Visiting Westcott House, Cambridge, is like standing on the shoulders of the theological giants of Anglicanism

Westcott House on Jesus Lane is one of the two Anglican theological colleges in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

During this week’s walking tour of Cambridge, when I showed a visiting friend from Ireland around the Cambridge I have felt a part of for almost 20 years and that has been a part of me too, we visited a number of colleges, chapels and churches, including King’s College and Jesus College and their chapels, and Sidney Sussex College and Christ’s College.

One of the theological colleges we visited was Westcott House, the Anglican theological college on Jesus Lane in the heart of Cambridge, squeezed between Sidney Sussex College to the west and All Saints’ Church to the east, and across the street on Jesus Lane from Jesus College, as well as the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies and Wesley House.

When I stayed at Sidney Sussex College on courses organised by the IOCS, I became well acquainted with Westcott House, and I have often mused that it Westcott was the one theological college in England – or, perhaps, Ripon College Cuddesdon – I would like to have trained at had I not trained in Ireland.

I stayed in Westcott House once many years ago during a residential meeting of USPG trustees, and I have been there for chapel services and for seminars organised by the IOCS, when the lecturers have included Archbishop Rowan Williams, Metropolitan Kallistos Ware and Metropolitan John Zizioulas.

Westcott House on Jesus Lane, Cambridge, is squeezed between Sidney Sussex College and All Saints’ Church and across the street from Jesus College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Westcott House is one of two Anglican theological colleges in Cambridge, the other being Ridley Hall. Westcott stands in the Liberal Catholic tradition in Anglicanism, but the college accepts ordinands from a range of traditions in the Church of England and other Anglican churches. Its main activity is training men and women for ordained ministry in the Church of England, and it is part of the Cambridge Theological Federation.

The chapel at Westcott is at the heart of the community life. Its uncluttered simplicity provides ideal sacred space for a range of services from sung high mass to said Morning Prayer, from adoration of the Blessed Sacrament to ‘prayer and praise’ services.

As we strolled around the grounds of Westcott House, my friend and I compared notes about theological training in England and Ireland, the accommodation and facilities provided for ordinands and their families, the links theological colleges and students ought to be encouraged to have with the university, and the links the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein developed with Ireland thanks to his friendship with a former ordinand at Westcott, Maurice O’Connor (Con) Drury.

Westcott House was founded in 1881 by Brooke Foss Westcott, one of the ‘Cambridge Triumvirate’ of biblical scholars and theologians (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Westcott House was founded in 1881 as the Cambridge Clergy Training School. Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901), the then Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, was its first president, and he later became the Bishop of Durham.

Westcott was a distinguished New Testament scholar and one of the ‘Cambridge Triumvirate’ of biblical scholars and theologians, alongside Joseph Barber Lightfoot (1828-1899) and Dublin-born Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828-1892). Together, they produced The New Testament in the Original Greek (1881), shaping modern Bible translations, and leading to the Revised Version, the Revised Standard Version and eventually the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible.

Westcott House was the result of Westcott’s passionate concern to raise the standard of clergy education and to equip clergy to meet the challenges of parish ministry. He was also exercised by the way in which the Church of England was increasingly dominated by parties and factions, and he refused to be labelled with any factional affiliations or labels.

In its history, Westcott House has said: ‘As a scholar, educator, priest and prophet, Westcott’s legacy to the Church of England challenges sectarianism, ignorance, complacency and empty faith. This is the spirit which Westcott House seeks to honour today, drawing students from all backgrounds to prepare them for ministry in this historic centre of Christian learning.’

Visiting Westcott House is an experience that could be compared to standing on the shoulders of theological giants (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

I once described staying in Westcott House as an experience that could be compared to standing on the shoulders of the theological giants of the Church of England, and even of wider Anglicanism. Today, Westcott House describes itself as ‘the home of a diverse, inclusive and international community of people who share a vision of ministry to all society’.

The Revd Dr Helen Dawes has been the principal of Westcott House since 2021. Previous principals have included Peter Walker (1962-1972), later Bishop of Ely, Mark Santer (1972-1981), later Bishop of Birmingham, and Canon Chris Chivers, who chaired the Trustees of USPG. The first Irish-born principal was William Derrick Lindsay Greer (1902-1972), later Bishop of Manchester.

The boot scarpers at the entrance, depicting a rabbit and a pig, are a heraldic pun on the surname of Bertram Cunningham (1871-1944), who was the principal in 1919-1943.

Notable staff members have included Earl (Gregory) Collins, formerly of Glenstal Abbey and Abbot of the Dormition Abbey, Jerusalem, author of the Glenstal Book of Icons, and now Canon Chancellor of Chichester Cathedral; Canon John Collins and Dean Alan Webster, later of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London; Don Cupitt, later Dean of Emmanuel College, Cambridge; John Habgood, later Archbishop of York; Hugh Montefiore, later Bishop of Birmingham; Mary Tanner, later European President of the World Council of Churches; Canon Angela Tilby; and two former Archbishops of Canterbury, Robert Runcie and Rowan Williams.

Notable alumni include: the Revd Professor John Polkinghorne (1930-2021), theoretical physicist and theologian, who wrote extensively on quantum physics and theology; John Robinson, Bishop of Woolwich and author of Honest to God; Mervyn Stockwood, Bishop of Southwark; and Graham Ward, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford until 2024.

The chapel is at the heart of daily life in Westcott House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Dr Maurice O’Connor (Con) Drury (1907-1976), who left Westcott House after a year as an ordinand, was an Irish psychiatrist, is known for his accounts of his conversations and close friendship with the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. He studied philosophy at Trinity College, Cambridge, where his tutors included Wittgenstein. Drury and Wittgenstein remained close friend and Drury was among a group of friends present at Wittgenstein’s deathbed in 1951.

After leaving Westcott House, Con Drury studied medicine in Trinity College Dublin, thanks to financial assistance from Wittgenstein and friends, including the economist John Maynard Keynes. He took part in the Normandy landings, and later was the resident psychiatrist at Saint Patrick’s Hospital, Dublin, and a lecturer in TCD and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

His son, Dr Luke Drury, an astrophysicist, was elected president of the Royal Irish Academy in 2011. Another son, Paul Drury, who died in 2015, edited The Star, Evening Herald, Irish Daily Mail and Ireland on Sunday, and was also deputy editor of the Irish Independent.
Con Drury’s papers are held in the library of Mary Immaculate College, Limerick.

The architects of Westcott House included Temple Lushington Moore, who was born in Tullamore, Co Offaly (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Westcott House is now Grade II listed, and visually it can look like the cloisters of All Saints’ Church, which is adjacent and was designed by George Frederick Bodley (1827-1907).

The main buildings were built in 1899-1929 around an attractive Tudor-style courtyard. The north range was designed in 1899 by the architectural practice of GE Grayson (1834-1912) and Edward Ould (1852-1909), the west range in 1912 by Hartwell Simpson, the east range and south part in 1914 by the Tullamore-born architect Temple Lushington Moore (1856-1920). Temple Moore was also 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 chapel and other buildings at Westcott House were designed in 1923-1929 by the architect Percy Richard Morley Horder (1870-1944), who also worked on Chapel Court in Jesus College and designed the Jesus College boathouse (1932).

Westcott House is in an idyllic college setting in the heart of Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Since the 1985 report Faith in the City, Westcott House has retained a commitment to develop expertise and capacity in the fields of urban ministry and mission.

Through a partnership with the Diocese of Manchester, the college has pioneered patterns of context-based learning and innovative approaches to contextual theology for over twenty years. These approaches have been widely imitated and developed by other theological education institutions. The college has also developed a programme for continuing ministerial development through the Westcott Foundation.

The college provides training pathways in conjunction with the University of Cambridge and the Common Awards, validated by Durham University, as well as opportunities for independent study for undergraduate and postgraduate degrees through the wider Cambridge Theological Federation and Anglia Ruskin University.

Today, Westcott House is a collection of beautiful buildings overlooking the gardens of Old Court, and it offers a peaceful and idyllic college setting in the heart of Cambridge.

The boot scrapers at the main entrance to Westcott House, in the shape of a rabbit and a pig, are heraldic puns on the name of Bertram Cunningham (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

USPG Conference next week explores what it is to follow Christ faithfully in a time of global uncertainty and division

The High Leigh Conference Centre in summer sunshine … the venue for USPG’s conference, ‘For Christ is our Peace’, next week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I am sorry that I am going to miss this year’s USPG Conference, which has the theme ‘For Christ is our Peace’ (Ephesians 2: 14), reflecting on the Church’s calling to be agents of peace in a world marked by conflict.

The conference takes place at the High Leigh Conference, near Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire, from Tuesday to Thursday next week (2-4 June 2026). Through Bible studies, workshops, keynote speakers and shared worship, the conference is looking at peace through the lens of Just Peace – not simply as the absence of conflict, but as God’s healing and reconciling presence.

USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) is one of the oldest mission societies in the Anglican Communion. The USPG conference each year is a way of connecting with others who care deeply about faith, justice, and the Church’s role in the world today. This year’s conference, ‘For Christ is our Peace’ is an opportunity for people who want to explore what it means to follow Christ faithfully in a time of global uncertainty and division.

The fireside chats over three days next week year will also provide perfect spaces to build relationships, share perspectives, and be encouraged by others who are passionate about justice, reconciliation and transformation.

The speakers at the USPG Conference next week include:

• The Most Revd Alba Sally Sue Hernández García, Primate of La Iglesia Anglicana de México (Anglican Church of Mexico) and Bishop of the Diocese of Mexico

• Bishop Lusa Nsenga-Ngoy, Suffragan Bishop of Willesden in the Diocese of London, the Church of England’s lead bishop for interfaith engagement and a prominent advocate for an inclusive, courageous Church

• Dr Jude Lal Fernando, Associate Professor at the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin, and Director of the Trinity Centre for Post-Conflict Justice

‘For Christ is our Peace’ is the theme of the USPG conference in High Leigh next week

As geopolitical tensions, regional conflicts, and deepening social divides shape our world, the conference will reflect on what it means to follow Christ faithfully today.

Through the lens of Just Peace, the conference will examine how Christian discipleship calls us not only to reconciliation but also to challenge and transform unjust systems that create division, deprivation, damage and destruction. It will consider how faith and hope in the risen Christ can reshape our understanding of peace – not as the absence of conflict, but as healing and reconciling presence in the midst of it.

I have attended the USPG annual conference most years, whether in High Leigh or at the Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick, Derbyshire. I was a trustee of USPG for six years, a director of USPG in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, and I include the ideas in USPG’s prayer diary, Pray with the World Churchn, in my prayer diary on this blog most mornings. So it is a personal disappointment not to be at the conference in High Leigh next week.

One of the things delegates often value most about USPG Conference is that it’s not only about what happens during the event itself: it’s about what we carry home afterwards – the questions we keep asking, the learning we keep sharing, the ways we continue to live out our faith with courage and compassion. As one person said after a recent conference: ‘The conversations do not end here – they’re encouraged to continue.’

Bookings for next week’s conference are still possible HERE. Day tickets are also available for the programme on Wednesday (3 June).

The High Leigh Conference Centre at Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire … the venue for the USPG 2026 Conference next week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mowbray Stephen O’Rorke, the bishop with the ‘tallest mitre in Christendom’ and his family roots in Ballinasloe

Bethel Solomons, the prominent Jewish doctor who won ten caps in international rugby for Ireland

A portrait of Dr Bethel Solomons by his sister Estella Solomons (Irish Jewish Museum, ©The Trustees of the Estate of Estella Solomons)

Patrick Comerford

This is another weekend of wall-to-wall, back-to-back rugby in the Six Nations Championship, with Ireland playing Italy tomorrow (2:10 pm) and England playing Scotland (4:40 pm), and then Wales and France on Sunday afternoon (15:10).

Despite a disappointing 36-14 defeat by France in the Stade de France last week, my fervour for Irish rugby is undimmed, and my hopes, however unfounded, remain high this weekend.

Few Jewish players have played at the highest levels in Irish rugby history. Bethel Solomons (1885-1965) is the most prominent Jewish Irish rugby international, capped as a forward for Ireland in the early 20th century, and also a noted doctor. Later, another former Irish rugby international, Tony Ward, discovered his Jewish heritage with dramatic revelations in recent years.

Dr Bethel Solons was the Master of the Rotunda Hospital, an actor at the Abbey Theatre and President of the Dublin Jewish Progressive Congregation. In addition, he was an international rugby player.

Bethel Albert Herbert Solomons was born on 27 February 1885 into a prominent Jewish family who are one of the oldest continuous Jewish families in Ireland. The Solomons family came to Ireland from England in 1824, when Elias Solomons opened his optician’s shop in Nassau Street, close to Trinity College Dublin. His son, Maurice Solomons (1832-1922), continued the optician’s practice at 19 Nassau Street, on the corner with South Frederick Street. He is mentioned by James Joyce in Ulysses, and was also a JP and the honorary consul in Ireland of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

James Joyce in street art in Nassau Street … Maurice Solomons (is mentioned by James Joyce in ‘Ulysses’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Bethel’s elder brother Edwin Solomons (1879-1964) was a stockbroker and prominent member of the Dublin Jewish community. Their sister Estella Solomons (1882-1968) was a leading artist; she married the poet and publisher James Sullivan Starkey (1879-1958), a Methodist, who wrote under the penname Seumas O’Sullivan. Their younger sister Sophie trained as an opera singer.

Bethel Solomons went to Saint Andrew’s School, Dublin, and studied medicine in Trinity College Dublin, where he enjoyed the social life, theatre and rugby. He captained Trinity to the Leinster Senior Cup (1908), also played for Wanderers, and played on the Hospitals’ Cup winning team in the 1903-1904 and 1904-1905 seasons. He became the first Jew to play Test rugby when, on 8 February 1908, he lined up as Ireland’s number 8 in a 13-3 defeat by England at the Richmond Athletic Ground. In all, he won ten caps for Ireland (1908-1910).

In The Oval World: A Global History of Rugby' by Tony Collins, an account is given of Solomons taking a taxi to ensure he would be in time to run on to the pitch for a rugby international: ‘Fearing he would be late for Ireland’s 1909 home match against England, he hailed a cab in the centre of Dublin. He told the cabbie he wanted to go to Lansdowne Road. “It’s for the Ireland rugby international” explained Solomons. “Ireland?” snorted the driver dismissively “it’s nothing but fourteen Prods and a Jew”.’

Ireland were defeated 11-5 by England that day, 13 February 1909.

The stadium at Lansdowne Road, the home ground of Ireland and of Wanderers … Bethel Solomons was capped ten times for Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

He acted at the Abbey Theatre, under the stage name Thomas Thornhill, in 1913 in August Strindberg’s There are Crimes and Crimes, and James Stephens dedicated The Charwoman’s Daughter to him.

Although his rugby and theatrical ambitions were limited by the demands and successful medical career, he went on to become a selector for the Irish team and was vice-president of the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) in later years.

After his experience as an extern maternity assistant at the Rotunda Hospital, attending home births in the Dublin slums, he became devoted to obstetrics and gynaecology, also studied in Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden and Munich, and started to teach medical students.

Bethel Solomons was a supporter of the suffrage movement and an advocate of women’s equality. He opened the Jewish Medical Dispensary in Stamer Street in Dublin’s ‘Little Jerusalem’ in 1913 and ran it with Ada Shillman, a midwife who attended most of the Jewish women in Dublin during her career.

He married Gertrude Levy in 1916 at the Liberal Synagogue in London in a wedding conducted by Claude Montefiore. Gertrude was a friend of his sister Sophie since they were students at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Gertrude and Bethel lived in 42 Fitzwilliam Square, where he ran a successful practice (1916-1926). His patients included George Yeats and Iseult Gonne, and they later rented the upstairs of 42 Fitzwilliam Square to WB Yeats and his wife George. He later practiced from 30 Lower Baggot Street.

Bethel Solomons was the Master of the Rotunda Hospital from 1926 to 1933, and as Master he is mentioned by James Joyce in Finnegans Wake: ‘in my bethel of Solyman’s I accouched my rotundaties.’

He inherited considerable financial challenges at a hospital that needed to modernise and to maintain its reputation as one of the world’s leading maternity hospitals. His improvements included a new nurses’ home, new out-patient department, theatre block and sick babies ward, the introduction of X-ray facilities and incubators and a revival of the pathology laboratory.

As World War II approached, Solomons took an increased role in Jewish affairs. He wrote to the British Medical Journal in 1937 warning against the choice of Berlin as the location for an international medical academy of postgraduate work and research to ‘further international fellowship and friendship’.

The Dublin Jewish Progressive Congregation on Leicester Avenue, Rathgar (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

From 1939, he worked to raise funds for the Jewish Refugee Aid Committee, which was chaired by Leonard Abrahamson and had among its vice-chairs, his brother Edwin, who was the President of the Dublin Hebrew Congregation at Adelaide Road Synagogue. At the end of the war, he became chair of the Jewish Children’s Refugee fund, raising funds to bring refugee children to Clonyn Castle, Co Westmeath or to Millisle Farm in Northern Ireland.

Solomons chaired a meeting in the Mansion House in Dublin in 1946 addressed by Rabbi Israel Mattuck of the Liberal Synagogue in London. The meeting led to the formation of the Dublin Jewish Progressive Congregation (DJPC), with Bethel Solomons as president from 1946 to 1965. The former Chief Rabbi of Ireland, Yitzhak Herzog (1888-1959), by then the Chief Rabbi of the Holy Land, denounced the new synagogue as an ‘open, active, organised rebellion against the Torah’, but Bethel Solomons refuted this in the Jewish Chronicle in 1946.

Solomons received many international honours and was President of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland in 1946-1949. He died on 11 September 1965 at his home, Laughton Beg, Rochestown Avenue, Dún Laoghaire. Bethel and Gertrude Solomons were the parents of three children. Their second son, Dr Michael Solomons (1919-2007) was a distinguished gynaecologist, a pioneer of family planning in Ireland, and a veteran of the bitter and divisive 1983 constitutional amendment referendum campaign.

Another Irish rugby international, Tony Ward, found out late in life that his father, Danny Ward, was from a Jewish family that fled Poland to escape Nazi persecution. In a peculiar accident or coincidence in history, his paternal ancestors too had Solomons as their original family name.

Tony Ward was only five years old when his father died, leaving him with ‘precious few early memories of him’ so that he ‘knew very little about him or his family.’ It was only in later life he discovered his father’s story as a Jewish refugee from Poland later, partly through research initiated by his daughters, Nikki and Lynn, as a Christmas present. Through a professional genealogical agency, Ancestry Made Easy, they came across findings he had never known for the best part of six decades.

His father, known as Danny Ward, was born Saul Solomons on 16 August 1909. The Solomons family were victims of their time, and following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, they fled the persecution of Jews in Russia, Poland and Finland.

Harris Solomons and Jane Cohen were the parents of Saul (Danny). Harris was a tailor and he and Jane lived at Great Garden Street, Whitechapel, in the East End of London. Saul Solomons, or Danny Ward, had three siblings: Sadie, Sydney and another sister, Sarah, who died soon after birth. The three surviving children were all born in London, but the census return listed them as Russians.

Saul Solomons and Lily Gross were married in Philpot Street Synagogue in the East End in 1934. They both worked in London as hairdressers and their son Derek, who was born in 1935, is Tony Ward’s half-brother.

That first marriage was later dissolved, and Saul Solomons then moved to Ireland and settled in Dublin in the late 1940s. He met June Connolly, a Catholic, around 1952 and there was an 18-year age gap between them. Gor them to marry, he reportedly had to give up his Jewish religion. By late November 1953, he had changed his name from Saul Solomons to Daniel Ward, had become a Catholic, and they married in Cardiff Registry Office.

The couple lived for a time in Leeds, where Tony Ward was born. Danny Ward had a heart attack and died in Leeds General Infirmary on Saint Patrick’s Day, 17 March 1960. Tony was only five, and June returned to Dublin almost immediately. Yet, having spent part of his childhood in Leeds, Tony Ward is still a committed Leeds United supporter.

There are other Jewish sports figures who have played cricket and football for Ireland, including Louis ‘Abraham’ Bookman and Finn Isaac Azaz. But more about them, perhaps, on another and appropriate Friday evening.

Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום‎

Dr Bethel Solons was the Master of the Rotunda Hospital, an actor at the Abbey Theatre, President of the Dublin Jewish Progressive Congregation, and was capped then times for Ireland in international rugby

A memorial in Maids Moreton and an Irish-born rector’s strong family links with Co Limerick

The memorial to the Revd Bolton Waller Johnstone in Maids Moreton, decorated with an elaborate Celtic cross (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I was in Maids Moreton, on the edges of Buckingham, twice in the past ten days, looking at the Old Rectory designed by the architect Edward Swinfen Harris (1841-1924) from Stony Stratford, visiting Saint Edmund’s Church, enjoying the timber-framed houses and thatched cottages, and researching the stories and legends of the ‘Maids of Moreton’, the sisters said in local lore to have given Maids Moreton its name.

In Saint Edmund’s Church in Maids Moreton, I noticed a brass tablet on the south wall with a very elaborate and decorated Celtic cross and the inscription below: ‘To the Glory of God and in loving memory of Bolton Waller Johnstone, MA, Rector of this Parish for 26 years who died Nov 8th 1903 Also of Charlotte Lydia his wife who died April 6th 1892. This Tablet is erected by their children RIP’.

At the time Swinfen Harris was working on the Old Rectory and the Victorian monument commemorating the ‘Maids of Moreton’ was being placed in the nave floor, the Revd Bolton Waller Johnstone (1823-1903) was the Rector of Maids Moreton.

He was an Irish-born priest, and I was interested in his connections with my former diocese and parishes: his parents, the Revd John Beresford Johnstone and Elizabeth Waller of Castletown Park, Co Limerick, were married in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, where I was once the canon precentor.

His mother was a member of the Waller family whose monuments and memorials line the walls of Castletown Church, Kilcornan, where I was the priest-in-charge for five years. His siblings were born in Co Limerick and were baptised in Saint Michael’s Church, Limerick, while he was born in Kilkenny and educated at Trinity College Dublin.

The monument to Bolton Waller Johnstone is between the windows on the south wall of Saint Edmund’s Church, Maids Moreton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Revd Bolton Waller Johnstone, who died at the Rectory in Maids Moreton on 8 November 1892 at the age of 80, was the second son of the Revd John Beresford Johnstone, a former Rector of Tullow, Co Carlow, and Elizabeth Waller, a daughter of Thomas Waller of Castletown Park, Co Limerick. Bolton Waller Johnstone was named after his grandfather, Bolton Waller (1769-1854) of Castletown and Shannon Grove, an MP, High Sheriff, who owned large estates in the Castletown and Kilcornan areas near Pallaskenry, Co Limerick. The Waller family eventually sold off the Castletown estates in 1936.

Bolton Waller Johnstone was born in Kilkenny in 1823 and was named after his maternal grandfather, Bolton Waller (1769-1854) of Castletown. He was educated at Sherborne School and Trinity College Dublin. He was ordained deacon by the Archbishop of York in 1846 and priest by the Bishop of Durham in 1847. He was a curate in many parishes before becoming the perpetual curate (vicar) of Smithill (1850), curate of Holy Trinity, Marylebone (1851), and the Vicar of Farndon near Chester (1854). A year later, in 1855, Johnstone married Charlotte Lydia Coker (1823-1892), the eldest daughter of Captain Thomas Lewis Coker of Bicester House, Oxfordshire.

Johnstone became the Rector of Maids Moreton in 1877, and he remained there until he died 26 years later in 1903. During his time in Maids Moreton, Saint Edmund’s Church underwent a complete restoration, he installed the East Window and also oversaw the building of a new rectory, designed by Edward Swinfen Harris, and the expansion of the village school.

Bolton and Charlotte Johnstone were the parents of one son, the Revd Edward Aubrey Johnstone (1857-1928) and four daughters. During his final illness, his son, Revd Edward Aubrey Johnstone, carried out his duties, in the parish.

Two of his Irish-born sisters, Elizabeth Johnstone (1819-1895) and Sidney Janes Johnston (1820-1900), also came to live in the Rectory in Maids Moreton, and they too are buried there in the churchyard.

The monument to Bolton Waller (1769-1854), grandfather of Bolton Waller Johnstone, in Castletown Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Bolton Johnstone’s father, the Revd John Beresford Johnstone (1793-1860), was the Rector of Tullow, Co Carlow, and married Elizabeth Waller in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, on 12 June 1806; he died in Dublin on 17 June 1860. She was a daughter of Bolton Waller (1769-1854) of Castletown and Shannon Grove, Co Limerick.

The Waller family of Castletown was descended from the regicide, Sir Hardress Waller (1604-1666), who was MP for Askeaton in 1634 and 1640 and one of the judges who passed the sentence of death on King Charles I in 1649. At the restoration of Charles II in 1660, all his friends deserted him, and he fled to France. When he returned to England, he pleaded guilty to regicide. His death sentence was reduced to exile, and he died in Jersey in 1666.

John Thomas Waller, MP for Limerick and High Sheriff, and his wife Elizabeth Maunsell were the parents of John Waller (1763-1836) of Castletown Manor and estate, who initiated the building of Castletown Church.

John Waller was succeeded by his brother, Bolton Waller, High Sheriff of Limerick, whose large estates in Co Limerick included lands in the parishes of Ardcanny and Kilcornan.

The monument to the Revd William Waller (1794-1863) in Castletown Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Bolton Waller’s son, the Revd William Waller (1794-1863), who was Elizabeth’s brother and Bolton Johnstone’s uncle, was the Rector of Kilcornan from 1842. He married Maria O’Grady, and inherited Castletown from his father in 1854, so that he was both lord of the manor and rector of the parish. He increased the Waller estates by buying up the neighbouring Bury estate.

William Waller’s son, the Revd John Thomas Waller (1827-1911), who was Bolton Johnstone’s first cousin, was also the Rector of Kilcornan, and was appointed to the parish by his father and predecessor.

John Waller was the secretary of the Irish Church Missions, and in that role he was an ardent and zealous evangelical who did much damage to community relations in West Limerick. He used vile language in his tirades, thrived on creating sectarian tensions and stirred up a riot in Pallaskenry in 1861. His land ownings extended to over 6,600 acres.

The monument to the Revd John Thomas Waller in Castletown Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John Waller’s three sons were also clergymen. The Very Revd Edward Hardress Waller (1859-1938), who was born in Castletown, was the Rector of Athy, Co Kildare (1891-1913), a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (1908-1913), before becoming the Dean of Kildare (1913-1928). During the Irish Civil War, when Erskine Childers was about to face the firing squad in Beggar’s Bush Barracks on 24 November 1922, he asked for Dean Waller to be present and to pray with him. He died in Delgany, Co Wicklow, in 1938.

Another son, the Revd John Thomas Waller, was the Rector of Saint Lawrence and Trinity Church, Limerick.

A third son, the Revd Bolton Waller, who was also born at Castletown Manor, was the Rector of Saint Munchin’s in Limerick (1892-1895), and died in Switzerland in 1897. His son, the Revd Bolton Charles Waller (1890-1936), was one of the early forerunners of the modern international peace movement.

Bolton Charles Waller was born in Cork and spent much of his childhood and teenage years on Meath Road and then Carlton Terrace in Bray, Co Wicklow. While he was a student at TCD, Bolton Waller wrote a prizewinning essay, ‘Paths to Peace.’ In the immediate aftermath of World War I, an American had created a prize fund for essays on better ways than war to deal with international conflict. The prize fund totalled £3,000, with a first prize of £1,000 and another £2,000 shared among the writers of rest of the ten best essays.

Bolton Waller’s essay, ‘Paths to Peace’ not only won first prize in the competition, but was also adopted by the League of Nations and subsequently by the United Nations.

Waller was an early advocate of the Irish Free State being admitted to the League of Nations, and was the secretary of the League of Nations Society Ireland. He went on to publish four titles on world peace: Towards the Brotherhood of Nations (1921), Ireland and the League of Nations (1925), Paths to World Peace (1926), and Hibernia, or the Future of Ireland (1928), as well as a 20-page pamphlet on Saint Patrick to mark the Patrician anniversary, Patrick – the Man (Dublin: APCK, 1932).

Bolton Waller was ordained deacon in 1931 and priest in 1932. He was the curate of Holy Trinity, Rathmines (1931-1936), Dublin, and then Rector of Saint John’s Parish, Clondalkin, Co Dublin (1936). But within six months of his appointment to Clondalkin he died in Kilpeacon, Co Limerick, in July 1936 at rhe age of 46. He is buried in Saint John’s Churchyard, Clondalkin.

A year earlier, his first cousin, John Thomas (‘Jack’) Waller (1889-1965), had demolished Castletown Manor, and in 1936 he sold the Castletown estate on behalf of his dying father, William Waller (1857-1937).

There are still traces of Castletown Manor and the Castletown estates in Kilcornan Parish, and memorials to members of the Waller family line the walls of Castletown Church. There is still a need for priests like Bolton Charles Waller who have a vision of finding alternatives to international conflict and a vision of working for world peace.

The walls of Castletown Church, Co Limerick, are lined with memorials to the Waller family (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Searching for the Old Rectory by Swinfen Harris among the old thatched houses in Maids Moreton

The Old Rectory in Maids Moreton, on the edges of Buckingham, was rebuilt by Edward Swinfen Harris in 1878-1879 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

As I continue my ‘field trips’ in search of buildings in this area designed by the Stony Stratford architect Edward Swinfen Harris (1841-1924), I visited the small village of Maids Moreton earlier this week.

In recent weeks, these ‘field trips’ have taken me to Roade in Northamptonshire, where Swinfen Harris designed Tylecote House (1894) for a local GP, Dr O’Ryan; Addington, outside Winslow, where he designed the Old School House (1876); and Buckingham, where the U3A (University of the Third Age) Architecture Group invited me to speak in Buckingham Library about his life and work (11 September 2025).

In Maids Moreton, the Uthwatt family commissioned Swinfen Harris to rebuild the Old Rectory (1878-1879) beside Saint Edmund’s Church, the oldest building in the village.

Corner Cottage on Duck Lane … the right-hand half is timber-framed with whitewashed plaster and brick infill and a whitewashed stone plinth, the left-hand half is of brick with rubble stone (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Maids Moreton is about a mile (1.6 km) north-east of Buckingham, on top of a plateau overlooking Buckingham, at the north end of the Vale of Aylesbury. The historic core of the village is concentrated along three principal streets: Duck Lake and Towcester Road to the north-west, Church Street to the south-east and Main Street, which runs between these two from north-west to south-east, and around Saint Edmund’s Church on Church Street, a short distance south-west of Main Street.

Modern development has made a significant impact on the setting of the village, with the growth of modern housing estates such as Manor Park, Hall Close, Church Close and Glebe Close along Main Street and Church Street. Yet, despite the expansion of Buckingham reaching the edges of the village, Maids Moreton retains its independence and a strong, separate identity.

As I strolled around Maids Moreton, I found a high concentrations of old historic buildings at the north-west and south-east ends of Main Street, with clusters of old buildings also along Duck Lake, around the junction of Duck Lake, Towcester Road and Main Street and close to Saint Edmund’s Church at the south-east end of the village.

Maids Moreton has many 17th century houses and cottages with timber frames, brick or plaster filling and thatched roofs. The Old Rectory and Maids Moreton Hall close to the church are two large 19th century buildings that are widely spaced set within substantial grounds, dating from an important period of change in the village.

The Wheatsheaf, a 17th century timber-frame public house on Main Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Archaeological evidence suggests the area around Maids Moreton was settled from at least the Iron Age. Maids Moreton itself probably began as an Anglo-Saxon settlement on the south slopes of the valley of the River Great Ouse, where the land was rich and fertile and the river provided good access to water and to transport.

The historic core of the village is found around Saint Edmund’s Church, probably the oldest part of the village and dating from the Anglo-Saxon period. The village may have assumed its current form through the coalescence of farmsteads and manors over the course of time and the gradual development of buildings along the tracks and roads interconnecting them.

At the Domesday survey in 1086, Maids Moreton is listed as ‘Mortone’. The name may mean the ‘farm on the mor or swampy ground.’ The origins of the prefix Maids is said to date back to the 15th century, and local lore says two maiden sisters of the Pever, Poevre, Poever or Peyvre family who are said to have rebuilt Saint Edmund’s Church.

The sisters are said to have been conjoined twins and that when one sister died, the other died also. Whether they are legendary or historical, the sisters are recalled in the name of Maids Morton, in a poem by the Revd J Tarver of Filgrave, and in a wall painted epitaph above the north door and brasses in Saint Edmund’s Church. But more about them in a posting next Tuesday (11 November 2025).

Holly Tree Cottage on Main Street, once the old off-licence, dates from the 17th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

There were several early manors within Maids Moreton. After the Norman Conquest, a manor at the south end of the village remained in the possession of an Englishman named Leofwin of Nuneham Courtney.

Maids Moreton became part of a royal hunting forest of Whittlewood, but was it was disafforested sometime before 1286. The earlier manor had fallen into disrepair by the 1290s and a new house was built in the 1300s, possibly on the site now occupied by Maids Moreton Hall. The manor became known as Greenham’s Manor, after the family that held it during the reign of Henry IV. It was held by the Crown for a time before it was granted to All Souls College, Oxford, in 1442. The home farm of this manor is confusingly called the Old Manor, and was once known as the Manor Farmhouse.

A manor along Main Street on the site of the Manor Park estate passed from the Clare family and the Stafford family who were Dukes of Buckingham to Christ Church College, Oxford. The Scott family farmed it for several generations.

Woodbine Cottage on Main Street, a 17th century house with a timber frame, whitewashed brick infill, a half-hipped thatch roof and an off-centre brick stack (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The earliest domestic buildings date from the 16th and 17th centuries. However, earlier fabric is often hidden behind later facades as for example at Yew Trees where a cruck-built core probably dating from the 15th or 16th century was recently found within a building that had previously been dated to the 17th century.

Timber was the main material used in the construction of buildings in Maids Moreton up to the18th century. Although there are examples where timber framing is hidden beneath render or later re-fronting of buildings, in the majority of cases the timber frame is visible.

The majority of surviving timber-dframe buildings were built in a simple box frame although there is also an example of a surviving cruck frame at Yewtrees on Duck Lake, although the cruck frame at Yewtrees is disguised beneath render and hidden from external view. The majority of the panels between the timber elements have been infilled with brick. Brick became a relatively common building material in Maids Morerton from the late 18th and 19th centuries. It was used in older timber framed buildings as an infill for the panels between the timber elements and was also used to refront or extend earlier buildings.

Maids Moreton Hall, built by the Burrows family in the 19th century, is now a care home (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Because Maids Moreton was so close to Buckingham, it became an attractive place to live in from the mid-19th century. A number of larger properties were built for more affluent families, including the Elms, now the Red House, on Main Street and Maids Moreton House, now Vitalograph.

Maids Moreton Hall was built by the Burrows family in the 19th century on the site of former manor. It is a large brick building with stone dressing, a complex roof form and prominent decorative chimneys. There are mullion and transom windows and some dormers.

The house became the centre of Buckinghamshire lace industry in the late 19th century under Miss MEB Burrows.

The Uthwatt family commissioned Edward Swinfen Harris to redesign and rebuild the Old Rectory in 1878-1879 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Uthwatt family became prominent in the village in the 19th century. They commissioned Edward Swinfen Harris, who lived and worked in Stony Stratford, to redesign and rebuild the Old Rectory. At the time the Rector of Maids Moreton was the Revd Bolton Waller Johnstone (1823-1903). His parents, the Revd John Beresford Johnstone and Elizabeth Waller of Castletown Park, Co Limerick, were married in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, and he was born in Kilkenny and educated at Trinity College Dublin.

The 2½-storey Old Rectory is built in brick, with a steeply-pitched tiled roof, a prominent chimney, and irregular fenestration with stone dressings. A stringcourse runs between the ground and first floor and on the gable end between each storey. On the gable, the stringcourse forms an arch above each window opening at the first floor level and a staggered effect below the window between the ground and first floor. This decorative effect enlivens the elevations and creates interest in the form of shadows and texture.

Due to its scale and its location close to the church, the Old Rectory is a visually prominent building that makes a strong architectural statement and a positive contribution to the character and appearance of the village.

Swinfen Harris also designed the Uthwatt’s new house, named Southfields, and he may also have designed Foscote Lodge and Foscote Rectory nearby.

The Old Rectory is a visually prominent building in Maids Moreton that makes a strong architectural statement and a positive contribution to the character and appearance of the village (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The expansion of Maids Moreton in the 20th century began when the sale of the Uthwatt’s family manor in 1928 released land for development in the village.

Maids Moreton Hall was a private residence until the time of World War II, when it became the Buckinghamshire county branch of the National Heart Hospital. Extensions were added in the 1960s, and it has been in use as an old persons home to the present day.

The village experienced a major period of growth in the 1960s when Manor Park and the new school were built. The old post office, at the junction of Main Street with the A413, closed in the mid-1990s and is now a private house.

Maids Moreton received unwanted attention in 2019 when Ben Field was jailed for the murder of a local resident Peter Farquhar in 2015. The case was the centre of the 2023 BBC drama The Sixth Commandment.

Despite its close proximity to Buckingham, Maids Moreton was once a self-sufficient community with a church, school, public houses, bakery, forge, cobblers, post office and other commercial buildings located along Main Street. Today, there are no shops surviving in the village.

The current resident population is 1,080, according to estimates, compared with 425 in 1901 and 239 in 1801. The majority of working age residents now commute from Maids Moreton to work in Buckingham, Milton Keynes, Aylesbury or even as far away as London. Today, Maids Moreton is facing how to deal with two greenfield planning applications to build 163 and 15 houses that would increasing the size of the village size by 50%.

But more about Saint Edmund’s Church tomorrow (9 November 2025), hopefully, and about the Maids of Maids Moreton in the days to come (11 November 2025).

The Whitney Box and Whitney Box Cottage, a pair of 17th century cottages on Church Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 126, Saturday 13 September 2025

‘No good tree bears bad fruit … Figs are not gathered from thorns’ (Luke 6: 43-44) … a fig tree near Pavlos Beach in Platanias, east of Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and tomorrow is Holy Cross Day and the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIII, 14 September 2025). The Church Calendar today remembers Saint John Chrysostom (407), Bishop of Constantinople, Teacher of the Faith.

Later today, I hope to be part of ‘Be a Chorister for the Afternoon’, from 1:30 to 6 pm in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, for singers who would like to sing for Evensong with the Willis Pipe Organ, conducted by Marcela Campaña with Jacob Collins playing the organ. The music chosen by Jacob Collin includes introits, psalms, canticles, preces and responses, hymns and an anthem, and ends with the particpants singing Choral Evensong at 5 pm. This free event is part of Heritage Open Days.

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

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘Each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs are not gathered from thorns’ (Luke 6: 44) … figs on a fig tree near Pavlos Beach in Platanias, east of Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Luke 6: 43-49 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 43 ‘No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; 44 for each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. 45 The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.

46 ‘Why do you call me “Lord, Lord”, and do not do what I tell you? 47 I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them. 48 That one is like a man building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when a flood arose, the river burst against that house but could not shake it, because it had been well built. 49 But the one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, immediately it fell, and great was the ruin of that house.’

‘Nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush’ (Luke 6: 44) … grapes on a vine at the Hedgehog Vintage Inn in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s Reflection:

This morning’s Gospel reading (Luke 6: 43-49) is a reminder that our faith must always be reflected in your lifestyles, that there must be a connection between what we believe and what we do, that our faith must bear fruit, that if our faith does not have firm foundations it will disappear with the next challenges we face.

Today’s reading should prompt me to reflect on my own actions with the sort of introspection I find in the prayers of Saint John Chrysostom, who is remembered in the Church Calendar today (13 September):

1. O Lord, deprive me not of your heavenly blessings.
2. O Lord, deliver me from eternal torment.
3. O Lord, if I have sinned in my mind or thought, in word or deed, forgive me.
4. O Lord, deliver me from every ignorance and heedlessness, from pettiness of the soul and stony hardness of heart.
5. O Lord, deliver me from every temptation.
6. O Lord, enlighten my heart darkened by evil desires.
7. O Lord, I, being a human being, have sinned; I ask you, being God, to forgive me in your loving kindness, for you know the weakness of my soul.
8. O Lord, send down your grace to help me, that I may glorify your holy Name.
9. O Lord Jesus Christ, inscribe me, your servant, in the Book of Life, and grant me a blessed end.
10. O Lord my God, even if I have done nothing good in your sight, yet grant me, according to your grace, that I may make a start in doing good.
11. O Lord, sprinkle on my heart the dew of your grace.
12. O Lord of heaven and earth, remember me, your sinful servant, cold of heart and impure, in your Kingdom.
13. O Lord, receive me in repentance.
14. O Lord, leave me not.
15. O Lord, save me from temptation.
16. O Lord, grant me pure thoughts.
17. O Lord, grant me tears of repentance, remembrance of death, and the sense of peace.
18. O Lord, grant me mindfulness to confess my sins.
19. O Lord, grant me humility, charity, and obedience.
20. O Lord, grant me tolerance, magnanimity, and gentleness.
21. O Lord, implant in me the root of all blessings: the fear of you in my heart.
22. O Lord, grant that I may love you with all my heart and soul, and that in all things I may obey your will.
23. O Lord, shield me from evil persons and devils and passions and all other lawless matters.
24. O Lord, who knows your creation and what you have willed for it; may your will also be fulfilled in me, a sinner, for you art blessed for evermore. Amen.

These are prayers that I handed out each year to students taking the elective on Patristics I offered on the MTh course in the Church of Ireland Theological Institute and Trinity College Dublin.

The rediscovery of Patristic texts and writings in the 15th and 16th centuries, following the exodus of Greek scholars with the fall of Byzantium is a major factor in understanding the Reformations, in particular the Anglican Reformation. Thomas Cranmer introduced the ‘Prayer of Saint Chrysostom’ to Anglicanism:

‘Almighty God, you have given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplication to you; and you have promised through your well-beloved Son that when two or three are gathered together in his Name you will be in the midst of them: Fulfil now, O Lord, our desires and petitions as may be best for us; granting us in this world knowledge of your truth, and in the age to come life everlasting. Amen.’

‘A man building a house … dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock’ (Luke 6: 48) … the Monastery of Great Meteoron, the largest of the monasteries at Meteora in Greece (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 13 September 2025):

The theme this week (7 to 13 September) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been ‘Cementing a Legacy’ (pp 36-37). This theme was introduced last Sunday with reflections from Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 13 September 2025) invites us to pray:

Lord, we pray for future residents of the housing complex at Mji Mwema. May it be a place of safety, community, and growth.

The Collect:

God of truth and love,
who gave to your servant John Chrysostom
eloquence to declare your righteousness in the great congregation
and courage to bear reproach for the honour of your name:
mercifully grant to those who minister your word
such excellence in preaching,
that all people may share with them
in the glory that shall be revealed;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

God of truth,
whose Wisdom set her table
and invited us to eat the bread and drink the wine
of the kingdom:
help us to lay aside all foolishness
and to live and walk in the way of insight, that we may come with John Chrysostom to the eternal feast of heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of Holy Cross Day:

Almighty God,
who in the passion of your blessed Son
made an instrument of painful death
to be for us the means of life and peace:
grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ
that we may gladly suffer for his sake;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Collect on the Eve of Trinity XIII:

Almighty God,
who called your Church to bear witness
that you were in Christ reconciling the world to yourself:
help us to proclaim the good news of your love,
that all who hear it may be drawn to you;
through him who was lifted up on the cross,
and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

Saint John Chrysostom is commemorated on 13 September … the Monastery of Vatopedi on Mount Athos has the skull of Saint John Chrysostom (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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