No passport to Pimlico is needed for an afternoon visit to the streets and squares of Thomas Cubitt

‘Passport to Pimlico’ … a scene in the Ealing comedy includes stopping an Underground train and demanding passports (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

The Ealing comedies, produced between 1947 and 1957, were known for their gentle irony, eccentric characters, and sharp social satire, often pitting the ordinary, well-meaning underdog against pompous authority or rigid social systems.

Three of those classics from Ealing Studios were produced in 1949 alone: Kind Hearts and Coronets, a dark comedy in which a disinherited man tries to murder eight relatives to claim a title, with Alec Guinness playing all the family victims; Passport to Pimlico, where a London neighbourhood discovers it is legally a part of Burgundy in France, leading to absurd stand-offs with bureaucracy and officialdom; and Whisky Galore!, when remote Scottish islanders scramble to salvage 50,000 cases of whisky from a shipwreck during a wartime drought.

Other well-remembered films in the series include The Lavender Hill Mob (1951); The Man in the White Suit (1951) and The Ladykillers (1955).

Present-day Pimlico was first laid out over 200 years ago in 1825 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The story of Passport to Pimlico involves the discovery of lost treasure and legal documents that lead to a small part of Pimlico being declared a legal part of the Duchy of Burgundy, exempting the area from the post-war rationing and other bureaucratic restrictions. The film evokes nostalgia for the spirit and unity in London during the Blitz after the war and looks at what is regarded as English resilience, and celebrates working class heroes in a quintessentially middle class area.

When an unexploded bomb detonates in Miramont Gardens in Pimlico, the explosion reveals a long-buried cellar filled with artwork, coins, jewellery and an ancient charter from Edward IV that cedes a house and its estates to the last Duke of Burgundy after the Battle of Nancy in 1477 As the charter had never been revoked, an area of Pimlico is declared a left-over legal part of Burgundy.

When rationing and other post-war restrictions is abolished in Pimlico, the enclave is flooded with black marketeers and shoppers. In responses and recriminations, area is surrounded with barbed wire, the residents stop an Underground train as it passes through Burgundy demanding to see passports, and all water and food are cut off at the new border. After tense diplomatic negotiations, Burgundy is reunited with Britain – and ration books return, along with British weather as a summer heatwave turns to a torrential downpour.

‘Rus in Urbe’ … the squares of Pimlico still have private gardens for the sole use of residents (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

I spent the afternoon in Pimlico yesterday, wandering around its elegant Georgian terraces and squares, enjoying its architectural legacy and visiting is churches. To my disappointment, but not to my surprise, there is no Miramont Gardens in Pimlico. But no one asked to see my passport, and in the street cafés and the spillover onto the streets from the bars and restaurant it can be seen there is not even a hint of the memory of post-war rations and restrictions.

Pimlico in central London is part of the City of Westminster, between Victoria Station and the River Thames. It was built as a southern extension to neighbouring Belgravia, and has more than 350 Grade II–listed buildings and many Grade II* listed churches.

The grid of residential streets at the heart of Pimlico was laid out by the planner Thomas Cubitt, beginning over 200 years ago in 1825. It includes three garden squares, Saint George’s Square, Warwick Square and Eccleston Square, and the wider avenues of Belgrave Road and Saint George’s Drive.

Pimlico also includes Dolphin Square, built in 1935-1937, and Churchill Gardens and Lillington and Longmoore Gardens, built after the war. Churchill Gardens, developed in 1946-1962, replaced several terraces designed by Cubitt terraces and damaged in the Blitz.

The name Pimlico may sound Spanish or Italian, but the originsof the name remain shrouded in legend and local lore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The name Pimlico sounds Spanish or Italian, but various legends ascribe it to either Ben Pimlico, a publican in Hoxton, or from trade on the river with American Indians.

Pimlico dates back to the royal Manor of Ebury, which was sold off by James I In 1623. It was inherited by Mary Davies, a young heiress in 1666, whose dowry included what are present-day Pimlico and Belgravia, and much of Mayfair and Knightsbridge. At the age of 12, she married Sir Thomas Grosvenor of Eaton Hall, Cheshire, in 1677. Their descendants in the Grosvenor family became Marquesses and later Dukes of Westminster.

Thomas Cubitt was contracted by Lord Grosvenor to develop the once marshy lands of Pimlico in 1825. Cubitt developed Pimlico as a grid of attractive white stucco terraces along Saint George’s Drive, Belgrave Road and Lupus Street, and on Eccleston Square, Warwick Square and Saint George’s Square. Smaller, three-storey houses were built on the side streets.

Several Peabody estates were designed to provide affordable, quality working class housing in the late 19th century, and when the Revd Gerald Olivier, father of Laurence Olivier, moved from Notting Hill to Pimlico as the curate of Saint Saviour’s in 1912, he came as a ‘slum priest’ for west London.

Pimlico is close to the Houses of Parliament and so it became a lively area for political life in the early 20th century. The Labour Party and the Trades Union Congress once shared offices at 33 Eccleston Square. Sir Winston Churchill lived at 33 Eccleston Square and Morpeth Terrace for a time. The fascist leader Oswald Mosley lived at Dolphin Square, until his arrest in 1940, and it was the headquarters of Charles De Gaulle and the Free French for much of World War II.

The statue of Thomas Cubitt by William Fawke (1948-2018) at the corner of Denbigh Street and Saint George’s Drive (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

After World War II, many of the larger Victorian houses were converted into small hotels. The Duke of Westminster sold off much of the Grosvenor estate, including Pimlico, in 1953. Pimlico was designated a conservation area in 1968 and successive waves of development since then have given Pimlico an interesting social mix.

The Anglican churches in Pimlico included Saint Gabriel’s, Saint Saviour’s and Saint James the Less, and Saint Peter’s, Eaton Square, Belgravia, was known as Saint Peter’s, Pimlico, until the 1870s. I visited Saint Gabriel’s, Saint Saviour’s and Saint Peter’s during my stroll around Pimlico yesterday, but more about them in the days to come, hopefully.

Artistic, literary and other notable figures who have lived in Pimlico include the illustrator Aubrey Beardsley, the writers Joseph Conrad, Bram Stoker and Barbara Pym, Jomo Kenyatta, first president of Kenya, the Hindu philosopher Swami Vivekananda, Walter Clopton Wingfield, the father figure in lawn tennis, the designer Laura Ashley, and the dancer Isadora Duncan.

‘Passport to Pimlico’ celebrates working class heroes and resilience in a quintessentially middle class area (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Surprisingly, the outdoor scenes in the Ealing comedy Passport To Pimlico were shot not in Pimlico but about a mile away in Lambeth. The scene of food airlifts into the enclave of Burgundy may have been inspired by the flights during the Berlin Blockade in 1948-1949.

For many, the film continues to celebrate English values of individualism, tolerance and compromise. But even today it points to the absurdity of passport border checks between Britain and France.

It is a reminder that England has always shared a common cultural legacy and identity with the rest of Europe, and a reminder too of the absurdity of trying to live in insular isolation in a post-war Europe that sought to bring us closer to one another as a way of countering war and the potential rise again of authoritarianism.

Past residents of Pimlico have included Sir Winston Churchill (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Comerford Road is typical of the Victorian and Edwardian terraces and streets throughout Brockley

Comerford Road in Brockley is a Victorian and Edwardian developmnt of terrached housing in the London Borough of Lewisham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

There was a time in the 1970s and 1980s when I seemed to know the area around Lewisham in south London quite well, staying occasionally with family connections in Catford at a time when I was very active in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and speaking at some of the large anti-war demonstrations in London.

Catford was only half an hour’s walk, at most, from Comerford Road in Brockley, and both are in the London Borough of Lewisham. Yet, in all those years, I never visited Comerford Road until yesterday afternoon.

I caught a bus from Waterloo to the junction of Brockley Road and Comerford Road at lunch time on Tuesday afternoon, and in the summer sunshine enjoyed the opportunity to explore a part of London I had never known before.

Brockley Jack is one the earliest and best-known buildings in Brockley (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Comerford Road is in the SE4 postal code area and is immediately off Brockley Road, facing the main entrance to a large local cemetery. The area developed rapidly from market gardens, pear orchards and brickfields into a built-up residential shopping hub during the Victorian suburban boom.

Brockley may mean ‘Broca’s clearing in the woods’ or perhaps ‘the clearing by the brook’. Brockley was once in Kent, but it has been part of London from 1900 on. It first developed as a small settlement on the Lewisham side of the boundary between Lewisham and Deptford. Today, it stretches from Lewisham Way to Forest Hill.

Before the rapid Victorian expansion, the land sat within the ancient Manor of Brockley, created in 1189. It lay near the path of the Croydon Canal, which opened in 1809, and historic agricultural routes.

The area was built up in the later 19th and early 20th centuries. Until that time the principal buildings were Brockley Farm, Manor Farm, Brockley Hall, the home of the Noakes family of brewers, and the Brockley Jack public house, then a picturesque timber-framed building owned by the Noakes family and said to have been a favourite haunt of highwaymen. The old Brockley Jack was once one of the most photographed pubs in south-east London.

The area around Brockley Road was built up and developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The London and Croydon Railway, which runs through Brockley, opened in 1839, but Brockley Station was not built until 1871. Brockley Lane station, now closed, followed in 1872, and Crofton Park station in 1892.

The area of the original Brockley is now called Crofton Park, after the railway station which in turn was named after a building estate. The central focus of Brockley has since become the junction of Drakefell, Shardeloes, Brockley and Upper Brockley Roads, which is known as Brockley Cross.

The north part of Brockley was owned by the Tyrwhitt-Drake family who developed the estate – previously used for market gardening – from the late 1840s. They built substantial three- or four-storeyed houses for the professional classes, though many were later divided into flats.

The building on the corner of Comerford Road and Brockley Road dates from 1840 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Comerford Road was developed and named during the late Victorian expansion of the area in the 1870s to 1880s. However, I have been unable to find sources that confirm suggestions that Comerford Road in Brockley was named after Maurice Comerford (1853-1920), who was involved in establishing The Stage newspaper. Maurice Comerford was the business manager and co-founded the entertainment trade paper The Stage in 1880 with the founding editor Charles Lionel Carson.

There are certainly other possibilities for the origins of the name of Comerford Road, and there were Comerford families in nearby Deptford from the early 19th century.

For example, Michael Comerford (1814-1867). He was born ca 1814 in Deptford, then in Kent but now part of the East End of London. He was the immediate ancestor the Comerford family of music hall artists and actors. They were also descended from some of the most interesting Sephardic families of Seville, Venice, Amsterdam and the East End of London.

Comerford Road was developed and named during the late Victorian expansion of Brockley in the 1870s to 1880s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The building on the corner of Comerford Road and Brockley Road dates from 1840, and by 1900 the junction of Comerford Road and Brockley Road had been firmly established as a local parade. Old postcards from the time show the junction as a central shopping parade, overlooked in the distance by Saint Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, built in 1882.

Saint Mary Magdalen Church was built at the corner of Comerford Road and Howson Road in 1898-1899, and was designed by the architect Young Bolton.

Many parts of Brockley and Crofton Park were damaged during World War II, particularly by V1 flying bombs and V2 rockets, and the area north of Crofton Park Station on Brockley Road suffering many strikes.

Comerford Road suffered bomb damage on the first day of the Blitz, 7 September 1940, when houses at 46-48 and 41-53 Comerford Road were damaged. An incendiary bomb fell on enclosed ground at rear of 75 Comerford Road, and a time bomb damaged Saint Mary Magdalene Church on 16 September 1940.

Saint Mary Magdalen Church was built on Comerford Road in 1898-1899 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

At its west end, beside Saint Mary Magdalen Church, Comerford Road is crossed by Howson Road, where the poet and painter David Jones (1895-1974) lived for much of his life. Other famous residents of Brockley have included the Irish socialist Jim Connell (1852-1929), author of the anthem ‘The Red Flag’, the actress Lillie Langtry (1853-1929), the radio and music hall comedian Will Hay (1888-1949) and the comedian Spike Milligan (1918-2002).

Brockley was named in 2021 as the best area of London to live in. In many ways, By and large, Comerford Road is typical of a part of south-east London that remains rich in Victorian and Edwardian domestic architecture, historic trees and original lanes and mews.

The outstanding feature on Comerford Road is Saint Mary Magdalen Church at 73 Comerford Road with a War Memorial in the church grounds that has a Grade II listing of its own.

But more about the church on Comerford Road and its war memorial in the days to come, hopefully.

Comerford Road is typical of a part of south-east London that remains rich in Victorian and Edwardian domestic architecture (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

A cloud hangs over the future of Oxfam’s oldest second-hand bookshop in Oxford

A cloud hangs over the Oxfam bookshop on St Giles and there are concerns about its future (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

When villages lose their parish church and post office, when a town loses more of its local pubs, and when a city loses its bookshops, they lose something of their character, when a cathedral city and a university city loses its best second-hand bookshops it loses part of its soul.

Oxford University Press closed its bookshop on Broad Street initially with the Covid lockdown in March 2020 and then decided shut up shop in 2022. Its academic books are now stocked at Blackwell’s in Broad Street, with a dedicated display space for OUP books in the Norrington Room.

Dillons bookshop was based at William Baker House from 1987 until Waterstones took over the five-storey building on the corner of Broad Street and Cornmarket in 1998. But those premises closed recently and Waterstones have moved to Queen’s Street.

Blackwell’s apart, my favourite bookshop in Oxford is the Oxfam bookshop on the corner of St Giles and Pusey Street, close to Pusey House, St Cross College, Blackfriars and Regent’s Park College. It is in the heart of Oxford, across the street from Saint John’s College and the Lamb and Flag, close to the Ashmolean and a short five-minute from the bus station at Gloucester Green.

I went there earlier this week to browse through its shelves, and I was correct in knowing instinctively that it was there I could find a copy of a book I have bought, lent and lost many times, Stephen Verney’s Water into Wine.

When John Mortimer opened the Oxfam shop there in 1987, it was the first of Oxfam’s 76 specialist charity bookshops. Oxfam pays full rent for the shop to Regent’s Park College, but all the stock is donated, and it is run by 75 volunteers and one paid manager.

The shop at the corner of St Giles and Pusey Street is the oldest Oxfam bookshop (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The shop at St Giles is one of two Oxfam bookshops in Oxford, with another one at Turl Street. There is another Oxfam shop in the city centre at Broad Street, and there are Oxfam shops on Cowley Road in East Oxford and in Summertown.

But now a cloud hangs over the Oxfam bookshop on St Giles and there are concerns about its future. Oxford City Council has turned down an application by Regent’s Park College to convert the shop into its Middle Common Room (MCR), citing local regulations limiting city centre ground floor units to specific uses such as retail, culture, tourism and entertainment.

Oxfam says that at the moment it has no immediate plans to move, while Regent’s Park College is now reviewing its options in light of the council decision. The college says the proposed change of use of the building was intended ‘to provide a larger, fit-for-purpose MCR and dedicated postgraduate study space to meet the needs of its expanded postgraduate body’.

No 56 Saint Giles is the Oxfam bookshop, and the building is divided between the bookshop, which has been on the ground floor and in the basement since 1987, and student accommodation on the upstairs floors.

Regent’s Park College owns many of the buildings on St Giles from the corner vwith Pusey Street (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Regent’s Park College applied for a change-of-use, claiming the building is not in the city centre as officially defined and that college activities would not ‘lead to detrimental effects’ such as artificial lighting and construction, or ‘impact upon the significance of the heritage asset’.

In rejecting the application, Oxford City Council does not dispute that it is unlikely that ‘any harm would arise from the change of use itself’. But it notes too that the site is, in fact, part of the city centre area by the standards of the Oxford Local Plan 2036.

In their objections, members of the public said the change of use would have an ‘effect on character of area’ and the loss of a community asset. Many objectors expressed fears of ‘noise and disturbance’ and difficulties with access.

No 56 is a large corner building facing onto St Giles and Pusey Street. It was built ca 1800, and is a Grade II listed building. Throughout the first half of the 19th century, George Bridges lived there and ran a grocer’s shop. It was then sold on to families named Nalder, Louch, Cook and Chandler, and the WH Chandler ran both a grocer’s shop and a private hotel upstairs. For almost 20 years, from 1958 to 1976, it was a Wimpy Bar.

Regent’s Park College traces its story back to a time when ‘Dissenters’ or ‘Nonconformists’, including Baptists, could not take degrees at Oxford or Cambridge. A Baptist Education Society was formed in 1752, and another in 1804, to provide education for Baptist ministers. They led to formation of Stepney Academy in the East End of London in 1810; by the mid-19th century, the college was part of London University, in 1856 the college moved into property in Regent’s Park and became Regent’s Park College.

After World War I, the college began looking for a new home outside London, and it almost moved to Cambridge in 1922. But those plans fell through, and five years later the current site in Oxford was bought, along houses, gardens, cottages and garages. The college was given the status of a Permanent Private Hall (PPH) in 1957. Training Baptist ministers remains a central part of its life.

The present MCR at Regent’s Park College was established in 2005, when the college had a graduate community of only 30 members. It is underground in a former storage basement with no windows, and there has been a five-fold expansion in the graduate student body over the past two decades, so that the college believes the current MCR is ‘wholly unsuitable’.

The rejection of the application comes after Jesus College successfully converted the former Burger King on Cornmarket Street into student accommodation last year (2025). Other colleges with plans for new developments include Magdalen College, which plans to demolish a 1960s building to provide more student housing.

Regent’s Park College is turning the Grade II*-listed fellow’s house at 53-54 St Giles into offices (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Next door to the Oxfam bookshop, No 55 St Giles probably dates from the late 18th century. It is Grade II listed and in recent years it has been the Principal’s Lodgings of Regent’s Park College. No 55 has been part of Regent’s Park College since 1928, and the college principal, Henry Wheeler Robinson, was living there in 1939.

The heraldic arms of the college over the doorway include a red cross, an open Bible with pages inscribed with the words ‘Dominus Jesus’, a fish representing the Ichthus symbol, and the motto, Omnia Probate Quod Bonum Tenete, ‘Test everything; hold fast to what is good’ (I Thessalonians 5: 21).

Regent’s Park College is also turning the Grade II*-listed fellow’s house at 53-54 St Giles into offices. This was built as a single house, probably in the 16th century, but was subdivided into two houses from 1772 to 1866. The passageway to the north of the right-hand house runs down into what used to be Drewett’s Yard, S ix terraced cottages there were demolished in 1939 when Regent’s Park College was built on Pusey Street.

The Revd Leonard Herbert Brockington (1906-1978), Senior Lecturer in Aramaic and Syriac in the University of Oxford and a tutor in Regent’s Park College, lived at the house in 1939. Regent’s Park College bought Nos 53-54 St Giles in 1956 and the Revd W Morris, the college bursar and senior tutor lived there. Regent’s Park College applied to alter No 53-54 in 2024, and applied last year (2025) to change its use from college accommodation to offices.

Further north along St Giles, the Eagle and Child at No 49 is still covered in cladding, fencing and scaffolding as work on its refurbishment continues slowly, and the latest reports say it is not expected to reopen before 2027.

Much of St Giles is already made up of institutional buildings, and the street probably needs more variety, including like shops, cafés and pubs. On the opposite side of the street, the Lamb and Flag, close to Saint John’s, Oxford’s wealthiest college, has been saved from threatened closure by vocal local activists.

Oxford is short of good places to buy good second-hand books, apart from Blackwell’s. The Oxfam shop on St Giles has been described in the Spectator as ‘a bastion of high-quality stock and knowledgeable staff who charge fair prices for the kind of tomes that you simply cannot find elsewhere in the city,’ where volunteers happily offer informed recommendations inspired by their own extensive reading.

It is ironic that this sad sequence of events is unfolding in the city that gave Oxfam its name. Oxfam was founded in 1942, when it began as the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief, to alleviate hunger during World War II. Today, Oxfam operates in 79 countries and there are 21 members in the Oxfam Confederation in Australia, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North and Latin America and the Caribbean.

The closure of the Oxfam bookshop on St Giles would be another sad loss for booklovers in the City of Dreaming Spires.

the Eagle and Child at No 49 is still covered in cladding, fencing and scaffolding and is not expected to reopen before 2027 (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

‘Memory Lane’, colourful street art on Talbot Lane, brings new life to a corner of north inner city Dublin

James Joyce depicted in ‘Memory Lane’ on Talbot Lane, off Talbot Street in Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I was in north inner city Dublin earlier this week, to see the Pro-Cathedral on Marlborough Street, which has become Saint Mary’s Cathedral in recent weeks, to look again at the Welsh Chapel on Talbot Street, which is being saved from deterioration, and to visit Saint Francis Xavier Church on Upper Gardiner Street.

For too many years, Talbot Street has been a neglected, unattractive street in the northside inner city, and was hardly an inviting welcome to visitors to Dublin walking from Connolly Station on Amiens Street to O’Connell Street and the heart of the city centre.

But Dublin City Council is looking at the causes and effects of these realities. Dublin has a vibrant street art scene and the Talbot Lane Mural is a bright and colourful addition to Dulin’s public art scene and part of a positive initiative to make the area more attractive and inviting.

‘Memory Lane’ on Talbot Lane celebrates the area’s history and heritage of the inner city (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

‘Memory Lane’ is a vibrant work of street art on Talbot Lane by Fionnuala Halpin that depicts the area’s history, with images of amusement arcades, a jarvey, Georgian doorways, literary figures such as James Joyce and Sean O’Casey, and the revolutionary suffragette Countess Markievicz.

The Talbot Lane mural was supported by Dublin City Council and celebrates the history, architecture and literary and political legacy of the north inner city, as well as recalling Barney’s Arcade in nearby Marlborough Place, the site in the 18th century of the Marlborough Green Synagogue, from about 1762 to 1790 or 1791.

Countess Markievicz depicted in ‘Memory Lane’ on Talbot Lane, off Talbot Street in Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Talbot Lane is a small, narrow cobbled alleyway between Talbot Street and Marlborough Place, features a collection of bright new street art murals, and this work of art is part of the city council’s regeneration project to brighten the area.

The artists who contributed to the art in the lane are Fionnuala Halpin, Inkfun, 23mGraphics, Kayde Middleton, and M50signs, working with the Lucky Bag collective as project manager and designer.

The artist Fionnuala Halpin works with businesses, schools, community groups and the city council to bring high quality art to the streets and neighbourhoods of Dublin.

Sean O’Casey depicted in ‘Memory Lane’ on Talbot Lane, off Talbot Street in Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Dublin City Council is rolling out its plans to revamp laneways in the north inner-city, and Talbot Lane is a colourful example of how this plan is working out. The council is also exploring the idea of opening up city-centre laneways for people to play cricket, inspired by a similar initiative in Melbourne, and Leinster Cricket has been invited to examine the viability of the ‘laneways cricket’ initiative.

A Green Party councillor Janet Horner said recently the initiative would be ideal for lanes that are closed to the public, like Harbour Court, which runs from Abbey Street to the quays. ‘We are starved of inner-city sports spaces,’ she said.

Brendan Doggett, a council administrative officer, pitched the idea for cricket in the laneways after people from Cricket Ireland pointed out that some laneways in Australia are used like this. Michael Darragh MacAuley, community sports engagement manager with the council, has pointed out that in Mountjoy Park the council organises tape ball, a kind of Pakistani street cricket that uses a tennis ball wrapped in electrical tape.

Dublin City Council is investing €2.5 million to revamp the Talbot Street area (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Dublin City Council is investing €2.5 million to revamp Talbot Street and plans to breathe new life into five nearby inner city laneways named in an action plan drawn up by the architect Seán Harrington. The idea is to get businesses that back onto laneways to open up their entrances, and to encourage people to make positive use of these smaller back streets, including Abbey Cottages, Byrne’s Lane, Coles Lane, Talbot Place and Jervis Lane Upper. Talbot Lane was the first of these laneways to be completed.

James Joyce went to school nearby in Belvedere and there is a sculpture of him by Marjorie Fitzgibbon at the O’Connell Street end of Talbot Street, while Sean O’Casey was born on Dorset Street. Constance Markievicz is quoted as saying: ‘Consciousness of their own dignity and worth should be encouraged in women.’ Sean O’Casey is depicted saying: ‘When it was dark … you carried the sun in your hand for me.’

Appropriately, the quotation from James Joyce that is part of his portrait by Fionnuala Halpin in ‘Memory Lane’ on Talbot Lane is: ‘When I die, Dublin will be written in my heart.’

‘Memory Lane’ is a vibrant work of street art on Talbot Lane, off Talbot Street by Fionnuala Halpin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Christ Church, Stantonbury, an ecumenical partnership in Milton Keynes, prepares to mark its 50th anniversary

Christ Church, Stantonbury, is the parish church for Stantonbury and Bradville and is part of the Stantonbury Ecumenical Partnership (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I was in Holy Trinity Church, Old Wolverton, earlier today at a lunchtime meeting of clergy in the Milton Keynes area. This was our first meeting after the busy time of Christmas, New Year and Epiphany. Originally, the meeting was arranged to make place in Christ Church, Stantonbury, but the venue was changed at the last time.

This would have been my first time to visit Christ Church, which is based on the Stantonbury Campus in North Milton Keynes. Rather than miss the opportunity of a first-time visit to the church this, I decided to visit Stantonbury yesterday to see Christ Church and to search for the nearby ruins of the earlier Saint Peter's Church,

Christ Church is the parish church for Stantonbury and Bradville and is part of the Stantonbury Ecumenical Partnership, a group of six congregations in the north-east area of the city of Milton Keynes.

When Milton Keynes was designated as a new town, the Church of England, the Baptist Union and the Methodist Church had a common vision to work together in the new area. Christ Church was set up as the first Local Ecumenical Project (LEP) in Milton Keynes, enabling the three denominations to worship, work and plan together right from the start. The United Reformed Church joined as a sponsoring denomination a little later.

The first service was held in the Community House in Stantonbury on Easter Day 1975. By the end of the year the fellowship had moved to its present location on the Stantonbury Campus – although the building was not officially opened until February 1976. In those early years, the building was also home to the local Roman Catholic congregation, and they shared a monthly evening worship service together.

In 1982, the seven worshipping congregations in that north-east part of Milton Keynes formed the Stantonbury Ecumenical Parish, now the Stantonbury Ecumenical Partnership.

An extension to the building was opened at Easter 1990, providing for the first time a purpose-built sanctuary and baptistry, alongside the existing community hall.

The partnership involves four denominations – Anglican, Baptist, Methodist, and United Reformed Church. But the members come from a diversity of backgrounds and worship together, and a wide variety of community and Christian groups use the building extensively throughout the week.

thrist Church, Stantonbury, moved to its present location at the end of 1975 and building was officially opened in February 1976 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Stantonbury is about 3.2 km (2 miles) north of Central Milton Keynes, between Great Linford and Wolverton, and south of Oakridge Park. It is largely residential, and includes two secondary schools, Stantonbury School and the Webber Independent School, a theatre, a leisure centre with a 25 metre swimming pool and an all-weather athletics track. Webber Independent School was named in honour of the urban designer Melvin M Webber (1920-2006), who was described by the architect Derek Walker as the ‘father of the city’ of Milton Keynes.

The name comes from Stanton-, referring to Old English for a stone-built farmstead, and -bury, referring to the Barri or Barry family who owned the land in 1235. The original Stantonbury is a deserted mediaeval village now known as Stanton Low, and the name Stantonbury has become the name of the modern district at the heart of the civil parish, which includes Stantonbury itself and the districts of Bancroft and Bancroft Park, Blue Bridge, Bradville and Linford Wood. The population of the parish of Stantonbury grew from 19 at the 1971 census to 3,938 in 1981, 9,010 in 2001 and 10,084 in 2011.

Modern Stantonbury lies on land historically known as Stanton High. Stanton Low lies near the River Great Ouse and is the deserted village of historic Stantonbury, one of the rural Buckinghamshire villages that were included in the area designated in 1967 to become Milton Keynes. Today it is an uninhabited agricultural area near the river. Little if anything remains of the deserted village other than the ruins of the parish church of Saint Peter, and I hope to describe Saint Peter's in a separate posting on another day. The ruins of a Roman villa discovered there in the late 1950s were completely destroyed by gravel extraction.

The foundations of a Romano-British farm known as Bancroft Roman Villa are in what is now the North Loughton Park, overlooking the Shenley Brook. Rescue excavations in 1957 identified a group of perhaps four buildings, traces of a hypocaust and sherds of Iron Age pottery. A section of mosaic flooring recovered from the site is in the ‘guest services lounge’ in Central Milton Keynes shopping centre.

Blue Bridge is a small, mainly residential district near the West Coast Main Line and the Grand Union Canal, which separates it from Stonebridge. The ‘Blue Bridge’ (1834-1835), now restricted to pedestrian and cycle traffic, is one of the oldest bridges over the West Coast Main Line and is a Grade II listed structure.

Bradville district, between Bradwell, New Bradwell and Stantonbury itself, is mainly residential. Bradwell Windmill is a Grade II listed building. Linford Wood includes the ancient woodland that gives the district its name, was originally part of the Linford demesne. The district is known for high-tech industry, and is the site of a telecommunications tower, chosen for its high elevation.

Oakridge Park is a small district of private housing development, dating from about 2010.

Christ Church is a partnership supported by Anglicans, Baptists, Methodists, and the United Reformed Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Revd Rev Phil Dunning is the minister at Christ Church, Stantonbury. He moved to Milton Keynes and started working with Christ Church and the Stantonbury Ecumenical Partnership in September 2024. He trained forthe ministry in Bristol and was the pastor of a Baptist church in Cardiff for the 20 years.

The Rev Canon Chi Okpala is the Team Rector in Stantonbury Ecumenical Partnership.

Today, Stantonbury Ecumenical Partnership includes six churches in the areas around Bradwell, New Bradwell, Stantonbury, Great Linford, Downs Barn and Willen. The partnership brings together the Anglican, Baptist, Methodist and United Reformed traditions, but welcomes people of all denominations and people still exploring the Christian faith.

There are six churches in the Partnership – some modern and some old. The four centuries-old churches are Saint Lawrence’s Church, Bradwell; Saint James’ Church, New Bradwell; Saint Andrew’s Church, Great Linford; and Saint Mary Magdalene Church, Willen; the two modern buildings are Cross and Stable Church, Downs Barn, and Christ Church, Stantonbury.

Canon Chi Okpala oversees Saint Andrew’s, Great Linford, Saint James’, New Bradwell, and Saint Mary Magdalene, Willen, with the support of the Revd Dr Sam Muthuveloe at Willen. The Revd Phil Dunning has pastoral responsibility for Christ Church, Stantonbury, Saint Lawrence’s, Bradwell, and Cross and Stable, Downs Barn, with support from Dr Muthuveloe at Downs Barn. In addition, the Revd Dave Haseldine, a Methodist, provides support at Saint Andrew’s, Great Linford.

After my first-ever visit to Christ Church, Stantonbury, I went in search of the ruins of Saint Peter’s Church and the deserted village of historic Stantonbury by the banks of the Great Ouse – but more about these on another evening, I hope.

• The congregation at Christ Church, Stantonbury, holds services at 10:30 am each Sunday and the services are livestreamed on its Facebook page.

Christ Church Stantonbury is one of six churches in the Stantonbury Ecumenical Partnership (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

George Drumgoole Coleman, the architect from Drogheda who shaped the streets of Singapore

Parliament House in Singapore was first designed by George Drumgoole Coleman for John Argyle Maxwell (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

During our two recent visits to Singapore, I was interested in how much of Singapore was shaped in the 19th century and early 20th century by some influential Irish figures, including the Governor Sir Orfeur Cavenagh (1820-1891), who had family roots in Co Wexford and Co Kildare, and the architects George Drumgoole Coleman (1795-1844), who was born in Drogheda, and Denis Santry (1879-1960), who was born in Cork.

George Drumgoole Coleman (1795-1844), also known as George Drumgold Coleman, was Singapore’s pioneer colonial architect.

Only a few of Coleman’s buildings in Singapore have survived, including the Armenian Church of Saint Gregory the Illuminator, Maxwell’s House, later the Old Parliament House, Caldwell House and, perhaps, the Jamae Mosque that gives its name to Mosque Street. But he played a key role in designing and building much of early Singapore after it was founded by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819.

George Drumgoole Coleman was born in Drogheda, Co Louth, in 1795, and returned to Drogheda in 1841-1842

George Drumgoole Coleman was born in Drogheda, Co Louth, in 1795. He was the son of James Coleman, a merchant whose business included building materials. James Coleman had married into the Co Louth merchant family of Drumgold or Drumgoole, and many members of the Dromgold family are buried both at Saint Peter’s Church (Church of Ireland), Drogheda, and in the Cord Cemetery off Cord Road, Drogheda.

I mused at one stage how my great-great-grandfather, James Comerford (1775-1825) of Co Wexford, was a first cousin of Sylvester Comerford (1756-1796), who married Mary Dromgoole of Drogheda in 1779. But any connection would be both conjectural and remote.

There are no records indicating where George Coleman received his architectural education, and his name is not in the registers of the Dublin Society’s Drawing School or the Royal Academy School in London.

However, it has been suggested that he was articled to Francis Johnston (1760-1819), who once had an architectural practice in Paradise Place, off William Street, Drogheda, in in 1786-1793, and who designed Townley Hall and a related row of family houses in Drogheda (1794-1798). Perhaps Johnston’s influence is reflected in Coleman’s Palladian and Georgian designs in Singapore. But Johnston moved from Drogheda to Dublin before Coleman was born, and completed Townley Hall while Coleman was still an infant.

At the age of 19, Coleman left Ireland in 1815 for Calcutta, where he worked as an architect, designing private houses for the merchants of Fort William. In 1819, he was invited through his patron, John Palmer, to build two churches in Batavia (now Jakarta) in the Dutch East Indies. The churches were never built, but Coleman spent two years in Java, where he surveyed large sugar plantations, designed private buildings and sugar mills and built machinery for sugar milling.

The Armenian Church of Saint Gregory the Illuminator on Hill Street was designed by George Coleman in 1835 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Coleman obtained an introduction to Sir Stamford Raffles from Palmer and arrived in Singapore in June 1822. There he waited four months for Raffles to return from Bencoolen, now Bengkulu, in Sumatra.

In the meantime, he designed the Residency at the top of Bukit Larangan, now Fort Canning Hill, for Raffles. The house, with plank walls, Venetian windows and an attap roof, impressed Raffles. Later, at John Crawfurd’s expense, Coleman extended and redesigned the house as the residence of the Residents and Governors of Singapore.

Meanwhile, Raffles was impressed and commissioned Coleman to design a garrison church – that was never built – and to lay out the streets of Singapore. He planned the town centre, created roads, designed fine buildings, and oversaw the works at the Christian Cemetery on the slope of the hill.

Coleman left for Java in June 1823 and spent the next 2½ years there, but returned to Singapore in 1825 due to conflicts between the Dutch and native Javanese.

He designed a large Palladian house for David Skene Napier, the first magistrate in Singapore, in 1826, and a palatial building for the merchant John Argyle Maxwell. Before Maxwell’s house was completed, it was leased to the government for use as a court house and government offices. Much altered and enlarged, it eventually formed part of the Parliament House. This too was designed in the Palladian style, adapted to the tropical climate by incorporating a veranda and overhanging eaves to provide shade.

As a Revenue Surveyor in 1827, Coleman surveyed land titles that were issued mostly for shophouse lots in the town.

Coleman designed and built his own house in 1828, and it was completed in May 1829. That year, Coleman’s daughter, Meda Elizabeth Coleman, was born to Takouhi (Thagoohi) Manuk, on 10 March 1829, and the girl was baptised in Saint Andrew’s Cathedral on 30 July 1837. The child’s mother, Takouhi Manuk, was a sister of Gvork Manuk, a wealthy Persian-born merchant in India and Java, and Coleman built a mansion for her beside his own.

Takouhi Manuk and her sister Mary Arathoon later inherited the entire wealth of their bachelor brother and in 1854 they funded the rebuilding of Saint John’s Armenian Church in Calcutta. It is possibly because of his relationship with Takouhi Manuk that Coleman came to design the Armenian Church of Saint Gregory the Illuminator on Hill Street in 1835, and she donated much of the silverware and furnishings in the church.

Saint Andrew’s Cathedral, Singapore … Coleman designed the original church on Coleman Street in 1835 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Meanwhile, in 1829, Coleman surveyed in minute detail the islands that would form the new harbour of the port, including all the shoals, slopes and heights of the hills along the coast for the possible fortification of the harbour. The survey was drawn and printed by JB Tassin as the first comprehensive map of the town and environs of Singapore.

Coleman was appointed the Superintendent of Public Works and Convicts in 1833 and was also the surveyor and overseer of convict labour. He managed building the North Bridge Road and South Bridge Road in 1833-1835.

Coleman built the first Anglican church in Singapore, Saint Andrew’s, which was begun in 1835. However, it was demolished in the 1850s when it became unsafe due to lightning strikes, and it was replaced by Saint Andrew’s Cathedral.

Coleman designed the Telok Ayer market, built on the waterfront in 1835. It was demolished during to land reclamation work in 1879 and was moved to Lau Pa Sat, where it retains the octagonal shape of Coleman’s original market.

Coleman helped found the Singapore Free Press & Mercantile Advertiser with William Napier, Edward Boustead, and Walter Scott Lorrain. The Singapore Free Press was first published in October 1835. Due to this competition, the Singapore Chronicle, the first newspaper in Singapore, closed in 1837, and the Singapore Free Press remained unrivalled until it was succeeded by the Straits Times in 1845.

‘Chijmes’ on Victoria Street incorporates Caldwell House, designed by George Coleman in 1840-1841 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Although Coleman designed numerous private houses in Singapore, only two that with certainty are his design have survived: the Parliament House, originally Maxwell’s house, although it has undergone considerable changes; and Caldwell House on Victoria Street.

Caldwell House was built in 1840-1841 for Henry Charles Caldwell of the Magistrates Court. The house was bought in 1852 by Father Jean-Marie Beurel to establish the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus. Today it is part of CHIJMES.

Coleman was also commissioned to finish and extend the Raffles Institution, originally designed by Phillip Jackson. That building was demolished in 1972.

The Istana Kampong Glam is believed to be by Coleman, although there is no definite evidence. Coleman is also said to have designed the green Jamae Mosque (Masjid Chulia), on the corner of South Bridge Road and Mosque Street. The entrance gate is distinctively South Indian, but the two prayer halls are Neo-Classical style, typical of Coleman’s. This unique appearance has made the mosque a prominent landmark.

Coleman is said to have designed the Jamae Mosque on the corner of South Bridge Road and Mosque Street in Singapore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

On his doctor’s advice to return to a more temperate climate, Coleman left for Europe on 25 July 1841 after 15 years of continuous work and 25 years in the East, leaving behind Takouhi Manuk and their daughter Meda Elizabeth Coleman. He visited Drogheda and later married Maria Frances Vernon, youngest daughter of George Vernon of Clontarf Castle, Dublin, in Saint George’s Church, Hanover Square, London, on 17 September 1842.

However, Coleman was unable to settle down in Europe. He returned to Singapore with his wife on 25 November 1843, and they moved into his house on Coleman Street. Their son, George Vernon Coleman, was born on 27 December 1843.

Within three months, Coleman died at the age of 49 at home on 25 March 1844, due to a fever brought on by exposure to the sun. He was buried in an Old Christian Cemetery at the foot of Government Hill, now Fort Canning Hill. His gravestone misspells his name as George Doumgold Coleman.

Within months of Coleman’s death, his widow married William Napier, a conveyancing lawyer and the first law agent in Singapore. Napier adopted Coleman’s infant son George, who would die at sea on board HMS Maeander in 1848 at the age of four. His daughter Meda Elizabeth Coleman died in Singapore in October 1907.

An undated photograph of Coleman’s house at 3 Coleman Street as it originally appeared (Source: Lee Kip Lin, ‘The Singapore House 1819-1942’, Singapore 1988)

After Coleman’s death, the Coleman House at 3 Coleman Street became the London Hotel and then the Hotel de la Paix and the Burlington Hotel. The hotel was frequented by Joseph Conrad during his visits to Singapore.

The house changed hands many times, and at various times it was a boarding house and the Theatre Royal. Up to 1,000 squatters were living there and it was in a dilapidated state when it was demolished in December 1965. It is now the site of the Peninsula Shopping Centre.

Coleman’s grave and other graves were exhumed in 1954-1965 when the cemetery was turned into a park and the gravestones were built into the walls at Fort Canning Park. But his name lives on in a number of places in Singapore, including Coleman Bridge, Coleman Place and Coleman Street.

Looking out onto Coleman Street from the porch of Saint Andrew’s Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Coleman Bridge links Hill Street and New Bridge Road, spanning the Singapore River near Clarke Quay. Part of the bridge marks the boundary between the Downtown Core and the Singapore River Planning Area, both within the Central Area of Singapore.

Coleman Bridge was the second bridge built across the Singapore River and the first built in masonry. A brick bridge joining Old Bridge Road and Hill Street over the Singapore River was built in 1840 and named Coleman Bridge. The bridge had nine arches, and was first known as the New Bridge, giving its name to New Bridge Road.

The brick bridge was replaced in 1865 by one of timber, then in 1886 by an iron bridge spanning the Singapore River, and by the present concrete bridge in 1987. Several features of the iron bridge, including the decorative lamp posts and iron railings, have been incorporated in the present Coleman Bridge.

Coleman Bridge, the second bridge built across the Singapore River, has been rebuilt in 1865, 1886 and 1987 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

All Hallows and Church Square: reminders of a lost mediaeval church in the heart of Bedford

All Hallows and Church Square in Bedford have been revamped in recent years … but where was All Hallows’ Church? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

In recent weeks, I have been visiting a number of churches in Bedford, including Saint Paul’s Church, the main church in the town centre, Saint Peter’s Church on Saint Peter’s Street in the De Parys area, Saint Cuthbert’s Church in the middle of a traffic island between Castle Road and Mill Street, and the former Church of the Holy Trinity, now part of Bedford Sixth Form College.

But I have also gone in search of a long-disappeared mediaeval church, All Hallows’ Church, prompted by recent town planning developments in the centre of the town, and the delightful scene on a summer afternoon of children playing around a fountain.

All Hallows is home to an array of thriving businesses, homes and public realm space in the heart of Bedford’s town centre. Running from St Loyes through to Silver Street, this central hub is around a quarter of a kilometre long.

It has over 40 retail outlets including cafés, banks and estate agents and provides pedestrian access to Bedford Bus Station and All Hallows car park. In addition, there are a number of businesses on the first-floor level and a number of residential flats along All Hallows.

The revamp of All Hallows and Church Square was completed in 2021, bringing new life to an area that had become quite tired-looking. The £3 million project was designed to breathe new life into the space included improvements to all streetscape elements such as pavements, pathways, roads, protective bollards and street furniture.

The project provided new paving, benches and lighting lifting for this part of Bedford. The existing pavements and roadway were rebuilt and re-laid with high quality granite, and new seating and cycle stands were installed, alongside new lighting.

A plaque recalls the improvements to All Hallows and Church Square in 1988 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

All Hallows and Church Square lie within a pedestrianised shopping zone in Bedford. Church Square was laid out in the 1960s and improved in 1988. A plaque on the corner Church Square and All Hallows reads: ‘Allhallows and Church Square / Improvements / Opened by Mayor, Councillor W Astle / 13 April 1988 / Client – North Bedfordshire Borough Council / -Contractor - Kimbell Construction Limited.’

The building across the square was built in the early 1960s and originally housed Fine Fare supermarket, the first supermarket in Bedford. Later it was followed by Sainsbury’s and then Marks and Spencer.

Since then, there have been further improvements to Church Square, with a new fountain that delights children and may help scare away the pigeons – Church Square is known to local people as Pigeon Square.

Church Arcade runs from Church Square to Harpur Street. It is home to some independent businesses, including cafés, a small supermarket, a butcher’s, a jeweller’s and more.

All Hallows, Church Square and Church Arcade all take their name from All Hallows’ Church, a mediaeval church that no longer exists.

The first mention of the Church of All Saints or All Hallows, Bedford, is found in 1291, when the Prior of Newnham had a pension of 12 shillings there.

The church was on the north side of the river and appears to have belonged to Newnham Priory. William de Cotherstoke and others received licence in 1406 to grant William Hert, the parson of the Church of All Saints, a messuage in the town for a house for himself and his successors.

Church Square off All Hallows in Bedford … the names recall the lost mediaeval Church of All Hallows (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Another lost mediaeval church in Bedford was the oratory known as Saint Thomas’ Chapel, which was built on the bridge over the River Ouse by some men of the town ca 1331. A chaplain was appointed to act as keeper of the oratory and the bridge, and to receive alms from passengers for the repair of the bridge.

The right of appointing the chaplain was claimed by the mayor and townsmen. This right was violated by the Sheriff of Bedford in 1332, when he appointed John de Derby in the king’s name and ejected the chaplain elected by the borough. This led to disorderly scenes, in which the Mayor of Bedford, Nicholas de Astewood, and others assembled by ringing of the town bell and assaulted the king’s nominee.

In 1336, the justices were commissioned to inquire about the foundation and endowment of the chapel, whether it was built on the king's soil and all the circumstances of the case.

The town’s candidate, John de Bodenho, petitioned Parliament in 1338, saying the oratory was built by the people of Bedford over water belonging to Lord Moubray and with his permission.

The men of Bedford also complained that same year that the case had dragged on for five years, and in the meantime the bridge was falling into decay.

The dispute appears to have been settled in the king’s favour, and for the remainder of the century the appointments are made to ‘the king's free chapel of Saint Thomas.’ A chaplain was appointed in 1432, but no further mention is made of the chapel, and it seems to have fallen into decay before the Dissolution of the monastic houses at the Tudor Reformation.

Meanwhile, after the Dissolution, the clergy of All Hallows’ Church were the same as those Saint Paul’s Church. However, no reference has been found to the advowson later than 1614, nor to the rectory after 1655.

Later writers make no reference to All Hallows’ parish. Possibly, as with Saint Mary and Saint Peter Dunstable, All Hallows’ became absorbed in the larger and adjacent parish of Saint Paul’s.

The church stood All Hallows Lane – possibly on the site of Church Square – until it disappeared some time in the 17th century.

On a sunny afternoon in Bedford last week, the fountain in Church Square was flowing to the delight of children and busy shoppers, creating a pleasant scene, although there is little greenery in the square and the surrounding area shows clear signs of urban deprivation evident.

The fountain in Church Square, Bedford, in summer sunshine (Patrick Comerford, 2024)

A traditional but modern community is at the heart of Jewish life in Cambridge today

Cambridge Synagogue and the Cambridge Jewish Student Centre on Thompson’s Lane … designed by CJ Eprile and RJ Hersh in 1937 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

In recent weeks, in my Friday evening postings, I have looked at the sites of the mediaeval Jewry and the mediaeval synagogues in Cambridge (19 July 2024), and of the locations of the early modern synagogues in Cambridge (26 July 2024). In a separate posting, I also asked once again (24 July 2024) whether Portugal Place in Cambridge was so named because Sephardic Jews from the Iberian Peninsula who found a welcome in Cromwell’s England had first settled in that part of Cambridge from the mid-17th century on.

Indeed, Portugal Place is close to the Cambridge Synagogue on Thompson’s Lane, although the synagogue dates from 1937, over a century after Clement’s Lane was renamed Portugal Place.

By late 1912, the Jewish community in Cambridge had moved into premises behind a bicycle shop opposite the entrance to Sidney Sussex College, possibly in premises on the site that is now part of Sainsbury’s.

A new, purpose-built synagogue was built in 1937 in Ellis Court in Thomson’s Lane, off Bridge Street and parallel to Portugal Place. It was built for the Cambridge Hebrew Congregation, a continuity of the earlier ‘Lyon’s Synagogue’. It now houses both the Cambridge Synagogue and the Cambridge Jewish Student Centre.

The synagogue is close to Saint Clement’s Church and stands on the site of a house that was known as Church House (1886) and the Vicarage (1928). Ellis Lane took its name from Robert Ellis, the parish clerk of Saint Clement’s, who once lived in the earlier house.

Although that house was described in early leases as a house rather than houses, it had two basement kitchens and two staircases, and until the end of the 19th century there were invariably two families living there.

The building included the Church House Mission Room and School in 1881. An appeal on behalf of the Church House was issued in 1884 in the name of the Revd Edmund Gough de Salis Wood (1841-1932). He was the curate of Saint Clement’s in 1865-1885, and then the Vicar in 1885-1931. By 1887, the name of the house had been changed to Edmund House, but by 1891 it was known as the Vicarage and Canon Edmund Wood was living there on his own.

Wood died in 1931, and when the Vicarage was put on sale in October 1931 it was sold to trustees acting on behalf of the Cambridge Jewish community.

A new purpose-built synagogue was designed by architects Cecil Jacob Eprile (1897-1982) and RJ Hersh. Cecil Eprile (later Epril) also designed synagogues in New Cross, East Ham, Cricklewood, Hackney, Willesden Green and Southend.

The foundation stone of the synagogue in Cambridge was laid on 25 April 1937 by Sir Robert Waley-Cohen (1877-1952), a Cambridge graduate and leading industrialist who was president of the United Synagogue and vice-chairman of University College London. The new synagogue was built within six weeks and was consecrated by the Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Dr Joseph Herman Hertz, on 21 October 1937.

At the time, there were about 50 active Jewish students In Cambridge. A number of organisations, including the Schechter Society, the Oxford Zionist Society and the Oxford branch of the Anglo-Jewish Association, came together to form the Cambridge University Jewish Society (CUJS).

The Cambridge Traditional Jewish Congregation (CTRC) was established around 1979 as an independent orthodox community, sharing the synagogue building with the students. During term-time, the CUJS runs shabbat services and the CTJC organises the High Holy Day services and the other services.

Weekday services are agreed on a Shabbat morning or by special arrangement. There is usually a kiddush on Shabbat morning. During term, weekday shacharit is at 7:45 am and Sunday shacharit at 8:30 am.

Illustrative image of the proposed new synagogue on Thompson’s Lane, Cambridge (Image: RH Partnership Architects/Trustees of Cambridge University Jewish Society)

Today, the original building designed by Hersch and Eprile in 1937 is hidden behind a front extension.

The trustees of the Cambridge University Jewish Society had applied to redevelop the existing synagogue and community facility in Thompsons Lane. They described the current building as ‘inadequate’ and no longer ‘fit for purpose’, and said the new building would make a ‘positive contribution to Thompson’s Lane’.

A project to renew the synagogue has been worked for about 14 years and it has been the subject of three pre-applications with the city council in 2011, 2015 and 2018, and two public consultations in 2018 and 2019.

The proposed new building would wrap around the rear of the Cambridge School of Visual and Performing Arts (CSVPA) on a similar footprint to the existing synagogue, but would be enlarged and extended forward.

However, Cambridge city councillors last year rejected plans to demolish and rebuild the synagogue following concerns from neighbours on Portugal Place.

The houses on Portugal Place behind Cambridge Synagogue on Thompson’s Lane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Some neighbours who objected to the plans raised concerns about the impact of the new larger building on their gardens, particularly the sunlight reaching homes in Portugal Place.

Council planning officers had recommended the approval of the plans, but recognised that the impact the proposed changes would have on householders. In a report, they said the harm to neighbours would need to be balanced against the wider community benefits the new building would bring.

Some councillors questioned how the plans related to the neighbouring houses, and one councillor said the proposed building ‘turns its back on Portugal Place’ rather than ‘smile’ on it.

Earlier this year, a planning inspector upheld Cambridge City Council’s refusal of the application to build a new synagogue in Thompson’s Lane. The inspector said the proposed new synagogue would have an ‘intrusive’ impact on neighbouring homes and would ‘unduly harm’ the living conditions of two neighbours at 25 and 26 Portugal Place. However, the inspector found that ‘the living conditions of the occupiers of numbers 27, 28 and 29 would not be unduly harmed’.

The planning inspector disagreed with the city council’s concerns about the design of the proposed new building, saying it would be ‘compatible with the relatively diverse surrounding’ buildings and that it would make a ‘positive contribution to the street scene’.

The inspector also said there were ‘significant’ public benefits of the redevelopment and that the current building is ‘not fit for purpose’ and ‘too small.’ However, the inspector said these benefits were not enough to outweigh the harm it could cause.

The Chabad House on Castle Street, Cambridge, is run by Rabbi Dr Reuven Leigh and his wife Rochel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

In addition, there is a Chabad House at 37a Castle Street, Cambridge. It is run by Rabbi Dr Reuven Leigh and his wife Rochel. He studied at yeshivot in Manchester and Montreal and received semicha (rabbinic ordination) in 2001 from the Central Lubavitch Yeshiva.

The couple moved to Cambridge in 2003 and established Chabad of Cambridge, and they remain its rabbinic couple and directors. He has also served as a Jewish chaplain at the university and became rabbi to Cambridge Traditional Jewish Congregation in 2009.

Rabbi Reuven Leigh received his PhD in Cambridge in 2020. Rochel Leigh, who has taught Jewish Studies in Florida, California, Texas and New York, received her MEd in Cambridge in 2018.

The Chabad House has a mikvah that is available for Jewish women in a Jewish marriage.

Today, there are two other active Jewish congregations in Cambridge. The Beth Shalom congregation, founded in 1981, developed from the Cambridge Reform Jewish Community which was established in October 1976. Professor Nicholas Lange is chaplain to a Progressive Jewish Community in Cambridge.

The Cambridge and Suffolk Jewish Community, also known as Hama’ayan, was formed about 2005, and had its own nursery and mikvah. But it does not seems to have been active after 2007.

Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום

A menorah outside the Chabad House on Castle Street, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)