Two Cambridge college chapels on the Pugin trail and with Irish links

The cloisters beside the Chapel of Jesus College, Cambridge, survive from Benedictine convent of Saint Radegund (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

During my visit to Westcott House in Cambridge last week, I naturally visited Sidney Sussex College, which is separated from Westcott by Malcolm Street, and in my search for the Cambridge works of Eric Gill I also visited both Jesus College, which is a across Jesus Lane from Westcott House, and Saint John’s College, where Gill’s works can be seen at the chapel and in Chapel Court.

But at different times during the week I also found myself visiting the chapels of Jesus College and Emmanuel College, and found myself once again on the trail of the architectural heritage of two great 19th century Gothic revival architects, AWN Pugin and GF Bodley.

The Chapel of Jesus College has been used for worship since the 12th century. It is open during the day for prayer and quietness, and all members of the college community are made welcome. The two choirs enrich the worship of the chapel, and can be heard at evensong four times a week.

The chapel at Jesus College is the oldest college chapel in Cambridge. It is unique in that it was not originally designed as a college chapel: it predates the foundation of the college by three and a half centuries, and the university by more than half a century.

The chapel was originally a large Norman church dedicated to Saint Mary and served the 12th century Benedictine convent of Saint Radegund. This explains why the chapel, like that of the cloisters that surround it, has a conventual rather than a collegiate character. It also served as the church of the parish of Saint Radegund which grew up around the convent, which was at that time a semi-rural area just outside Cambridge.

The church took about a century to build. Building began ca 1157 and was completed ca 1245. It was of cathedrals dimensions and proportions and became the largest church in Cambridge. It was in the shape of a cross, with a high pitched roof, and surmounted by a belfry or steeple that was visible for miles.

The belfry collapsed at different times, devastating fires destroyed much of the surrounding convent and eventually the church itself fell into disrepair because of the convent’s poverty.

The convent of Saint Radegund was dissolved in 1496 by John Alcock, Bishop of Ely, and a new college was founded in its place. The conventual church of Saint Mary was rededicated to the name of Jesus, part of the church was demolished and the remaining portion was drastically modified.

Alcock designed many of the alterations to create a chapel for his new college, and the rebuilding took considerable time, continuing long after his death. Two-thirds of what had been the nave of the church were replaced by college rooms, which later became part of the eastern wing of the Master’s Lodge, and the chapels on the north and south sides of the choir were pulled down and the northern aisles became part of the cloister.

For a time after Saint Mary’s Church became the chapel of Jesus College, it continued to serve as the church of the parish, and was used for baptisms and marriages, which Jesus Churchyard was used for burials.

Part of the churchyard later formed the Master’s Garden, parts later became known as Fair Close, and later the rest of the old churchyard became the fellows’ garden and the orchard.

In the early 17th century, the college was known as a stronghold of the High Church party in the university and sympathetic to the views of the Caroline Divines, and the chapel services were renowned for “good music, elaborate solemnity and attractive decency.” During the English Civil War, the Master, Richard Sterne, and the former Master, William Beale, were arrested by Cromwell in the course of a service in the chapel and taken to the Tower of London, the chapel organ was taken to pieces and the remaining college plate was buried in the orchard.

At the Restoration, the interior of the chapel was repaired and restored to its former beauty, the organ was rebuilt and reinstated, the chapel was paved with black and white marble and a gallery was built in the chancel.

The tower in the Chapel of Jesus College was strengthened with repairs carried out on the advice of Augustus Pugin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Inspired by the new spirit of the Gothic revival, major new restoration work was carried out in the chapel in 1846-1849. The aim was to restore the ritual as well as the architecture of the chapel, and to restore the musical traditional of the chapel services with a new organ and the reinstatement of the choir.

The tower was strengthened with repairs carried out on the advice of Augustus Pugin, who was a close friend of John Sutton, a college fellow who was deeply involved in the restoration of the chapel.

Pugin had come down to Cambridge to take the measurements for the organ chamber and on Sutton’s recommendation the college also employed Pugin to direct the continuing programme of the restoration of the chapel.

Pugin replaced Alcock’s Perpendicular east window with three tall lancet windows (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

In the north transept, Norman windows embedded in the north wall were rediscovered. They were preserved as recessed arches and the whole wall was restored. New stalls and a new pavement were also supplied for the chancel. Pugin removed both 18th century plaster ceiling and Alcock’s low-pitched roof which he replaced by a high-pitched roof, in a 13th century style.

Pugin also rebuilt the choir stalls and the east wall and removed Alcock’s Perpendicular east window, replacing it with three tall lancet windows – archaeological evidence had shown that that this was the original form that the windows had taken.

Pugin installed stained glass windows of his own design in 1850 and the other windows were later glazed, in the same style, between 1850 and 1858. The new organ was installed in the organ chamber and on All Saints’ Day 1849 the chapel was re-opened with a full choral service.

Cracks began to appear in the arches and piers of the tower in 1662, and further repairs were carried out in 1864-1867 by George F. Bodley, who was also working simultaneously on All Saints’ Church, opposite the entrance to the college. A later Vicar of All Saints was Joseph Armitage Robinson (1858-1933), who was the vicar in 1888-1892, and for a brief period Robinson’s brother, Forbes Robinson (1867-1904), was his curate at All Saints (1891-1892).

The decorations for Pugin’s ceilings in the nave and the tower in the chapel of Jesus College were designed by William Morris (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The decorations for the newly-panelled ceilings of the nave and the tower in chapel of Jesus College were designed by William Morris and painted under his direction in 1867. In 1873-1877, the windows in the nave and transepts of the chapel were glazed by Morris and Company from designs by Edward Burne-Jones and Ford Madox Brown.

By the end of the 19th century, the chapel had attained its present proportions and appearance, in which the Norman original, together with Early English, Decorated and Perpendicular elements, James Essex’s 18th century cloisters and Pugin’s and Burne-Jones’ 19th century restorations combine to form this remarkable building.

The gallery was removed in the early 20th century, but may still be seen in the chapel of Westcott House.

The chapel in Emmanuel College is an early work of Sir Christopher Wren (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

During the week, I also visited the Chapel in Emmanuel College, where the choir was rehearsing in advance of Evensong. The prominent central position of this chapel is a reminder of the original religious dimension to life in this college.

The Chapel, along with the cloisters outside and the gallery above, is an early work by Sir Christopher Wren. Indeed, this is the third place in the college to be used as a permanent place of worship.

The Dominican friars, also known as the Blackfriars, occupied the site before Emmanuel College was founded, and they used what is now the Hall as their church. When Sir Walter Mildmay founded Emmanuel in 1584, the friary buildings were in a semi-ruined state. The church walls were restored and a roof put on to make the hall for the new college. Another monastic building was put to use as the chapel – this is now know as the Old Library, and it served as the chapel until the present building was completed in 1677.

The moving force behind building a new chapel was William Sancroft (1617-1693) who became Master after the restoration of Charles II in 1660. He commissioned Wren and campaigned to raise the money to pay for the building, contributing generously out of his own resources. He left Emmanuel to become Dean of Saint Paul’s Cathedral after only two years, but retained a keen interest in the project, even when he later became Archbishop of Canterbury.

The original glass in the windows were plain, but current windows were added as part of a programme of restoration to mark the tercentenary of Emmanuel College in 1884.

The present stained glass is the work of Heaton, Butler, and Bayne and was completed in 1884 as part of the commemoration of the College’s tercentenary. This partnership also designed stained glass windows in a number of parish churches in the Church of Ireland, including Straffan Parish Church, Co Kildare, Saint Bartholomew’s Church, Ballsbridge, Dublin, and the Church of Saint John the Evangelist in Monkstown, Co Cork.

The windows in Emmanuel Chapel were probably designed by Clement John Heaton the younger (1861-1940) but the general scheme of subjects was suggested by the Revd FJA Hort, the Dublin-born New Testament scholar who was a Fellow of Emmanuel College (1872-1892).

Hort was inspired by the windows in the Chapel of Trinity College, planned a decade or so earlier by his friends and colleagues there, BF Westcott and JB Lightfoot. The figures are chosen to illustrate the continuity of the history of the Church, and the special part played in it by members of Emmanuel College.

Archbishop William Sancroft of Canterbury (left) and Bishop William Bedell of Kilmore (right) in a window in the chapel of Emmanuel College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

One window is shared as a pair by William Sancroft, Master of Emmanuel, who became Archbishop of Canterbury, and William Bedell (1571-1642), a former fellow of Emmanuel College and one of the Caroline Divines, who later became Provost of the University of Dublin and then Bishop of Kilmore.

Hort’s time at Emmanuel overlapped with Canon Forbes Robinson (1867-1904), who the Chaplain of Emmanuel College, Cambridge (1891-1896), and was briefly the curate of All Saints’ Church while his brother, Joseph Armitage Robinson was the vicar. Armitage Robinson is often seen as the heir to Hort’s mantle. The Robinsons’ father, the Revd George Robinson, was born in Co Monaghan, which brings another interesting Irish link to the life of Cambridge college chapels.

Evening lights at the chapel and cloisters of Emmanuel College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The ‘most tremendous tale of all’ … faith in the poetry of John Betjeman

King’s College Chapel, Cambridge … ‘here behold all colours change that catch the flying sky / To waves of pearly light that heave along the shafted stone’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

In my tutorial group with part-time students, on Saturday mornings we have decided to look at the contribution of key Anglican poets, including TS Eliot, John Betjeman, John Milton, perhaps George Herbert and John Donne.

For our reflection this morning, I have chosen two poems by Sir John Betjeman (1906-1984), who was Poet Laureate from 1972. He had a passionate interest in Victorian architecture and railways, and contributed to guide books as well as being a popular figure on television.

In his poetry, he explored his thoughts about his Anglican faith, about Englishness and about Christianity in general. He was one of the great makers of the Christian imagination in the last century.

At school, his reading of the works of Arthur Machen (1863-1947) won him over to his own brand of Anglicanism – it was a conversion that influenced and shaped his writing and his work in the arts for the rest of the life.

In life, he crossed paths at different times with two other great Anglican literary giants: TS Eliot, who was once his teacher, and CS Lewis, who was his tutor in Oxford.

He was a lifelong friend of the Irish poet Louis MacNeice, and he spent time in Dublin during World War II working as the British press attaché. During that time, he was an active parishioner in Saint John’s, Clondalkin, Co Dublin.

In 1943, he gave a lecture to the clergy of the Church of Ireland, “Fabrics of the Church of Ireland,” in which he made the point that the “fabric of the church is very much concerned with worship. The decoration of a church can lead the eye to God or away from him.”

Betjeman’s poems are often humorous, and his wry comic verse is marked by a satirical and observant grace. He remains one of the most significant literary figures of our time to declare his Christian faith. He was a practising Anglican and his religious beliefs and piety inform many of his poems.

In response to a radio broadcast by the humanist Margaret Knight, he expressed his views on Christianity in The Listener in 1955 with his poem ‘The Conversion of St. Paul.’ It concludes:

What is Conversion? Turning round
To gaze upon a love profound.
For some of us see Jesus plain
And never once look back again,
And some of us have seen and known
And turned and gone away alone,
But most of us turn slow to see
The figure hanging on a tree
And stumble on and blindly grope
Upheld by intermittent hope.
God grant before we die we all
May see the light as did St Paul.

The ‘most tremendous tale of all’

‘This most tremendous tale of all, / Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Although Advent is still some weeks ago, looking at the shelves of shops and supermarkets, it is not too early to consider Betjeman’s poem ‘Christmas.’ This is one of his most openly religious pieces, and the last three stanzas proclaim the wonder of Christ’s birth in the form of a question: “And is it true...?”

The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.

The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that the villagers can say
‘The church looks nice’ on Christmas Day.

Provincial Public Houses blaze,
Corporation tramcars clang,
On lighted tenements I gaze,
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
Says ‘Merry Christmas to you all’.

And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.

And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children’s hearts are glad.
And Christmas-morning bells say ‘Come!’
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.

And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue,
A Baby in an ox’s stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?

And is it true? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare –
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

‘Sunday Morning, King’s Cambridge’

King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, in early morning sunlight (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

As a poet, Betjeman celebrates the social and cultural significance of the Church of England, yet points to the social and spiritual failures of the Church, particularly the snobbery and hypocrisy of the clergy and churchgoers. He is a poet who believes deeply in Christ and who holds out hope for the Church of England and Anglicanism.

In ‘Sunday Morning, King’s Cambridge,’ he fuses his different passions as he presents a happy marriage of architectural detail, finely observed, and the sense of the worship of the eternal captured in a moment. He presents the beauty and splendour of Anglican worship, ablaze with colour.

In this poem, the moment of worship exists out of time as the living and the dead, the choir and the poet, join in the eternal praise of God. Here, Betjeman captures a joyful and spontaneous reaction, albeit an emotionally restrained expression, and a sense of wonder in the celebration of Anglican worship.

Stanza 1 describes the procession of the choir of the Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, and the spiritually overwhelming aesthetics of the chapel – the stalls, the stained glass, and especially the stunning fan-vaulted ceiling, “a shower that never falls.”

Stanza 2 sees the poet’s mind wander away from the service as he imagines being outside among the “windy Cambridge courts.” Again there is a great emphasis on the vast variety of colour, but all the colours are transformed into “waves of pearly light” reflected off the Cambridge stone. The image suggests that the divine is not to be found exclusively in the chapel but in the world, the space that contains both God’s works and humanity’s work.

Stanza 3 is a geographical and historical expansion of these images and ideas. Here, the white of the “windy Cambridge courts” contrasts with the “vaulted roof so white and light and strong.”

Betjeman imagines the tombs that fill churches throughout East Anglia, with the effigies of the deceased captured for eternity in postures of prayer:

... the clasped hands lying long
Recumbent on sepulchral slabs or effigied in brass.

The prayers of these dead are a “buttress” for the vaulted ceiling of the chapel at King’s, which, built near the end of the Gothic period, needs no architectural buttresses. Christianity exists not because of aesthetics but because of prayer, and the sanctuary is supported, not because of the marvels of 15th century engineering, but by a tradition of faith. In ‘Sunday Morning, King’s Cambridge,’ the moment of worship exists out of time as the living and the dead, the choir and the poet, join in the eternal praise of God.

The poem has no irony, except perhaps in the last line:

To praise Eternity contained in Time and coloured glass.

Here Betjeman illustrates the futility of our human desire to share in God’s timelessness. All of us are being confounded by our foolish need to control God and time.

File into yellow candle light, fair choristers of King’s
Lost in the shadowy silence of canopied Renaissance stalls
In blazing glass above the dark glow skies and thrones and wings
Blue, ruby, gold and green between the whiteness of the walls
And with what rich precision the stonework soars and springs
To fountain out a spreading vault – a shower that never falls.

The white of windy Cambridge courts, the cobbles brown and dry,
The gold of plaster Gothic with ivy overgrown,
The apple-red, the silver fronts, the wide green flats and high,
The yellowing elm-trees circled out on islands of their own –
Oh, here behold all colours change that catch the flying sky
To waves of pearly light that heave along the shafted stone.

In far East Anglian churches, the clasped hands lying long
Recumbent on sepulchral slabs or effigied in brass
Buttress with prayer this vaulted roof so white and light and strong
And countless congregations as the generations pass
Join choir and great crowned organ case, in centuries of song
To praise Eternity contained in Time and coloured glass.

‘God was man in Palestine / And lives today in Bread and Wine’ ... the Altar in Straffan Church, Co Kildare, decorated for the Harvest Thanksgiving Service on Sunday afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

(Revd Canon Professor) Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor, Trinity College Dublin. These notes were prepared for a reflection at a staff meeting on 20 October 2015.

Straffan: a private family church with roots in an earlier parish history

Straffan Church was built in the 1830s by Hugh and Anna Barton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

This afternoon [18 October 2015], I was invited by the Revd Stephen Neill to preach at the Harvest Thanksgiving Service in Straffan, Co Kildare.

In the past, I have stayed at Barberstown Castle in Straffan, when I have been at weddings, but this was my first time in the parish church in Straffan.

Straffan is part of the parish of Celbridge and Straffan with Newcastle Lyons, one of three churches on the borders of Co Dublin and Co Kildare, west and south-west of Dublin, and about 20 km from Dublin city centre.

Although suburban Dublin has almost reached them, each of these churches retains a mainly rural setting. These churches have individual and rich histories, stretching back to at least 1400, or even earlier. Saint Finian’s church in Newcastle Lyons, where I was invited to baptise a child about 15 years ago, was built ca 1400 on the site of older churches dating back to early Christian settlement. In contrast, both Christ Church, Celbridge, and Straffan Church, Straffan were originally private chapels on the Castletown and Straffan demesnes.

Straffan House, now better known as the K Club, was built in 1832. Because of Hugh Barton’s connections with the wine business in France with his friend Daniel Guestier, Straffan House was designed closely along the lines of Chateau Louveciennes by Frederick Darley of Dublin.

A monument to Hugh Barton in the nave of Straffan Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Straffan Church was founded by Hugh and Anna Barton in 1830, and was consecrated on 18 June 1838. The church was originally built by Hugh Barton as a private chapel for himself, his family and their large staff working at both Straffan House and on the land on the Straffan estate. Neighbours from the surrounding big houses also worshipped there.

The original church consisted of a porch with vestry and utility room surmounted by a spire. The porch opened into the nave with a simple sanctuary at the east end. The north and south transepts, followed by a raised sanctuary were added later giving the church its present cruciform shape.

The church remained a private chapel until 1933, when it was transferred to the Church of Ireland Representative Church Body (RCB).

The reredos and oak panelling in the sanctuary display particularly fine Victorian craftsmanship (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

There are many memorials to members of the Barton family on the church walls. At the top of the nave is a fine carved font dated Christmas 1875. The carved pulpit, reredos and oak panelling around the sanctuary are of particularly fine workmanship.

The windows in the transepts were made in the 1870s by Heaton, Butler & Bayne (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The oldest windows are in the transepts and were made in the 1870s by Heaton, Butler & Bayne. In the nave, there is a rich variety of later windows depicting Christ’s life and dedicated to the memory of Bertram Francis Barton, a former owner of Straffan House (1899-1904). The three windows on the south nave (Christ blessing the children; the Crucifixion; and the Resurrection) are by Alfred Ernest Child (1875–1939) of Dublin, part-time manager of Sarah Purser’s workshop at An Tur Gloine in Upper Pembroke Street, Dublin. The three windows in the north nave are by HW Bryans of London.

The East Window is by Catherine O’Brien of An Tuar Gloine (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The East Window by Catherine O’Brien of An Tuar Gloine is dedicated to Canon Lionel Fletcher, who was the Rector of Straffan for 50 years. All the other windows are dedicated to members of the Barton family.

The two manual organ was built by Peter Conagher & Co of Huddersfield and Dublin and installed in 1897. This fine organ is still in perfect weekly use.

Encaustic tiles in the church are fine examples of this Victorian craft that is part of the Gothic revival (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The aisle has fine example of Victorian encaustic and mosaic tiles, perhaps by Minton or Craven Dunnill.

The graves in the churchyard are only of members of the Barton family and their descendants, but the churchyard also has a war memorial remembering parishioners who died in World War I.

The ruins of Saint Patrick’s Church, Straffan, which dates back to the mid-13th century or earlier (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

However, despite the relatively recent history of this church, the church presence in Straffan predates this church by many centuries. It probably dates back to the early 13th century, for around 1250 Saint Patrick’s, Straffan, and its vicarage, were incorporated in the Hospital of Saint John outside Newgate, Dublin.

The vicarage was suppressed in 1397 and was united with Saint John’s Hospital. But in 1531 Archbishop Allen restored the vicarage.

Few of the names of the Vicars of Straffan survive from this time, and from the end of the 17th century the parish was united with Kildrought (Celbridge), although this union was not made official until an Order in Council in 1829.

Barton’s church was built in Straffan in the following decade, and for 30 years the Revd Samuel Greer (1800-1886) was the perpetual curate or Vicar of Straffan (1834-1864) and at the same time curate of Celbridge (1828-1864).

In 1933, Straffan was joined with Celbridge and Canon Lionel Fletcher (1865-1946) of Straffan was instituted as Rector of Celbridge that year. In all, he spent almost half a century at Straffan, from 1894 to 1943.

A Gothic window in the ruins of Saint Patrick’s, Straffan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Bringing the fruits of the harvest to those who are signs of the kingdom

Blackberries coming to full fruit in Greystones, Co Wicklow, last week … a sign of a late harvest (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

Harvest Thanksgiving Eucharist,

Straffan, Co Kildare,

3.30 p.m., Sunday 18 October 2015.

Readings: Joel 2: 21-27; Psalm 126; I Timothy 2: 1-7; Matthew 6: 25-33.

May I speak to you in the name of + the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

I want to thank your rector, the Revd Stephen Neill, for inviting me to your Harvest Thanksgiving celebrations this afternoon.

Stephen has been a good friend for many years, and I was delighted to attend his institution earlier this year as your rector: I know you are blessed to have him here, and I am sure he is equally blessed to be with you here.

Although I live in south Dublin, I have actually stayed in Straffan, and in Barberstown Castle earlier this summer when I was taking part in a wedding.

Living in Dublin, and living close to where I work in the south Dublin suburbs, I need to get out into the countryside on a regular basis, and to be in touch with the cycle of life and growth, sowing and harvest.

Last week, I was in Greystones, and was surprised how late autumn actually is this year. Like many people who grew up in the countryside, I grew up knowing the old country belief that blackberries should not be picked after Michaelmas, Saint Michael’s Day, 29 September. But three weeks later, the blackberries are still ripening on the brambles. Summer was too wet and too cold to allow them to come to full fruit until recent weeks.

I know that for many farmers, this has been a poor summer, but the interesting version of an “Indian Summer” we had in recent weeks provided many farmers with some compensation at harvest time.

The weather these past few weeks has compensated for the summer rains. Two weeks ago, while I was in Co Wexford, it was to see how farmers were gathering in a late harvest. The fields are still green and gold in many of these parts of Co Kildare this weekend.

Harvest fields of green and gold between Kilmuckridge and Kilnamanagh, Co Wexford, two weeks ago (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

I was in Wexford two weeks ago because I regularly need to get in touch with my roots. Despite living in Dublin for so many years, I still yearn for those fields of green and gold that give that sense of belonging that many of us get when we move out of the city and return to provincial and rural life.

Going back to places that shape us and give us identity helps to integrate ourselves, spiritually as well as every other way, and helps us to prepare ourselves for the next steps forward in life.

It is as though, psychologically and spiritually, we need to take stock of what is in the barn, be aware of the riches and blessings we have from God in the past and in the present, so that in faith we can move forward.

Autumn seems a good time to take stock in all those ways. The summer holidays are over, the children are back at school, colleges and universities have reopened. Before the clocks go back and the winter evenings close in, now is the time to take a few steps back and just see where we are going.

It is time to take stock of the riches we have been blessed with, to realise what we have and what we no longer need, what we have been blessed with and what we can bless others with, what is there and what is missing.

Sometimes it is good to count our blessings. As the Prophet Joel says in our Old Testament reading this afternoon: “Be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things” (Joel 2: 21).

I see that in this parish, the ‘Harvest Appeal’ is going to the Church of Ireland Bishops’ Appeal Fund. I was interested, during the Diocesan Synod last week [13 October 2015], to see how generous you have been in previous years in your giving to the Bishops’ Appeal.

But it might be good and appropriate stewardship to report back to you on some of the ways that money is used and spent.

The Bishops’ Appeal is one of the generous supporters of the work of Us, or the United Society, previously known as the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.

Us, the old USPG, is more than 130 years older than Straffan Church building – it was founded back in 1703, making it one of the oldest Anglican mission agencies, and I am a member of the boards and trustees in Ireland and in .

And I spent the best part of a week this summer at a residential conference at the High Leigh Conference Centre in England, where I heard about exciting and fresh new things that are being done by this old mission agency.

Sheba Sultan, a writer and member of the Church of Pakistan, spoke about the challenges facing women in Pakistan.

Canon Delene Mark from South Africa spoke of people trafficking, especially the trafficking of young women, and the abuse of young women, yet could still tell us how the Church can ensure the Gospel is good news for women. He said: “The Gospel is good news for women. How? Only through us.”

The Revd Dr Miranda Threlfall-Holmes, author of The Essential History of Christianity, discussed gender justice with Dr Paulo Ueti, a theologian and New Testament scholar from Brazil.

The Revd Dr Monodeep Daniel, of the Delhi Brotherhood Society, drew on the Old Testament story of the rape of Tamar (see II Samuel 13) as he spoke of the way the Delhi Brotherhood works with women who suffer domestic and sexual violence, especially women who suffer doubly because of their gender and their caste.

Anjum Anwar is a Muslim woman on the staff of Blackburn Cathedral. She challenged us about how we live as good neighbours with people of different religious beliefs and values given the tensions we live with in the world today.

Since that conference in High Leigh at the end of July, I have also been receiving regular briefings about how Us has taken on as its Advent this year the role of co-ordinating fundraising on behalf of the Anglican Diocese in Europe as it reaches out to refugees arriving throughout Europe.

The Diocese in Europe is working on the frontline with refugees, and has asked Us to be the official agency for Anglican churches in Britain and Ireland to channel donations for its work, providing emergency medical support, food, shelter and pastoral care for refugees.

The initial focus, of course, is on the situation in Greece, working with people who are fleeing conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan and Eritrea. The need for healthcare is particularly acute. Many refugees, including the elderly and children, are arriving in need of urgent medical care, but Greece’s overstretched public resources, and the lack of medicines in the country, mean many refugees are going untreated.

At the moment, the diocese has committed to the following initiatives in partnership with the Greek Orthodox Church:

● On the Island of Leros, a church centre is housing refugees and providing food, clothing, toiletries and medicine.

● On the Island of Samos, a church hostel is caring for 600 refugees, many of whom have medical needs. The hostel is mostly supporting Iraqi and Afghan refugees.

● In Athens, the church is working with the Salvation Army to provide food, water and medicine to refugees who congregate in local parks.

This work goes hand-in-hand with local initiatives throughout Greece. Last month I was privileged to visit twice the voluntary work of doctors, pharmacists and other volunteers who have set up a clinic and advice centre working with people without papers or without insurance from a shop front in a back street of Rethymnon in Crete.

All this work shows how relevant mission is in the world today. A mission agency that is over 300 years old is meeting the most contemporary and the most pressing needs in our world today.

These people are like the birds of the air, unable to sow or reap or gather for themselves. But by caring for them, by responding to their needs, the Church is showing that God still cares for them, that we know they are loved by God and so are worth caring for ourselves.

Taking stock of what we have in our barns, and giving thanks for the harvest are important ways of celebrating and of praising God. But in giving thanks and in giving to the Bishops’ Appeal you are also showing that the Kingdom of God spreads beyond the boundaries of borders of our own parish and diocese.

May you continue to rejoice in the harvest and be generous in your giving – the two go together – so that others may know of the love of God, and so that we may express this in our love for others.

As Christ tells us in our Gospel reading this afternoon: “Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6: 33).

And so, may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, + the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns (Matthew 6: 26) … a barn on a farm at Cross in Hand Lane, outside Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Collect:

Eternal God,
you crown the year with your goodness
and give us the fruits of the earth in their season:
Grant that we may use them to your glory,
for the relief of those in need
and for our own well-being;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

(Revd Canon Professor) Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. This sermon was preached at the Harvest Thanksgiving Service in Straffan Church, Co Kildare, on 14 October 2015.

Would you know my name If I saw you in … Barberstown?

Barberstown Castle … a modern hotel dating back to the 13th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

I stayed last night in Barberstown Castle near Straffan, Co Kildare, 25 km west of Dublin. I was there for a wedding reception, and awoke looking out to the castle, the castle courtyard and 20 acres of gardens that looked freshly green and aglow after the overnight rain.

Barberstown Castle has been run as an hotel since the 1970s, but dates back to the late 13th century, and is made up of four buildings from different periods in history. The castle recently had a multimillion euro make-over, and the original castle battlements now blend in with Elizabethan and Victorian extensions, with the 19th century windows in the mediaeval tower and 21st century facilities in the modern wings.

Barberstown Castle stands on the vast expanse of lands in the Straffan area that came into the possession of Maurice FitzGerald at the beginning of the Anglo-Norman presence in Ireland. The lands were granted to the ancestor of the FitzGerald families by Strongbow (Richard de Clare) in 1170-1171.

By 1250, Robert de Copella was at Straffan, and he was followed by Thomas Fanning (1275) and Sir John Fanning, who in 1288 conveyed Straffan and Ballespaddagh (Irishtown) to Richard Le Penkiston on a deed witnessed by Richard de la Salle, John Posswick and Nicholas Barby. Each of these witnesses gave his name to surrounding townlands: Sealstown (de la Salle), Possextown (Posswick) and Barberstown (Barby).

Nicholas Barby said to have built the first Barberstown Castle ca 1288-1300 on the land originally owned Maurice Fitzgerald family. The castle was built as a fortress to protect the village and people of Barberstown from the attack of the neighbouring Ui Faelain clan, who tried to burn Barberstown in 1310.

The battlements of Barberstown Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Since then, the castle has been in the middle of political struggles and local wars that have often led to changes in ownership. These struggles and wars mean Barberstown has had 37 owners since 1288, although many proprietors went to extreme lengths to hold on to the castle.

One story about the many desperate efforts to hold on to the castle tells of the body buried in the tower of the castle keep. In a stipulation was mean to refer to his death, the lease on the castle was due to run out when he was buried in the ground. The end of the lease would usher in an increase in rent, and so when he died the man was buried in the tower above the earth so his family could continue to hold the lease without the rent being raised.

Inside the mediaeval tower in Barberstown Castle this morning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Barberstown was still owned by the Penkiston family in the 14th century, nut was owned by Suttons in the 15th century. The Sutton family was living at Barberstown Castle as tenants of the Penkiston family in 1473, built the castle tower, which measures 8 metres by 7 metres, with walls that are 1.4 metres thick. The walls of the castle keep slope inwards as a defensive measure, and the rooms on the upper floors of the castle, reached by a 53-step staircase, are larger than those on the ground level because their walls are thinner.

The tower has a north-west facing entrance and a corner stair turret that projects west. There is an added battered base and a projecting latrine turret at the south-west corner.

The Gaynor family built the Elizabethan house attached to the castle in the 16th century. But the Sutton family appears to have returned to the castle, for in 1630 William Sutton owned the castle and the population of Barberstown was then 36.

In 1660, the castle was granted to John King, Lord Kingston, who had been a general in Cromwell’s army but then supported the restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1660, when he was given a peerage. But after James II came to the throne, the Earl of Tyrconnell confiscated the castle from Robert King, 2nd Lord Kingston, in 1689.

After the Battle of the Boyne, the castle was leased to Roger Kelly for £102 a year. Barberstown Castle was bought from the Young family for £1,033 in 1703 by Bartholomew Vanhomrigh. Bartholomew Vanhomrigh, a Dutch merchant from Amsterdam, had been Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1697-1698, and he became the sixth owner of the castle in six years. At the time, the castle stood on 335 acres.

A grove of willow trees in the gardens of Barberstown Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Vanhomrigh’s principal residence was nearby at Celbridge Abbey. He was the father of Esther Vanhomrigh (1688-1723), the Vanessa who was the focus of the passionate letters and amorous attention of Dean Jonathan Swift. She was fictionalised as Vanessa in Swift’s poem Cadenus and Vanessa (1713), in which he wrote:

Each girl, when pleased with what is taught,
Will have the teacher in her thought.

Vanhomrigh soon sold the castle, and Hugh Henry was living there in 1716. He was MP for Limavady (1713) and Antrim (1727-1743) probably built Oakley Park in Celbridge, which was an ancestral home of Archbishop Justin Welby.

Hugh Henry’s nephew, also Hugh Henry, built Lodge Park in Straffan in 1775. His son Joseph Henry matriculated from Trinity College at 13, inherited the Straffan estate, including Barberstown Castle, in 1749, and was MP for Longford (1761-1768) and Kildare (1770-1776). The Henry family’s tenants at Barberstown Castle included the Cairncross family, with Joseph Cairncross (1754) and Hugh Cairncross (1780) living there in the second half of the 18th century.

Joseph Henry is featured in many caricatures painted by William Hogarth and on display in the National Gallery of Ireland. His son John Joseph Henry gave the site for the Roman Catholic Church in Straffan in 1787. In 1801 he married Lady Emily Elizabeth FitzGerald (1778-1856), a daughter of the Duke of Leinster and a niece of Lord Edward FitzGerald.

But his extravagant lifestyle was his downfall. He was once one of the richest commoners in Ireland, but he became so embarrassed financially that he was obliged to sell Straffan and move to France. He died in 1846.

The Straffan estate and Barberstown Castlewere bought by the wine merchant Hugh Barton (1766-1844), of the wine firm Barber and Guestier. Barton built a new house, Straffan House (1828-1831), designed by Frederick Darley and based on a chateau at Louveciennes. Today Straffan House is the home of the K-Club.

Hugh Barton, who still owned Barberstown Castle in 1826, completed the last wing of the house in the 1830s.

A four-poster bed in Room 60 in Barberstown Castle, named after Mrs Norah Devlin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

By 1836, Admiral Hercules Robinson (1789-1864) was living at Barberstown House. He was a son of the Revd Christopher Robinson, Rector of Granard, Co Longford, band a grandson of Sir Hercules Langrishe of Knocktopher Abbey, Co Kilkenny.

Admiral Robinson fought alongside Admiral Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, and from 1817 to 1820 he commanded the Favourite on the Cape of Good Hope and St Helena station. He was High Sheriff of Co Westmeath in 1842. His son, Sir Hercules George Robert Robinson (1824-1897), was Governor of South Africa and became Lord Rosmead in 1896.

Later residents of the castle included Edward Smith (1842) and a Mr Littleboy (1881). Sandham Francis Symes was living there in 1901 and 1918. His wife Lavinia died at Barberstown Castle in 1918 and was buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery, Dublin. He died on 15 July 1942. But by then Robert Huddleston was living in the castle.

By the mid-20th century, however, the castle became too expensive to maintain as a private family home and the Huddleston family sold Barberstown Castle. A Mrs Trodd was there in 1971, and by 1973 Mrs Norah Devlin converted the castle into an hotel.

The names of former proprietors on bedroom doors in Barberstown Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Eric Clapton bought the castle in 1979, the year he married Pattie Boyd. He was then pursuing a solo career following the breakup of Cream, which included Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce, and of Derek and the Dominoes. He lived in the old tower for some time before selling it to the current owner, Ken Healy, in 1987.

Four years later, Eric Clapton’s four-year-old son Conor died in 1991, and Clapton expressed his grief in the song ‘Tears in Heaven’:

Would you know my name
If I saw you in heaven?
Would it be the same
If I saw you in heaven?

I must be strong
And carry on,
’Cause I know I don’t belong
Here in heaven ...

During renovations in 1996, an underground tunnel was discovered, leading from the castle to the parish church in Straffan. This is thought to be a “priest’s hole” dating back to the Penal Times.

The names of all the previous owners of Barberstown Castle are painted on the hotel’s bedroom doors. I was staying in a room named after Mrs Norah Devlin, but the room next to me was named after Eric Clapton.

I enjoy much of Eric Clapton’s music but I have found his views on Enoch Powell, racism, immigration and foxhunting too extreme and beyond the limits of acceptability. Perhaps it was better that I woke up in the next room this morning.

The elegant interior of Barberstown Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)