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

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

Patrick Comerford

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saint Paul’s Church, Cambridge, has moved from harsh criticism and divisive schism to being open to questions

Saint Paul’s Church on the corner of Hills Road and Saint Paul’s Road is less than a mile from the centre of Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

I often walk past Saint Paul’s Church on the corner of Hills Road and Saint Paul’s Road on my way between the train station and the centre of Cambridge. But I took some time to look at the church last week for the first time as I walking back to the train station after a day in Cambridge with a visiting friend from Ireland.

Saint Paul’s is a Grade II listed building less than a mile from the centre of Cambridge, and is known to all who are interested in the Gothic revival in church architecture because of the criticism it drew from AWN Pugin and the Cambridge Camden Society in The Ecclesiologist and because of its interesting links with the architects George Gilbert Scott and Temple Moore.

Saint Paul’s traces its origins to the mediaeval parish of Saint Andrew the Less on the Newmarket Road. This Augustinian community of Barnwell Priory took charge of the parish ca 1200, and the prior became the rector of the parish, with the right to receive its tithes, as well as its patron, with the right to appoint the clergy. In effect, the priors of Barnwell appointed vicars to look after ministry in the parish.

At the dissolution of the monastic houses during the Tudor Reformation, the priory was dissolved in 1538 and the prior’s rights passed to the crown and were then sold on.

The present church owes its origins to the work in the 1840s of the Revd Charles Perry (1807-1891), later the first Anglican Bishop of Melbourne, who was the first Vicar of Saint Paul’s.

Charles Perry was a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1835 when he bought the advowson of the living of Saint Andrew-the-Less, with the right to appoint the clergy. He has been described as a ‘stout evangelical clergyman, equally opposed to ritualistic and rationalistic tendencies.’

As part of his evangelistic work among the railway workers and tradesmen who were beginning to settle in the Newtown area of Cambridge, Perry established a mission hall on Hills Road that became Saint Paul’s. He secured a district of its own, and was licensed by the Bishop of Ely as its first ‘perpetual curate’.

The parish was formed out of Saint Andrew the Less, with the addition of some land to the west of Hills Road that had previously been part of the parish of Saint Andrew the Great, near the Market Square in the centre of Cambridge. In his history of Saint Paul’s, Gerald Bray describes how Saint Paul’s became a separate district in the parish of Saint Andrew-the-Less in 1842, and became a new parish in its own right in 1845.

Perry began introducing extensive reforms, commissioned a new church that would became the centre of a new parish and also built Christ Church on Newmarket Road to replace Saint Andrew the Less as the parish church in 1846.

Perry became the first Anglican Bishop of Melbourne in 1847 and spent 29 years in Australia. When he retired, he returned to England and became one of the founders of Ridley Hall, the evangelical Anglican theological college in Cambridge, and of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford.

Saint Paul’s Church, Cambridge, was designed by Ambrose Poynter and was heavily criticised by the Cambridge Camden Society, ‘The Ecclesiologist’ and AWN Pugin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Paul’s Church was designed by the architect Ambrose Poynter (1796-1886), a founding member of the Institute of British Architects. Poynter was born in London into a family of Huguenot origin. He worked with John Nash in 1814-1818, and then travelled through Italy, Sicily and the Ionian Islands (1819-1821).

Poynter lived in Paris between 1830 and 1832. Back in London, he began his own practice as an architect and became noted for his Palladian and Tudor Gothic fusion architecture. He was secretary of the Institute of British Architects in 1840, 1841, and 1844, and also its vice-president, and in the mid-1840s he became Professor of Fine Arts at King’s College London. When Poynter went blind, some of his commissions were taken over by William Burges.

Poynter designed three churches in Cambridge: Christ Church, Newmarket Road (1837-1839), Saint Paul’s, Hills Road (1841), and Saint Andrew the Great, Saint Andrew’s Street (1842-1843). The nave and the west tower of Saint Paul’s were built in 1841.

Saint Paul’s was criticised by the Cambridge Camden Society in the first issue of its journal, The Ecclesiologist (November 1841), in an attack that was supported by AWN Pugin. The Cambridge Camden Society was established in 1839 to study ‘ecclesiastical antiquities.’ The society published The Ecclesiologist from 1841 to 1868, arguing that architects should adopt a religious stance in their work.

The issue was withdrawn, but an offer then to review another of the Poynter churches was not conciliatory. Saint Paul’s had been called a ‘cheap church’, and in 1843 Saint Andrew’s was called ‘miserable and meagre’.

Historic England designates Saint Paul’s as a Grade II Listed Building, pointing to its historically significance as one of the new churches harshly criticised in the Ecclesiologist, ‘an important publication of the Gothic Revival but which possesses visual interest in its own right.’

Poynter intended the exterior of Saint Paul’s to be an interpretation of Great Saint Mary’s in the Market Place, Cambridge, but in brick. However, the Ecclesiologist vilified Poynter’s original design for not having a chancel, for its use of brick instead of stone, and for its unornamented, late 16th or early 17th century style. The design was criticised because its ‘style of architecture and plan of internal arrangement should have been after some approved ancient model.’

The critique was toned down in the second edition, following objections from senior church leaders to the first edition. Still, it said ‘there are many arrangements and details in this church which are on every other ground quite indefensible, even on the ground of cheapness. Such are the huge clock; the disproportionate octagonal turrets; the great four-centred belfry windows without cusping or mouldings; the figures 1841 in the spandrils of the clock; the square clerestory-windows; the enormous windows in the aisles; the mullions made to stand on the same plane as the wall; the square heads; the want of foliation; the jambs without mouldings; the graduated parapet of the nave; the thin mullions and tracery of the east windows; the difference between the supports of the western and the other galleries; the startling contrast of the red brick and the white quoins of dressed ashlar; the trellis-work of black bricks; and many other things which time forbids us to notice.’

Pugin reprinted the original critique in his Present State of Ecclesiastical Architecture (1842-1843), and suggested it should be circulated as a warning to be ‘hung up in terrorem in every church-competing architect’s office.’ At the time, Pugin was working on Saint Andrew’s Church, a few steps further north along Hills Road, on the corner of Lensfield Road, and the first post-Reformation Roman Catholic church in Cambridge. A few years later, Pugin would play an important role in the restoration, decoration and furnishing of the mediaeval fabric of the chapel of Jesus College in 1846-1849.

The chancel and vestry of Saint Paul’s were added in 1864, perhaps by HG Elborne. The north and south transepts were added in 1893 to designs by the Tullamore-born architect Temple Lushington Moore (1856-1920). Despite later reordering and change, the interior of Saint Paul’s retains spatial interest and some fixtures of note, including the work in the 1890s by Temple Moore (1856-1920) and the stained glass windows.

Temple Moore also designed the east range and south part of Westcott House, Cambridge, in 1914 and was the architect of Pusey House, Oxford. His only son, Richard Temple Moore (1891-1918), was killed when the RMS Leinster was torpedoed and sunk off Dublin a mere month before the end of World War I.

Temple Moore has been described as ‘England’s leading ecclesiastical architect from the mid-Edwardian years’. The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner said that he was ‘always sensitive in his designs and often interesting.’ His designs reflect his Anglo-Catholic practice and values. His work can be seen across England; he is known for a series of fine Gothic Revival churches built about 1890 and 1917 and he also restored many churches and designed church fittings.

The stained glass windows in Saint Paul’s include: the chancel north window, after Holman Hunt, by Heaton, Butler and Bayne (1906); the south transept east window by Heaton, Butler and Bayne (1920); and the east window, ‘The Conversion of Saint Paul’, by Alfred Wilkinson (1960).

The World War II war memorial at Saint Paul’s Church, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Charles Perry was succeeded at Saint Paul’s from 1847 to 1860 by the Revd John Scott, a brother of the architect George Gilbert Scott. The former parsonage built in Saint Paul’s Road behind the church in 1853-1854 was designed by George Gilbert Scott for his brother and is now the Cambridge Muslim College.

Perry’s immediate successors were styled ‘perpetual curates’ but in 1891 Canon Henry Paine Stokes (1849-1931) became the first vicar (1891-1917). Stokes came from an Irish family and was a former chaplain and a fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He was President of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society (1909-1911) and President of the Jewish Historical Society (1914-1916). He moved to Little Wilbraham in 1917, and died in 1931.

Meanwhile, the original parish was subdivided in the late 19th and early 20th century with the creation of Saint Barnabas (1888) and Saint Philip (1902).

The Revd Mark Ruston, who was a curate at Saint Paul’s in 1954-1955, later became the vicar of the Round Church (Holy Sepulchre) in the centre of Cambridge. There he developed a student ministry that continues to this day, though it is now located in the Saint Andrew the Great.

The Revd Herbert Moore Carson (1922-2003) was a controversial Vicar of Saint Paul’s in 1958 to 1964. He graduated from Trinity College Dublin and was ordained in the Church of Ireland by the Bishop of Connor. He had two curacies in Belfast, then worked as the travelling secretary of the Inter-Varsity Fellowship and spent five years at Saint Michael and All Angels, Blackheath Park, from 1953. He moved to Cambridge in 1958 and was the Vicar of Saint Paul’s for almost seven years.

He resigned from Saint Paul’s in December 1964, and seceded from Anglicanism in 1965 because of misgivings about liturgy, establishment, bishops, and infant baptism. Subsequently, he was baptised as a believing adult with his wife Delphine. He assisted Martyn Lloyd-Jones at Westminster Chapel London, and then became the minister of Hamilton Road Baptist Church, Bangor, Co Down, in 1967. He moved to Leicester in 1982 and was the minister of Knighton Evangelical Free Church until he retired in 1988.

When he left the Church of England, Carson split the congregation in the process. The damage caused by this was considerable but it was repaired to a degree by the Revd John Gwyn-Thomas, who had a popular ministry of preaching and counselling.

Saint Martin’s parish was also carved out of Saint Paul’s parish in 1961.

Canon Michael Robert Wedlake Farrer, Vicar in 1978-1992, was Rural Dean of Cambridge (1984-1989), a canon of Ely Cathedral (1988-1992), and senior chaplain to the Bishop of Ely (1992-1995). He died in 2018 at the age of 96.

The Revd Michael Shaun Beckett was the priest-in-charge and then vicar for over 30 years until he retired in 2021. He is the author of Gospel in Esther. In a foreword to the book, Stephen Sykes, a former Bishop of Ely, describes Saint Paul’s as a ‘parish church long noted for its attentiveness to the work of preaching’.

Saint Paul’s Church, Cambridge, hosts a variety of meals and runs an active community programme throughout the week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Paul’s Church was Listed Grade II in 1972. The interior became a multi-use space in 1996, designed by Freeland Rees-Roberts. Meeting rooms and porch were added 2012-2013.

The Revd Imogen Nay has been the vicar of Saint Paul’s since 2022. She has been the Rector of Saint Andrew’s, Rugby, and the Canon for Evangelism and Discipleship in Chelmsford Cathedral. The Revd Dr Becky Applin Warner is the self-supporting assistant curate.

Despite its background and its turbulent history into the second half of the 20th century, Saint Paul’s describes itself today as a church that travels with questions, not firm answers, that seeks to have healthy conversations, learning from the world around us, and open to the Spirit and new forms of truth. ‘This is the Anglican way: balancing Scripture, Tradition and Reason. We are guided in our searching through conversation with the Bible, the historic creeds and the traditions of the church’.

Each week, Saint Paul’s hosts a variety of meals and runs an active community programme, and also runs a Fairbite social supermarket.

‘We are a member of inclusive church and we try and make church an accessible and safe place for all. However, we know this is an ongoing journey, and we don't always get it right.’

• Sunday Services in Saint Paul’s are Holy Communion at 10:30 am and a variety of reflective services at 6 pm. The church is open Monday to Friday 10 to 4 pm.

The Revd Imogen Nay has been the vicar of Saint Paul’s since 2022 (Photograph: Saint Paul’s Parish website)

The former Fosters’ Bank on Sidney Street remains one of the most engaging buildings in Cambridge

The former Fosters’ Bank in Cambridge was designed by the Victorian architect Alfred Waterhouse and built in 1890-1894 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Sidney Street in the centre of Cambridge takes its name from Sidney Sussex College, and runs from Bridge Street at its junction with Jesus Lane at the north-west end to Saint Andrew’s Street at the junction with Hobson Street at the south-east end, close to Christ’s College.

Apart from Sidney Sussex College, the notable buildings on this street include Holy Trinity Church, but the most engaging may be Lloyds Bank, built as Fosters’ Bank in 1890-1894. The bank was designed by the Victorian architect Alfred Waterhouse (1830-1905) in the Jacobethan style, with complex decoration.

The building is now the Cambridge University Branch of Lloyds TSB. It was built on an irregular site, at the corner of Sidney Street and Hobson Street, and close to the gatehouse of Christ’s College. The original name of Fosters’ Bank still survives over the doorway, a reminder of the Foster family I referred to yesterday, including George Edward Foster (1840-1906) who laid the foundation stone of nearby Saint Andrew’s Street Baptist Church in 1903.

Fosters’ Bank, a striking building in a mixture of the Jacobethan and Dutch Renaissance-style styles, was designed by Alfred Waterhousem who, financially speaking, was probably the most successful of all the Victorian architects. He is associated with Gothic Revival architecture, although he worked in other styles too. He often used eclecticism in his buildings, and the styles he used occasionally included Tudor revival, Jacobethan and Italianate.

Waterhouse was born into a Quaker family, and his brothers were co-founders of the Price Waterhouse partnership that is now part of PriceWaterhouseCoopers. At an early stage in his career he was strongly influenced by John Ruskin’s The Stones of Venice (1849) and AWN Pugin’s Contrasts (1836) and The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture (1841).

His best-known works include Manchester Town Hall and the Natural History Museum in London, the Manchester Assize buildings, and Strangeways Prison. He designed many town halls, several hospitals, churches and chapels, such as the Lyndhurst Road Congregational Church, Hampstead, banks, and university buildings in Cambridge, such as Girton College and the chapel in Gonville and Caius College, in Oxford, such as the Broad Street frontage and college dining hall in Balliol College, and in Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds.

The Congregational King’s Weigh House Chapel in Mayfair, which he designed in 1888, is now the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in London. His hospitals include being the Royal Infirmary Liverpool and University College Hospital London.

The clock tower on the right of the façade above the main entrance of the former Fosters’ Bank in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Waterhouse was commissioned to build a new bank in Cambridge by the Foster family who wanted a new location for their bank which had outgrown its original location in Trinity Street.

The builder was William Sindall; the structural steel work is by A Hanyside & Co; the stone carving, mainly around the doorway, on the clock tower and in the gables, is by Farmer & Brindley; the ceramic tiles were made by Craven Dunnill & Co; the faience is by Burmantofts; the mosaic flooring is by JF Ebner and J Rust; the decorative ironwork and light fittings are by Hart Son Peard & Co; the lighting was by Belshaw & Co; and the clock in the tower was made by John Moore & Sons of Clerkenwell.

The building exudes the grandeur and confidence of banking in the late Victorian era. It was probably designed to make patrons of the bank feel wealthy and portant there – or to attract the wealthy and important to entrust their money with the bank. Today, many tourists photograph it believing it must be part of the university

Both the exterior and interior of the bank are impressive. The exterior has a stone ground floor with decorative banded stone and red brick covering the two upper floors and the gables. There is a clock tower on the right of the façade above the main entrance, and the lettering above the door still says ‘Fosters’ Bank’.

The clock tower with an ornate clock face gives some idea of the elaborate decoration inside. The main banking hall is octagonal in shape, high and light with a magnificent domed roof. The walls and ornate columns have faience decorations, the floor is of mosaic and there are colourful, glazed, ceramic tiles. A neo-Tudor extension was added in 1935.

The lettering above the main entrance still says ‘Fosters’ Bank’ above the door (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The site of Fosters’ Bank at Nos 1 to 5 Sidney Street had once been the site of the Crown and Woolpack Inn, and until 1846 it had been the premises for the Philo-Union or Cambridge Literary Society, founded in 1826 for ‘the diffusion of general knowledge and the discussion of all subjects not of a theological nature’.

Fosters’ Bank was founded in 1804 by the Foster family, Cambridge corn millers, mainly to support their local milling workers. It was also known as the Cambridge & Cambridgeshire Bank.

The bank first opened in attractive premises in Trinity Street, Cambridge, in a building that was once the Turk’s Head coffee bar. Many of the bank’s customers were drawn from the local agricultural industry, and there were branches in St Ives (1830), St Neots (1830), Royston (1834), Ely (1835), Newmarket (1844), Bishop’s Stortford (1874), Littleport (1889), Saffron Walden (1901) and Wisbech.

By the end of the 19th century, Foster’s Bank had outgrown its Trinity Street premises and commissioned Waterhouse to design a magnificent new building. Fosters’ Bank was absorbed into the Capital and Counties Bank in 1904, which later became part of Lloyds Bank.

Both Ebenezer and Richard Foster were Mayors of Cambridge, as were their descendants Charles Finch Foster and Henry S Foster. The Foster family’s milling business continued until 1915. The Foster mill near Cambridge railway station has since been converted into luxury flats. Anstey Hall in Trumpington, once the home of the Foster family, is now a wedding venue.

Richard Foster was also the major backer of the Roman Baths, which were built in Jesus Lane. However, the baths were not a success and closed after less than a year. For many years it was the premises of the Pitt Club, the Cambridge equivalent of the Bullingdon Club in Oxford. I could see the building from my rooms in Cloister Court in Sidney Sussex College when it had become Pizza Express, and it is now Kibou Japanese restaurant.

Fosters’ Bank on Sidney Street is close to both Sidney Sussex College (above) and Christ’s College (below) (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Jesus College Chapel is the oldest in Cambridge and was once part of a Benedictine convent

Jesus College Chapel in Cambridge was originally a church that served the 12th century Benedictine Convent of Saint Mary and Saint Radegund (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

When I was introducing a friends from Ireland to the Cambridge I have known for almost 20 years, one of the places we received a warm welcome earlier this week was the chapel in Jesus College, where I found myself once again on what I have come to call the ‘Pugin Trail’.

Jesus College Chapel was restored by Pugin in the 1840s, and has a number of Pre-Raphaelite and Arts and Crafts treasures, including works by William Morris, Sir Edward Burne-Jones and Ford Madox Brown. It is the oldest college chapel in Cambridge, and its is unique in that it was not originally designed as a college chapel. It dates back to a time 350 years before the foundation of the college, and to half a century before the creation of the university.

The chapel was originally a large Norman church dedicated to Saint Mary and that served the 12th century Benedictine Convent of Saint Mary and Saint Radegund.

The church took about a century to build. It was begun in 1157 and was completed around 1245. At that time it was the largest church in Cambridge, about 58 metres in length and with proportions similar to those of a cathedral. It was built in the form of a cross, with aisles to the north and south of chancel and nave, and it had a high pitched roof with a belfry or steeple which was visible for miles around.

It served as the church of the parish of Saint Radegund which grew up around the convent, then a semi-rural area just outside the city of Cambridge. The belfry collapsed in 1277, and again in 1313. A fire destroyed much of the surrounding convent in 1376 but largely spared the church itself, causing only some light damage to the tower.

Jesus College, Cambridge, was founded by Bishop John Alcock in 1496 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

John Alcock, Bishop of Ely, founded Jesus College in 1496, with the formal name of the College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge. He carried out extensive building work to adapt the former convent church. Parts of the church were demolished, the rest was drastically modified, and it was then reconsecrated in the Name of Jesus. The church was previously dedicated to Saint Mary, but there may have been an altar dedicated to the Name of Jesus in the people's part of the church.

Alcock was an architect as well as a bishop and he designed many of the alterations. The changes were intended to create a chapel that was a more suitable size for a small community of scholars.

The first stages were overseen by his friend and a fellow of the college, William Plombe, in 1497-1498. After Alcock died in 1500, his work was continued by Dr William Chubbes, the first master of Jesus College, and the architects Sir John Rysley and Sir Reginald Bray.

Inside the chapel at Jesus College, Cambridge, facing the chancel and the east end (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The chancel chapels and the aisles of the nave of the church were pulled down and the cloisters were enlarged. The new cloisters were enclosed by walls that had four windows in the Perpendicular Gothic style. The dilapidated belfry was taken down and the high pitched roof was replaced by a flat roof with an oak ceiling. The lancet windows in the east wall were replaced by a plain Perpendicular style window.

Two-thirds of what had been the nave of the church was replaced by college rooms that later became part of the Master’s Lodge. The chapels on the north and south sides of the choir were pulled down and the north aisles became part of the cloister, with the original columns still embedded in the wall. The screen that once divided the congregation at the west end of the crossing was replaced by a more open screen at the east side.

The 13th century arches that divided the aisles from the nave were pulled down to make way for college rooms or were blocked off with stone and hidden behind plaster. Four arches in the chancel and two in the north transept were all filled in and covered over, and Perpendicular windows were placed in the new walls. The east arch in the south transept was also filled in and covered over, two Perpendicular windows were inserted in the east and west walls, and a large Perpendicular window was inserted in the south wall.

The south transept of the chapel, with the marble and alabaster memorial to Thomas Cranmer beneath the great window (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Thomas Cranmer was the first of four members of Jesus College to become Archbishop of Canterbury. Jesus College was his home for more than a decade, from 1517 to 1528, and as Rysley Reader in Divinity he taught theology. His connection with Jesus College is marked by a white marble and alabaster memorial in the south transept, designed by the architects Richardson and Gill and sculpted by A Bruce-Joy in 1912.

During the reign of Edward VI, six altars in the chapel and some images in the Master’s Lodge were destroyed in 1549. During the Catholic restoration in the reign of Mary I, John Fuller was appointed Master of Jesus College in 1557 and he restored the old ritual and ornaments in the chapel.

Jesus College returned to a more Protestant ethos in the reign of Elizabeth I, and the chapel services were simplified, although the college did not become Puritan. When James I visited Cambridge frequently, he often worshipped in the chapel in Jesus College.

In the chancel of the chapel in Jesus College, looking towards the screen and the west end beyond (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

When Dr Richard Sterne was the master, a new organ was bought in 1634. Two years later new furniture, plate, and candlesticks for the altar were bought in line with the High Church reforms of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury. At this time, the college was known as a High Church stronghold in Cambridge and chapel services were renowned for ‘good music, elaborate solemnity and attractive decency’.

During the Civil War, the Parliamentarians ordered all colleges in 1641 ‘to displace the Communion table from the east end of their chapels, to take away the rails and level the chancel, and to remove crucifixes, tapers, and basins from the Communion table’.

Charles I called on the fellows to raise a loan of £100 and to send pieces of the college plate to his camp in York. Part of the plate was seized by the Cromwellians before it could be sent from Cambridge, but most of it was taken to York. The Cromwellians arrested the master and the former master, Richard Sterne and William Beale, during a service in the chapel and they were taken to the Tower of London. The fellows took apart the organ and hid the pieces, and what was left of the plate is said to have been buried in the orchard.

The Puritan William Dowsing arrived at Jesus College at Christmas 1643 and ‘digg’d up the Steps there and brake down Superstitions of Saints and Angels, 120 at the least’. All but two of the fellows were ejected from Jesus College and Richard Sterne was deposed as master.

All the chapel windows were filled with stained glass in the first decades of the 16th century, but every one of them was smashed by the Parliamentarians on 23 December 1643. For the next 200 years there was nothing but clear glass, apart from a few coats of arms.

The choir, chancel and High Altar in the chapel of Jesus College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

At the Restoration, the chapel was repaired and restored in 1660-1663 by successive new masters, John Pearson and Joseph Beaumont, and the organ was rebuilt and reinstated. In the decades that followed, the chapel was paved with black and white marble, a gallery was built in the chancel, facing towards the altar, and a classical entrance was added in the south wall.

Between 1762 and 1765 the piers and arches of the cloisters were demolished and rebuilt to designs by James Essex, and the organ was dismantled and given to the parish of All Saints.

The Perpendicular east window in the chancel was rebuilt in the 1780s and a major restoration of the chapel was carried out in 1789-1792 to bring it into accord with the popular Classical ideal in architecture.

Major restoration work in the chapel in 1846-1849 was supervised by AWN Pugin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Major restoration work in the chapel in 1846-1849 was inspired by the Gothic revival and largely reversed earlier repairs. The leaders of this new restoration were the Revd John Gibson, then dean of the college, and the Revd Osmond Fisher. Their aims were to restore the architecture and the ritual of the chapel, to restore music to chapel services and to reinstate the choir. A new organ was designed and bought in 1849 by John Sutton, who formed a choir.

These repairs were supervised by AWN Pugin, the towering figure in the Gothic revival in church architecture and a close friend of John Sutton. On Sutton’s recommendation, the college employed Pugin to direct the chapel restoration.

Under the direction of Anthony Salvin, an 18th century partition wall in the chancel arch was removed, along with the gallery on its east side, a new organ chamber and vestry were built on the east side of the north transept, two arches were unblocked, and two arches were opened unto the north transept below the gallery.

The nave and west end of the chapel in Jesus College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Pugin removed both the 18th century plaster ceiling and Alcock’s low-pitched roof, which he replaced with a high pitched roof in a 13th century style. He rebuilt the choir stalls and the east wall. The reconstruction of the windows in 1846-1849 was based on good archaeological evidence and was guided by Robert Willis, working with Anthony Salvin and then with Pugin.

Pugin began in the lancets above the altar and replaced Alcock’s Perpendicular east window with three tall lancet windows in 1850 with scenes of Christ’s passion in the style of Chartres and Canterbury cathedrals, working with Hardman of Birmingham. The other windows were later glazed in the same style in 1850-1858.

The Norman windows in the north wall of the north transept were rediscovered and were preserved as recessed arches, and the whole wall was restored. New stalls and a new pavement were also supplied for the chancel, and a new organ was installed in the organ chamber. The chapel reopened with a full choral service on All Saints’ Day 1849.

Two windows by Edward Burne-Jones depicting the Incarnation (above) and Christ debating with the Doctors in the Temple (below) in the south wall of the choir (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Further repairs were carried out in 1864-1867 by George F Bodley, who was working at the time on All Saints’ Church in Jesus Lane, facing the entrance to the college, and the tower was refaced and restored.

William Morris designed decorations for the panelled ceilings of the nave and the tower and they were painted under his direction in 1867. The windows in the outer chapel were glazed in 1867-1878 with glass designed by William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones and Ford Madox Brown. The windows in the nave and transepts were glazed in 1873-1877 by Morris and Company to designs by Burne-Jones and Ford Madox Brown.

The glass in the two Perpendicular windows on the south wall of the chancel had weathered badly and were replaced in 1912 with designs by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, one depicting the Nativity and the other Christ debating with the Doctors in the Temple. Although their colour is brilliant, they broke a rule of both Pugin and Morris that the subject of each light should be complete in itself.

Two windows by Edward Burne-Jones depicting Faith (centre), Hope and Charity (above) and Patience, Obedience and Gentleness (below) in the north transept (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The windows in the north wall’s lancets depict scenes from the New Testament and Saint Radegund’s life, and those on the south show scenes from the life of Saint John.

Two windows in the north transept have figures representing the three theological virtues, Faith (standing on unbelief), Hope (standing on despair) and Charity (standing on envy); and the social virtues: Patience (standing on impatience); Obedience (standing on disobedience); and Gentleness (standing on ferocity).

The adjoining nave window symbolise the natural virtues and their corresponding vices. The other three nave windows have figures and scenes from the Old Testament.

In the four smaller south transept windows are the four evangelists and scenes from their Gospels, while the Great South window represents the Church in Heaven and on Earth.

The chapel has one of the finest collections of windows by Burne-Jones. But shortly after completing these windows he announced that he would no longer make stained glass for mediaeval churches.

The mid 19th century organ, given to Jesus College by Sir John Sutton, with panels designed by AWN Pugin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

A larger organ was bought in 1887 to complement Sutton’s organ and was installed in a new gallery at the west end of the nave. But the organ and gallery were removed from the west end in the early 20th century and the gallery may now be seen across the street at Westcott House.

Several restorations in the 20th century have revealed more of the building. A new organ by Orgelbau Kuhn of Switzerland was installed in 2006 to replace the organ by Noel Mander installed in 1971.

The chapel has a number of works of art and fine carvings. ‘The Presentation of the Christ child in the Temple’, by Jean Baptiste Jouvenet (ca 1700) in the North Transept was once used as the chapel altar-piece from 1796 to1846. In the inner chapel a large depiction of ‘The Last Supper’ is an example of the work of the Venetian School in the late 16th century and is attributed to Leandro Bassano.

The majority of the richly carved choir stalls and screen are 19th century reconstructions of the 16th century chapel furnishings, although three carved figures have survived from the 1500s. Another remnant of the chapel’s woodwork can be seen at the end of the master's stall in the inner chapel, showing Bishop Alcock at prayer.

The bronze Pietà in the north transept is by the sculptor Gillian Kaufman and was added to the chapel in 2014.

The bronze Pietà in the north transept is by Gillian Kaufman (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The chapel, Cloister Court, and the names of some rooms, such as the Prioress’s Room, are reminders of the links between Jesus College and the 12th century Benedictine Convent of Saint Mary and Saint Radegund.

As we emerged from Cloister Court to First Court it seemed like Barry Flangan’s ‘Bronze Horse’ was waiting in the late afternoon sunshine to greet us.

Some years ago, one of my photographs of the boathouse of Jesus College Boat Club was used in a funraising appeal brochure launched by the club in 2014. It was good to reacquaint myself with Jesus College once again on a summer afternoon.

Barry Flangan’s ‘Bronze Horse’ in First Court seen from Cloister Court (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

• The Revd Dr James Crockford has been the Dean of Chapel since 2019. During term time the Sunday services are: 10 am, Choral Eucharist, 6 pm, Choral Evensong with address from a guest speaker; Saturday services, 6 pm, Choral Evensong; weekday services, 9 am, Morning Prayer, Monday to Friday, 6:30 pm, Choral Evensong, Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Cloister Court in Jesus College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Finding a Pugin link with Buckingham in a former Franciscan college and chapel on London Road

The former Franciscan seminary and church on London Road, Buckingham, are now part of the University of Buckingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

I spent time in both Ireland – mainly in Co Wexford – and in Staffordshire visiting and tying to catalogue churches and college chapels designed by AWN Pugin (1812-1852), the towering figure in the Gothic Revival in English and Irish church architecture.

The Pugin trail resumed recently in Buckingham, when I had a brief visit to the Verney Park campus of the University of Buckingham on London Road to see a collection of Gothic-style buildings designed by the Pugin family. They were built in 1892-1894 by the Franciscans, and include a former chapel, bell turret and college designed by Pugin & Pugin as a junior seminary for the Franciscans.

Aside from being notable buildings in the Victorian Gothic style, they are part of the social history of the development and expansion of Buckingham at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and are part of the history of educational provision in the town.

At the end of the 19th century, Father Thaddeus Hermans, a Belgian Franciscan friar, wanted to open a college for young men wishing to become Franciscans. He arrived in Buckingham in 1892 and rented a cottage in Elm Street, where he said the first Mass, finally settling on 9 Chandos Road to set up his first chapel.

Hermans then obtained a site on London Road and the ractice of Pugin & Pugin was commissioned to design a new chapel and college.

The former seminary and church on London Road, Buckingham, were designed by Pugin & Pugin and built in 1892-1894 and 1912 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Pugin & Pugin was a London-based family firm of church architects that worked from about 1873 until about 1958. The origins of the partnership lay with the practice of Edward Welby Pugin (1834-1875). He had worked in the London office of his father, AWN Pugin, who died when Edward was 18. Following his father’s death in 1852, EW Pugin was involved in completing some of his works in Ireland, including the cathedral in Killarney, Co Kerry.

Edward Welby Pugin formed two successive partnerships with Irish architects: the first with James Murray, as Pugin & Murray from 1857 to 1858; and Pugin & Ashlin in 1860 with George Coppinger Ashlin, who married his sister Mary in 1867. The partnership of Pugin & Ashlin was dissolved in late 1868.

EW Pugin’s works in Ireland include Saint John’s Covent, Birr, Co Offaly; the Presentation Convent, Waterford; the chapels for the Cliffe family at Bellevue, Co Wexford, and the Power family at Edermine, Co Wexford; Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church, Cork; the Convent of Mercy, Nenagh, Co Tipperary; Saint Brigid’s Church, Crosshaven, Co Cork; and a convent in Fethard, Co Lane.

Saint Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh, the Church of Saint Augustine and Saint John, Thomas Street, Dublin, often known as John’s Lane Church, and Saint Kevin’s Church, Harrington Street, Dublin, are among the many works by Pugin & Ashlin.

After EW Pugin was bankrupted by a business venture in 1873, his firm’s work in England and Scotland was continued by his brother Cuthbert Welby Pugin (1840-1928) and their half-brother Peter Paul Pugin (1851-1904), and the practice became known as Pugin & Pugin.

The foundation stone of the seminary was laid by Bishop Arthur George Riddell of Northampton in 1894 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Pugin & Pugin worked exclusively in the Gothic Revival style, and produced many buildings, alterations and furnishings for the Catholic Church. They include the sanctuary of the Sacred Heart Church, Liverpool; Sacred Heart Church, Kilburn; the English Martyrs Church, Tower Hill; Saint Mary’s Church, Morecambe; the presbytery of the Sacred Heart Church, Bridgeton, Glasgow; and Saint Mary’s Church, Stirling. The firm designed the high altar of Saint John Cantius and Saint Nicholas Catholic Church in Broxburn, West Lothian, in Caen stone and marble.

There are reputedly about 100 buildings by the firm in Australia, built from the mid-1850s onwards, and one building in New Zealand, the Bishop’s Palace (1894) in Saint Mary’s Bay, Auckland, commissioned by Dom John Edmund Luck (1840-1896), Bishop of Auckland.

The foundation stone of the new seminary in Buckingham, under the patronage of Saint Bernardine, a Franciscan saint, was laid by Bishop Arthur George Riddell of Northampton in June 1894. When the Franciscan college opened, there were few Catholics living in Buckingham, and the registers record 12 baptisms in 1900. The parish of Saint Bernardine was set around the college, and the college chapel designed by Pugin & Pugin was blessed and opened for public worship in 1912.

The college chapel was blessed and opened for public worship in 1912 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The parish grew quickly after World War II, and the college continued as a boarding and day school. In the post-war years, the friars were asked to open Mass centres in nearby towns and villages, including Brackley.

However, with changing circumstances, the college closed in 1968 and the buildings were sold to Buckingham County Council. However, the friars were allowed to continue to use the chapel until the parish could build its own church. Eventually it was decided to build onto the new friary in Chandos Road where the friars had set up their first chapel.

After the college buildings were bought by Buckinghamshire Country Council, they were used as an annex to the Buckingham School. The buildings were bought in 1977 by the University of Buckingham, the first independent university in the UK. Initially they were used as residential accommodation for both staff and students, and the former chapel is now part of the University of Buckingham library services.

Meanwhile, the Franciscans who had relocated to Chandos Road, built a new church, which I wrote about in a blog posting some months ago (6 November 2025). Many of the internal features and furnishings in Saint Bernardine’s Church came from the earlier college chapel in Buckingham, including statues of Saint Anthony, Saint Francis and Saint Bernardine, the font, the church bell, the organ and the organ pipes, the pews and the octagonal stone font (1946).

Today, Saint Bernardine’s Church is part of the joint Parish of Buckingham and Brackley and continues to serve the Catholic community in the area.

The former college and chapel are now part of the University of Buckingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)