the works of Leo Tolstoy, DH Lawrence, and religious philosophers, writers and theologians such as Nikolai Berdyaev, Martin Buber and Simone Weil – all referred to in letters and farm broadsheets.

Shirley Williams (1930-2021), later a Labour cabinet minister, went to work there as the ‘second cowman’ after leaving school at the age of 18. She was in charge of ‘a herd of Ayrshire dairy cows, handsome red-and-white animals of a certain temper.’

Her mother Vera Brittain (1893-1970) contributed towards buying the farm. Shirley Williams learnt much of her politics at Frating from the earnest radicals there, particularly the charismatic Joe Watson. She later recalled her experiences at Frating in her autobiography Climbing the Bookshelves.

When the co-operative structure was dissolved in 1954, a former Quaker member bought the farm at Frating Hall, and eventually bequeathed it to his stepson, Martyn Thomas, who arrived there at the age of four and then continued to farm there with his wife Barbara.

Frating is part of Clacton constituency, where the MP is Nigel Farage. I had thought of visiting Clacton-on-Sea for a walk on the beach. But, by the time we had finished our afternoon business, darkness had enveloped the Essex countryside, and we returned to Colchester under the January full moon, which is known as the Wolf Moon – because it was thought wolves howled more at this time of year as there was less food in the middle of winter.

The parish church in Frating dates from the 12th century and is now a private house (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Greeks have a word for it: 37, Bishop, ἐπίσκοπος

Welcome to Piskopianó in Crete … overlooking the coast and once the centre of a bishop (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

I was back in the village of Piskopianó, at the foot of the mountains above Hersonissos, the weekend before last, visiting friends I had not seen for a few years, and catching up on my memories of many happy weeks spent in that part of Crete over the years.

From many vantage points there are spectacular views to the mountains above Piskopianó and below across the olive groves to the northern coast of Crete and out to the sea. For many years, I enjoyed waking early in the morning in Mika Villas simply to enjoy the sun rise from this location.

The name of Piskopianó may describe the location of the village, looking out as a balcony over this stretch of the north coast of Crete. The Ancient Greek σκοπέω (skopéō) means to examine, inspect, look to or into, consider, coming from the word σκοπός (skopós), ‘watcher’, and‎ -έω (-éō), a denominative verbal suffix.

But the name may also hint at its earlier, historical, episcopal importance, of Piskopianó. When coastal raids forced the church to abandon Hersonissos, the see of the diocese was transferred to Piskopianó, and remained there until the ninth century, when the diocese was relocated to Pedialos.

The Greek word ἐπίσκοπος (epískopos), from which the English word bishop is derived, simply means ‘overseer’. The word is found in Ancient Greek and in Greek literature, with ἐπίσκοπος (epískopos) coming from from ἐπί (epí, ‘over’) and σκοπός (skopós, ‘watcher’).

In the early Church, the word epískopos was not always clearly distinguished from πρεσβύτερος (presbýteros), literally ‘old man’, ‘elder’, or ‘senior’. It is from presbýteros that we derive the modern English word priest.

Most scholars agree that the earliest organisation of the Church in Jerusalem was similar to that of Jewish synagogues, but it had a council or college of ordained presbyters (πρεσβύτεροι, elders).

In the Acts of the Apostles, a collegiate system of government in Jerusalem is chaired by Saint James who, according to tradition, was the first Bishop of Jerusalem (see Acts 11: 30, 15: 22), and the Apostle Paul ordains presbyters for the new churches (see In Acts 14: 23). The word presbyter was not yet distinguished from overseer, later used exclusively to mean bishop (see Acts 20: 17, Titus 1: 5-7 and I Peter 5: 1).

In the Pauline writings, a more clearly defined episcopate can be seen in I Timothy and the Epistle to Titus. Both letters record how Saint Paul left Saint Timothy in Ephesus and Saint Titus in Crete to oversee the local church. He urges Saint Titus to ordain presbyters and bishops and to exercise general oversight in Crete.

The earliest writings of the Apostolic Fathers, including the Didache and I Clement, show the two words for bishops and presbyters may have been interchangeable, although the word for deacon (διάκονος) is distinctive and used separately.

The word episcopos is used in the sense of the order or office of bishop, distinct from that of presbyter, in the writings of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, who died ca 110. He provides the earliest clear description of a single bishop over all the churches in a city.

Saint Ignatius of Antioch is often attributed with saying: ‘Where the bishop is, there is the Church.’ But what he says is, ‘Where the bishop is, let the people be present, just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the catholic/universal Church’ (Smyrneans 8). As the Very Revd Dr John Behr, Regius Professor of Humanity at the University of Aberdeen, says in a paper for Public Orthodoxy last week (24 April 2024), ‘It is, by any standard, a mistake to omit Jesus Christ and the people from the equation!’

When Saint Ignatius was writing, the bishop was not in the position we think of the episcopate today. He was the bishop/overseer of a particular household community, as the parish priest is today, not the overseer of a diocese. Over time, as the number of particular communities in a geographical region increased, it was necessary to co-ordinate their activity, first in larger cities then in ever greater geographical areas.

One of the leaders of these communities was entrusted with the task, as ‘the first among equals’ – never ‘the first without equals’, as John Behr points out – of calling together the other leaders of the communities to ensure the peaceful and co-ordinated activity of the churches in the area.

Early Christian communities or local churches may have had a bishop surrounded by a group or college acting as leaders. Eventually, the bishop came to rule more clearly, and all local churches would eventually have one bishop in charge, assisted by the presbyters or priests. As the Church grew, bishops no longer directly served individual congregations. Instead, the metropolitan bishop or bishop in a large city appointed priests to minister to each congregation, acting as the bishop’s delegate. Since then, bishops have come to hold a privileged place as the guardians of the truth and in many places are often identified with the Church.

The word epískopos came into Late Latin as episcopus, to Spanish as obispo, Italian as vescovo, French as évêque, easpag, and esgob in Welsh. The Germanic forms include Old Saxon biscop and Old High German biscof. Further afield it became Lithuanian vyskupas, Albanian upeshk and Finnish piispa.

The Latin episcopus transformed into the Old English biscop, the Middle English bishop and lastly bishop.

The Bishop’s throne in Saint Nektarios Church in Rethymnon … every Orthodox church has a bishop’s throne (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The word overseer in English continued to have a secular use. In the world of printing and journalism, church-like terms were used to describe trade and union functions.

In the composing room, the overseer was responsible for a great variety of jobs, and I remember how overseers in The Irish Times, and before that in the Wexford People and Irish Printers, had large, balcony-like desks that allowed them to look across the full process with a very wide and full scope.

Similarly, the Father of the Chapel chaired the local meetings of printers and journalists, and the Clerk of the Chapel was, in effect, the secretary.

After the Reformation, Quakers in particular adapted the term ‘overseer’ to describe people appointed to look after the wellbeing of people in a Quaker meeting, while an elder is a member appointed to look after the spiritual life of the meeting and ensure that ministry or business is conducted in the spirit of Quaker worship.

In the early days of the Society of Friends, Quaker ministers preached, elders cared for Friends’ spiritual condition, and overseers cared for Friends’ physical condition. Those overseers made sure Friends had food, children had schooling, and imprisoned Friends were visited.

But it is worth recalling that the early Quaker use of the word overseer came from the English translation for episkopos in the New Testament. Early Quakers saw themselves as restoring early Christian practice, drawing on Biblical texts such as: Keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock, of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God that he obtained with the blood of his own Son (Acts 20:28).

The term overseer was used since 1753 – a time when Quakers could be disowned by their meetings for 'immoral' conduct – to describe Quakers who provide pastoral oversight, support and care. Even then, the word overseer was a literal translation of the Biblical Greek word episkopos, usually translated as ‘ bishop’.

However, in recent years Quakers have reflected on the use of the word ‘overseer’ in other contexts and its associations with slavery and oppression. Quakers in Central Yorkshire raised a concern in 2019 that the term was outdated.

After a consultation with Quaker meetings across Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) in 2020 showed there was general support for changing the term ‘overseer’, meetings were encouraged to adapt different terms, such as ‘Pastoral Care Friend’ or ‘Pastoral Friend.’ The group revising the Quaker book of discipline, Quaker Faith and Practice', is considering how to incorporate this change.

Metropolitan Prodromos of Rethymnon officiating at the Divine Liturgy in Rethymnon Cathedral recently

Back in Rethymnon, the Church of the Four Martyrs was packed on Sunday last week for the Eucharist, with Bishop of Rethymnon, Metropolitan Prodromos, presiding at a special service to commemorate the Four Martyrs.

Bishops remain spiritual overseers in Greek Orthodox dioceses, without any ambiguity about their role and title. Indeed, every Greek church has a a bishop’s throne, a reminder that the bishop, technically, is still the focus of unity and the centre of all ministry of word and sacrament through a diocese in the Orthodox church.

The role of bishops in western churches, including the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches, seems diluted compared to the way bishops oversee their dioceses in Greece.

Previous word: 36, Exodus, ἔξοδος

Next word: 38, Socratic, Σωκρατικὸς

Saying farewell to Piskopianó last weekend (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Milton Keynes Museum brings back memories of printers’ traditions and days of ‘hot metal’

Memories of old print rooms and case rooms at Milton Keynes Museum (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

Charlotte and I have had a number of visits to Milton Keynes Museum in recent weeks, particularly to dedicated Printing Section, showcasing the printing industry, and which has brought back many happy memories of the days of ‘hot metal’ when I had student jobs in the late 1960s in a printing firm and later when I worked closely with printers when I was a journalist in Lichfield, Wexford and Dublin.

Milton Keynes Museum is set in beautiful farmland, close to Wolverton, Britain’s first railway town, and it tells the story of Milton Keynes from long before the New Town was planned and developed.

The museum is run mainly by volunteers and is based at Stacey Hill Farm, where the Victorian parlour, scullery and kitchen have been lovingly recreated in the old farmhouse.

One gallery tells the story of the Milton Keynes area from pre-history through to the 1800s, with a rich collection of archaeological finds. Another gallery tells the story of the new town’s creation and stories of Marshall Amplification, Red Bull Racing, the Parks Trust and the Open University. Regular events, displays, recreations and family days are part of the museum experience.

Milton Keynes Museum is based at the former Stacey Hill Farm (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

The museum is located on the outskirts of Wolverton. When Stacey Hill Farm was new, the farmstead was surrounded by countryside, but today it overlooks the new town of Milton Keynes.

Soon after the decision was taken in 1967 to build Milton Keynes, local residents formed the Stacey Hill Society and were collecting items representing their heritage. Many of these items came from farms and factories that were closed down to make way for the new development. These collections eventually became the basis of the museum.

With the support of Milton Keynes Development Corporation, the collection was stored at Stacey Hill Farm, part of an estate that had once been bought by the physician, Dr John Radcliffe, in 1713 when he became MP for Buckingham.

Milton Keynes Museum has a dedicated Printing Section, showcasing the printing industry that has been in the Wolverton area since 1878.

The presses and guillotines in the museum were manufactured in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and most were used by local firms. The two principal firms – McCorquodale & Co and Muscutt and Tompkins – followed a general pattern in printing. Printing books, newspapers and magazines for national circulation was concentrated in a few large firms, while printing of posters, bills, circulars and tickets provided a living for many small businesses.

McCorquodale opened a branch in Wolverton in 1878 to provide jobs for the daughters of men employed in Wolverton Carriage Works. It started with 20 employees aged from 13 to 21 years, who worked a 54-hour week.

The firm’s early work in Wolverton included printing registered envelopes for the General Post Office – envelope making was the only area of the printing industry consistently to employ more women than men. Other government work followed, as well as printing Bradshaw’s Guide to railway timetables. By 1886, the number of staff had risen to 120 women and 20 men.

The equipment used in the early years were the platen, sheet-fed rotary and Wharfedale presses. They were fairly slow machines, and many presses were required.

At one time, McCorquodale employed around 900 people in Wolverton. Now there are only around 240 due to the use of high speed presses, and numbers may fall even further as the company moves towards computer-controlled operations.

Muscutt and Tompkins was located a few hundred metres from McCorquodale. Originally a wholesale and retail newsagents, they moved into printing when William Tompkins bought a large Golding Jobber press, on display in the museum, and a small platen press at a sale in the late 1930s.

Printing did not begin until 1946 when Reg Tomalin returned to work for the family firm after World War II. The company work in general printing included headed notepaper, Christmas cards, dance tickets, and notepads. Although the demand was limited and orders were usually in small quantities, printing continued at Muscutt and Tompkins until Reg Tomalin died in 1967.

The museum’s Columbian hand press came from High Wycombe and takes pride of place in the Print Room. Beside it is the similar but much smaller Albion hand press, bearing the date 1845, that was used in Olney.

The jobbing platen presses range from a small hand fed treadle machines, through belt driven Golding Jobber and Cropper. The largest machine in the collection is an 1880s Wharfedale, stop cylinder manufactured by W Dawson and Sons, Otley. It has been modified with a flyer delivery added in 1906. A proofing press from McCorquodale’s is the most modern item in the collection. Among the wide range of associated artefacts is a Furnival Express guillotine that lacks any of the safety features required today.

Muscutt and Tompkins in Wolverton moved into printing after the late 1930s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

As a teenage schoolboy in the 1960s, I spent a number of summers working as a copyholder or proofreader’s assistant at Irish Printers, a large printing business in Dublin, located first off Aungier Street in the city centre and then at Donore Avenue, off the South Circular Road.

Those experiences gave a lifelong taste for and delight in the world of printing and graphic design, knowing and appreciating the differences in and uses of typefaces and point sizes.

They prepared me too for working with printers in the caseroom and on the stone as a subeditor, laying out making up pages first in the Wexford People and then in The Irish Times. I had acquired an instinctive knowledge of what would work in designing and making up the pages of newspapers and magazines.

But I also had an earlier foretaste at the Lichfield Mercury in the early 1970s of the changes that computerisation was going to bring to the newspaper industry. Those days of ‘hot metal’ vanished rapidly when I was working at The Irish Times.

As the changes swept through the newspapers, many printers – because they knew and understood how typefaces work and the importance of proofreading – made excellent sub-editors … I think of good colleagues and friends such as the late Seán O’Toole and Derek Richards, who died earlier this year.

However, these recent visits to the printing section in the Milton Keynes Museum have also brought back a vocabulary and language that is unique to the printing world. I knew my linotype from my monotype and my stereotype, my italics from Roman, a dash from a hyphen, and flat beds from rotaries; I learned about orphans and widows, why pages had even numbers on the left and odd numbers on the right, and how typefaces increased in point sizes; I even became a dab had at reading upside down and back-to-front.

One display in the museum is a reminder of many printers’ sayings that have passed into our everyday language, including:

‘Getting the wrong end of the stick’ – reversing the letters
‘Upper case and lower case’ – capitals and small letters
‘Minding your Ps and Qs’ – mixing up letters
‘Being a dab hand’ – using print ink dabbers
‘The devil is in the detail’ – the detailed work of typesetters?
‘Stereotype’ – method of printing from a plate
‘Cliché’ – solid cast metal plate
‘Against the grain’ – a reference to the grain in paper
‘Making a good impression’ – quality of print produce
‘Hot off the press’ – related to hot metal typeface
‘Out of sorts’ – running out of typeface
‘Come a Cropper’ – catching your fingers in the press.

That last phrase, ‘Come a Cropper’, reminded me of one colleague in Wexford who actually lost part of his finger. On the other hand, I always thought the saying ‘The devil is in the detail’ referred to the ‘printer’s devil,’ the printer’s apprentice who attended to details such as correctly mixing tubs of ink and fetching type while minding his Ps and Qs, or, more importantly telling q from p and d from b.

• Milton Keynes Museum continues to be open in October from Wednesdays to Sundays, 10:30 am to 4:30 pm, and from 1 November on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Minding my Ps and Qs and knowing the right type (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)