The Whitefield Memorial Church on Tottenham Court Road lives on as the American International Church

The American International Church, behind the trees and the food stalls Tottenham Court Road, was once the Whitefield Memorial Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

During my ‘church crawling’ adventures in the Bloomsbury, Soho and Fitzrovia areas of London in recent weeks, one of the interesting churches I have stopped to look at is the Whitefield Memorial Church on Tottenham Court Road, now the home of the American International Church.

On these sunny, summer days, the church is partly hidden behind the spreading trees and the many food stalls along this stretch on Tottenham Court Road. But many people are familiar with the open space on the south side of the church, now known as the Whitefield Gardens, one of the last undeveloped bomb-sites in central London.

The American International Church was formed to cater for American expatriates living in London. It was originally the American Church in London but changed its name in 2013 to reflect the 30 or more nationalities involved in its membership and supporting its activities. The church is particularly known for its soup kitchen, which feeds around 70 people a day.

The south side of the church faces onto the former burial ground, now Whitefield Gardens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

But the church building itself dates back to 1756, when the first chapel on the site was built for the evangelical preacher George Whitefield (1714-1770). Whitefield had been driven to seek a place where he would be free from opposition from the Vicar of Saint Martin-in-the-Fields at the Long Acre Chapel where he had been a minister.

Whitefield got a lease of the site for his chapel in Tottenham Court Road in 1756, and the first chapel, between Tottenham Street and Howland Street, was surrounded by fields and gardens. The foundation stone was laid by Whitefield in June 1756, and the dedication service took place on 7 November 1756.

The chapel was funded by Whitefield’s patron the Countess of Huntingdon, and it was built and probably designed by Matthew Pearce, with burial grounds to the north and south. The initial popularity of the chapel led to it being enlarged in 1759-1760, and a vault was also prepared beneath the chapel.

Whitefield hoped he could be buried there along with his wife Elizabeth and the brothers John and Charles Wesley. But Whitefield died in Newburyport, Massachusetts, on 30 September 1770 and was buried there. John Wesley preached Whitefield’s memorial sermon in the chapel later that year.

The Church of England had refused to consecrate this ground so after Whitefield’s death in 1770 his successor, the Revd Torial Joss, took a creative, if unusual approach. Saint Christopher-le-Stocks Church, near the Bank of England was being demolished to allow an extension to the bank. Joss arranged for ‘several cartloads’ of earth to be transported from that consecrated churchyard to Tottenham Court Road.

When the original lease expired in 1827, the freehold was bought by trustees, who refurbished the chapel, and it reopened in October 1831.

Some of the graves from the former burial ground can be still seen in Whitefield Gardens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The burial ground was in use from 1756, apart from an interval of eight years in 1823-1831, but was closed in 1851. Notable burials at the church included the writer and abolitionist Olaudah Equiano, who died in 1797; the surveyor George Gauld (1731-1782); the hymnwriter Augustus Toplady (1740-1778), author of ‘Rock of Ages’; and the great clown and harlequin JS Grimaldi (1802-1832).

The chapel was refurbished yet again in 1856, only to be almost wholly destroyed by fire in February 1857. The property was then bought up by the London Congregational Building Society who built a new church designed by John Tarring.

By 1860, the chapel had bought its own site plus the burial ground to the south. However the site to the north was sold to an unscrupulous businessman, Nathan Jacobson. He bought the land expecting to be able to develop it, but removing coffins and bodies was not a straightforward task and he repeatedly failed to do it in a way that satisfied the law.

Jacobson died in 1881, and while the ownership of the land was disputed it was leased by a fairground operator who moved noisy machinery onto the site in 1887, disrupting services in the Tabernacle, leading to complaints and legal proceedings that continued until about 1890, when the council bought the land, landscaped it and turned it into a public garden with a playground. The burial ground on the south side was treated in the same way at the same time.

Meanwhile, the foundations began to give way in 1889, probably because the many burials inside the building had disturbed the filling to the pond underneath. The chapel was closed, the building was taken down, and the grounds were eventually laid out and opened as a public garden in 1895. The coffins in the crypt – including that of Elizabeth Whitefield, but not the lead coffin of Augustus Toplady – were moved to Chingford Mount Cemetery in north London in 1895.

In those intervening years, while the chapel was closed and being rebuilt services took place in a temporary iron structure until the new building was opened in November 1899 as Whitefield’s Tabernacle or Whitefield’s Central Mission. Toplady Hall, below the church, was named after the Revd Augustus Toplady.

The Revd Silvester Horne, who was the minister from 1903 until his death in 1914, was the father of the broadcaster Kenneth Horne.

The church was used as a hostel during World War II, and a deep level bomb shelter was built in the east section of the old northern burial ground.

The building was totally destroyed on Palm Sunday 25 March 1945 by the last V-2 rocket to fall on London during World War II. The bomb also destroyed the five houses on Tottenham Court Road and the old Chapel Street, but left what is now Caffé Nero relatively intact.

A new church, the Whitefield Memorial Church, designed by EC Butler, was built in 1957 and the grounds became a public thoroughfare.

‘Love London’ … the church adopted a welcome statement in 2022 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The American International Church, an independent congregation within the Thames North Synod of the United Reformed Church, has been at the building since 1972. Its history begins with members of the US military worshipping at the Grosvenor Chapel, close to the US Embassy then on Grosvenor Square, during World War II, with services led by US Navy chaplains.

After the war, the congregation grew with US diplomatic and military personnel and their families still relying on military chaplains. The church became independent of that support in 1969, became the American Church in London and called the Revd William Schotanus as its first minister.

After worshipping in several places, the American Church moved to the Whitefield Memorial Church in 1972, when it was offered by the United Reformed Church. The URC was formed that year from the union of the Congregational Church in England and Wales and the Presbyterian Church of England.

In 1986, the church launched the Soup Kitchen, serving a hot meal to people in need. Still housed in the church, the Soup Kitchen now serves meals six days a week. The community outreach has expanded to include a seasonal night shelter staffed by volunteers from the congregation in partnership with the C4WS Homeless Project.

In the mid-1990s, the American Church formally joined the United Reformed Church, which owns building. The premises also house the London Chinese Lutheran Church.

The congregation has become more international iIn the 21st century, bringing together people from every continent. In 2012, the congregation voted to change its name to the American International Church to reflect the broad range of membership. The church adopted a welcome statement in 2022 and registered for same sex and opposite sex weddings, as a clear sign of inclusion to the LBGTQ+ community.

The north side of the church, looking towards Tottenham Court Road (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The adjoining grounds have recently had a series of interpretive panels designed by Groundwork Camden. They depict scenes in the history of the chapel, Whitefield’s links to Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, and the abolition of slavery as represented by Olaudah Equiano, who was buried there.

Some of the original graves remain on the south side of the church on the west side of Tottenham Court Road. The Fitzrovia Mural towers above the paved open space now known as Whitfield Gardens. This is one of the last undeveloped bomb-sites in central London, and the colourful mural, created in 1980 by Mick Jones and Simon Barber of the Art-Workers Co-Op, is a story worth telling another day.

• The main Sunday service is at 11 am, with Holy Communion on the first Sunday each month, followed by coffee and tea. The Revd Jennifer Mills-Knutsen has been the Senior Minister since 2016. The Revd Jared Jaggers has been the Associate Minister since 2020.

The colourful food stalls in front of the church on Tottenham Court Road (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The URC church in Summertown closed in 2022, ending a tradition dating back almost 180 years

Summertown United Reformed Church on Banbury Road, Oxford, closed in 2022 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

When I saw the Summertown United Reformed Church and Twining House side-by-side on Banbury Road in Oxford last week, I thought one had been the church hall for the other. Instead, I came across the story of Alderman Francis Twining, an enlightened and benevolent grocer and property developer, and the story of the Congregationalists in north Oxford.

Both buildings stand side-by-side among the attractive shops along this stretch of Banbury Road, and provide insights into the ways this suburb of north Oxford developed in the late Victorian and Edwardian years. The church has historic, social, philanthropic and architectural significance in Oxford and has contributed to the character of Summertown. It also has links with Mansfield College, an academic and intellectual centre for Congregationalism and nonconformism in Oxford.

The church was built in 1893 as a Congregational church to meet the needs of a growing community in Summertown and in greater Oxford. It was designed by the Oxford builder Thomas Henry Kingerlee (1843-1929), who designed many prominent buildings in Oxford, including the Rivermead Hospital, Headington Junior School, the original New Theatre, Elliston & Cavell (later Debenhams), the Oxford Marmalade Factory and Twining House.

TH Kingerlee was an active Congregationalist and a deacon in George Street Congregational Church. He was a local magistrate, a Liberal member of Oxford City Council, an Alderman in 1906 and twice Mayor of Oxford, in 1898-1899 and 1911-1912. He stood as the Liberal candidate for MP of Oxford in 1895, but was defeated by the Conservative candidate, Arthur Annesley (1843-1927), 11th Viscount Valentia, who held the seat until 1917. The Kingerlee firm survives today as a fifth generation business, now based in Kidlington.

Kingerlee used similar patterns when he was building Summertown Congregational Church in 1893 and Twining’s grocery shop next door at 294 Banbury Road a decade later in 1902 – now known as Twining House and the offices of the estate agents Breckon and Breckon.

Congregational churches and other nonconformist churches often have two front doors, one for women to enter and one for men. But Kingerlee’s church in Summertown has only one front door to the narthex, with two inner doors then opening to the nave.

The west door is solid timber with ironwork strap hinges that have elaborate curled elements. Inside, the craft work in the church is of the highest quality, typical of Kingerlee’s work. The main lobby or narthex has encaustic geometrical tiles, and the interior details include the hammerbeam roof, the floorboards and the pews, complete with original name card holders and cast iron umbrella holders. The organ dates from ca 1899.

The church has no aisles, columns or side chapels, and there is no decoration, reflecting the Puritan roots of nonconformists. The church was extended with the addition of meeting rooms in 1910.

The story of the growth and development of Congregationalism in Oxford, from the Puritans of the mid-17th century up to the early 21st century, is told by Michael Hopkins in his MPhil thesis at the University of Birmingham in 2010, including the story of the New Road Meeting House, the Congregational Churches on George Street and in Summertown, Mansfield College and other suburban and village chapels.

The modern Congregationalist movement in Oxford began with a secession from New Road Baptist chapel. A breakaway group of 12 New Road members was meeting in the house of William Cousins, coachmaker, in High Street in 1830, and later in the home of Samuel Collingwood, printer to the university, in St Giles’s Street.

Both men accepted the baptism of children, as did most of the 28 New Road members who had seceded by 1836. The new group’s stated aim was ‘to supply the lamentable deficiency of places of worship where evangelical truth was preached’. The first Congregational chapel in 1832 in George Street was a brick building in Anglo-Norman style, designed by J Greenshields of Oxford. It could seat 500 people, and this number had increased to over 700 by 1851.

The new society grew rapidly: there were 70 members in 1837, 143 in 1841 as well as a large Sunday school, and there were congregations of over 250 at times in 1851.

The Revd David Martin was the pastor for over 20 years (1858-1879), but after his time numbers began to fall decreased, and the church's decline was hastened by vacancies in the pastorate, rapid turnover of ministers, difficulties in raising money for the minister's stipend, and the gradual depopulation of the city centre which began in the 1880s. Members lived at rather greater distances from each other than those in Summertown and formed a less close community.

The opening of Mansfield College in 1889 provided Congregationalists in the university with a chapel of their own, but a few academics, including the lexicographer Sir James Murray (1837-1915), attended the George Street chapel.

Despite a continued decline in numbers, a site for a new church in St Giles’s Street was bought in 1900, but the proposal was abandoned in 1910. By 1930, congregations averaged only about 50, the congregation disbanded in 1933 and the church was closed and was sold to the city council.

Summertown Congregational Church was built in 1893 and opened in 1894 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

As for the church on Banbury Road, Congregationalist services started in Summertown in 1838, partly to counter the growing influence of the Tractarian or Oxford Movement. A house was registered for worship in 1840, and 22 members left the George Street church in 1843 to form a new congregation in Summertown. A chapel in Middle Way was opened in 1844 with HB Bulteel among the preachers at the opening service. The new church, which served a poor area that was still a village, depended greatly on the support of prominent families such as the Lindseys and the Pharaohs, but poverty meant there were long gaps in the appointments of pastors.

A Methodist local preacher JM Crapper acted as minister in 1850-1851. The chapel was almost full in 1851, with average congregations of 160 in the morning and 190 in the evening. Methodist Free Church ministers helped at Summertown between 1867 and 1873, and from the late 1880s the pulpit was often supplied by students from Mansfield College.

Although the congregation had long been without a minister, a new and larger church was built on the Banbury Road in 1893. The foundation stone of the new building was laid on 13 June 1893 by William Crosfield, MP for Lincoln. The new church opened on 25 January 1894. The service was unusual in that it included the ordination of the new pastor named Eason, who had come from Ireland to study at Mansfield College, before being ordained as pastor at Summertown.

Eason resigned at the end of 1901 following a call from a church in Derry. By then, membership was 44 and Sunday congregations averaged 200.

Special services to attract the many newcomers to the neighbourhood helped to raise membership from 58 in 1897 to 81 in 1901. Between the World War I and World War II, a number of professional people joined the congregation, which until then had been largely working-class.

A manse was bought on 6 Beechcroft Road in 1922, and later manses were at 226 Banbury Road, 42 Lonsdale Road and then 100 Victoria Road.

When the church on George Street closed in 1933, a small number of members moved to the church in Summertown. The Revd Henry Roberts Moxley of Summertown was a member of the founding committee of Oxfam in 1942.

A prominent member from the 1950s was the theologian the Revd Dr John Marsh (1904-1994), Principal of Mansfield College (1953-1970), the Congregational representative on the World Council of Churches, and later President of the Faith and Order Committee, and author of the Pelican Commentary on Saint John’s Gospel (1968). Other members at that time included the New Testament scholar Charles Harold (CH) Dodd (1884-1971), who had retired as Norris–Hulse Professor of Divinity in Cambridge in 1949.

After the Congregational Church on Cowley Road closed in 1962, Summertown’s place as the main Congregational church in Oxford was undisputed.

The ecumenical advances at Summertown and Blackbird Leys were well ahead of their time, driven by Congregationalists. But Hopkins had found that while the witness of the Congregational tradition in Oxford was strong, those efforts were divided in the face of unrecognised opportunities. Without the university or Mansfield College things would have been very different, Hopkins argues. But Summertown, in stark contrast to the other Congregational churches, developed a new model of church that was a success before the United Reformed Church was formed in 1972.

The Summertown Church Partnership was formed in 1982 after 18 months work, involving the Anglican parishes of Saint Michael’s Summertown and Saint Peter’s Wolvercote, now working as a team, and Summertown United Reformed Church, formalising their long commitment to shared outreach and church life. The Revd Ruth Whitehead became Summertown’s first female minister in 1997.

Summertown United Reformed Church closed for worship in 2022 after a continuing presence in that part of Oxford stretching back 179 years. It is still used by local arts groups. The Wessex Synod Trust of the URC owns the building and continues to hire out the premises to community groups, but now intends to sell it. A group of users have come together as Summertown Arts Community (SAC) to raise money to buy the building, and has until 28 July to buy the premises.

The active churches of the United Reformed Church in Oxford today include Saint Columba’s Church on Alfred Street, off the High Street.

Summertown Arts Community has until 28 July to buy the former church on Banbury Road (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Twining House on Banbury Road recalls the grocer who developed the suburbs of north Oxford

Twining House at 294 Banbury Road, Oxford, built by TH Kingerlee for Francis Twining in 1909 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I stayed overnight in Oxford at the end of last week in the Summertown area at the north end of Banbury Road. This is a major road leading north out of the city centre, running from Saint Giles at the south end, through the leafy suburbs of North Oxford and Summertown. Woodstock Road runs parallel to and to the west of Banbury Road.

Summertown is home to several independent schools and some of the most expensive houses in Oxford. In the past, the residents of Summertown have included Iris Murdoch and John Bayley. Summertown is also home to much of Oxford’s broadcast media, including the BBC Oxford studios on Banbury Road.

Most of North Oxford came into being the university decided in 1877 to allow college fellows to marry and live in private houses rather living in college rooms in college, and large houses were built on Banbury Road and Woodstock Road on land that once belonged to Saint John’s College.

I had stayed before at the south end of Banbury Road, when I was a guest in Wycliffe Hall. But this was my second time to stay at this end of Banbury Road in Summertown: we stayed there overnight after I was discharged from the John Radcliffe Hospital following a stroke in 2022; and I was back there again last week, three years later, for yet another medical procedure.

This stretch of Banbury Road in Summertown is known for its shops, from boutique book shops and niche stationery shops to bakeries, cafés and estate agents, as well as branches of Marks and Spencer, Tesco and Sainsbury.

Breckon and Breckon must have the most attractive premises for any estate agents in Summertown. But their premises, Twining House, was also one of the earliest grocer’s shop on Banbury Road.

When I saw Twining House and the former United Reformed Church side-by-side on Banbury Road last week, I thought one had been the church hall for the other. But, instead, I found they told the story of Alderman Francis Twining, an enlightened and benevolent philanthropist and entrepreneur who had risen from began life as an impoverished child, became a grocer’s boy at a young age and rose to being the Mayor of Oxford and one of the main property developers in late Victorian and Edwardian north Oxford.

The builder Thomas Henry Kingerlee (1843-1929), who designed Summertown Congregational Church, was a Liberal city councillor and he too was the Mayor of Oxford, in 1898-1899 and 1911-1912.

Kingerlee built a number of prominent buildings in Oxford, including the Rivermead Hospital, Headington Junior School, the original New Theatre, Elliston & Cavell (later Debenhams) and the Oxford Marmalade Factory. He used patterns similar to Summertown Congregational Church a decade later when he built the grocery shop for Twining in 1902 next door at 294 Banbury Road, now known as Twining House.

Francis Twining (1848-1929) was born in Thompson Buildings, St Aldate’s, Oxford, and was baptised in Saint Aldate’s Church on 7 May 1848. His mother, Mary Ann, was born in Evesham, Worcestershire, in 1811; his father Robert Twining was a stonemason and was distantly related to the Twining’s Tea family. The Twining family originated in Gloucestershire, where they were weavers and fulling millers. Recession drove the family to London in 1684, bringing with them nine-year-old Thomas Twining, later the founder of the tea business.

Francis was only nine when his father Robert Twining, who was working on Addington Church, was killed in an accident near Winslow railway station while trying to catch the last train back to Oxford on 30 January 1858. Soon after, the young Francis Twining began working as a grocer’s boy for Grimbly Hughes at 55-56 Cornmarket.

By the age of 22, Francis Twining was a grocer’s assistant and living in Victor Street, Jericho, when he married Elizabeth Ann Smith (26) in the newly-oepned Saint Barnabas Church, Jericho, in 1870. Two years later, in 1872, they were living over his own grocer’s shop at 23 Saint Ebbe’s Street.

When a vacancy arose in the West Ward of the city in 1879, Twining was the only candidate and was elected to the council; he was still in his 20s. Although he was not a freeman, he was elected Sheriff of Oxford in 1885.

Around this time, he moved to Llantrisant House at 78 Kingston Road, near the corner of St Margaret’s Road. By 1890, he had moved into a new home, Summertown House on the Banbury Road, and this was his address when he was elected as a Liberal member of the town council.

Twining bought 25 acres at Hawkswell Farm in 1895, and combined this with 25 acres at Stone’s Estate for a major housing development in North Oxford, building 350 houses in all. He also laid out Portland, Lonsdale, King’s Cross, Victoria, Hamilton and Lucerne Roads in 1901. He also bought the White Hart Hotel at Cornmarket in 1899.

Meanwhile, Twining donated the site for Summertown Congregational Church – later the United Reformed Church – that was built on this stretch of the Banbury Road in 1893. He lived in Summertown House, a 15-roomed mansion at the junction of Apsley Road and Banbury Road. He opened the Summertown branch of his grocery chain in 1902, and at one time he had six shops throughout Oxford.

Twining’s new purpose-built branch at 294 Banbury Road, Summertown, opened in 1902. But later that year, he handed over his wholesale and retail grocery businesses to three of his sons. By 1915, there were six Twining Brothers branches throughout Oxford: the original shop at 23-24 St Ebbe’s Street, 53 Cornmarket Street, 16 North Parade Avenue, 46 High Street, 56 St Aldate’s Street and 294 Banbury Road.

Twining was a member of the city council in Oxford for 50 years, first as a councillor and then as an alderman, and in 1905 he was elected Mayor of Oxford for 1905-1906. As Mayor, he welcomed the Chinese Imperial Commissioners to Oxford in 1906.

Twining donated the site for Saint Michael and All Angels, a new Church of England parish church for Summertown, in 1909.

During World War I, his youngest son, Sidney Twining, died of his wounds in Thessaloniki on 27 February 1917. After the war, Alderman Twining gave £500 to buy the site of the Summertown War Memorial in 1919.

Elizabeth Twining was 84 when she died at Summertown in 1927; Francis Twining was 81 when died at Summertown House in 1929; they are buried at Wolvercote Cemetery.

His sons Ernest, Gilbert, and Francis Twining, continued to run Twining Bros. There were still six Twining’s shops in 1935, but some were in larger premises: 15-19 George Street, 164 Cowley Road, 15 North Parade Avenue, 83-84 High Street, 294 Banbury Road and 3 Woodstock Road. All of these except the High Street branch were still open in 1955.

By 1971, the shop on Banbury Road had become Moore’s wineshop, and by 1976 the only Twining’s branches that survived in Oxford were at North Parade Avenue and Woodstock Road.

Summertown House was sold at auction in 1939, and is now graduate housing known as Mansion House, with three blocks of graduate flats in the grounds.

Oxford city council decided to rename George Street in Summertown as Twining Street in 1955. But 62 residents signed a petition, saying they did not want to live on a street named after a grocer. What must those (presumably) Tory voters have thought in the decades that followed when Ted ‘Grocer’ Heath and the grocer’s daughter Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister? Instead, the street was named Middle Way. But the name of Francis Twining is still celebrated in Twining House and the offices of Breckon and Breckon.

As for the church next door, that is a story for another day, I hope. [see here]

The façade of Twining House retains the symbols of Twining’s once prosperous grocery business (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

A visit to Newport Pagnell to find more buildings associated with the work of Edward Swinfen Harris

The legacy of Edward Swinfen Harris in Newport Pagnell includes the former Bassett’s Bank, now the Post Office (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

Edward Swinfen Harris (1841-1924), the Stony Stratford-born architect who died 100 years ago last year, on 28 May 2024, remains a towering figure striding across the landscape of the neighbouring counties of Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire.

I spoke about his life work earlier this year in Stony Stratford library (24 February), and there are invitations later this year to speak about his work in the Swinfen Harris Hall in Stony Stratford (19 September) as part of the programme for Heritage Open Days, England’s largest festival of history and culture, and in the library in Buckingham with the University of the Third Age Architecture Group (11 September).

Edward Swinfen Harris worked mainly in the Arts and Crafts style, and his works include vicarages, houses, schools, church alterations and additions, church halls, almshouses, lynch gates and memorial crosses in the London Road cemetery. He seems to have been particularly adept at receiving commissions from local GPs, and his work can be seen in Stony Stratford, Bletchley, Buckingham, Calverton, Great Linford, Maids Morton, Newport Pagnell, Roade and Wolverton.

His legacy in Newport Pagnell includes: Lovat Bank on Silver Street (1876-1877), designed for FJ Taylor of Taylor’s Prepared Mustard fame; probably Lovat Lodge, beside Lovat Bank; his alterations to Tickford Abbey in the late 19th century; and the former Bassett’s Bank, now the Post Office on High Street.

I went to see both Tickford Abbey and the former bank when I was in Newport Pagnell at the end of last week.

Edward Swinfen Harris designed the Post Office in 1870-1872 for Bassett’s Bank (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Swinfen Harris designed the Post Office, built in 1870-1872 for Bassett Son & Harris, or Bassett’s Bank, the oldest banking institution in Buckinghamshire. The Bassett family were Quakers originally from Leighton Buzzard. Barclay’s, another bank founded by a Quaker family, had been Bassett’s London agents from the beginning.

The two-storey former bank has a symmetrical design in the Gothic Revival Style, and it is built of brick with polychrome brick and stone dressings, a stone plinth and quatrefoil openings. The pitched slated roof has lateral and axial chimney stacks with dentil bands. The entrances in end bays each has a stone doorcase of paired colonettes, with deeply carved capitals, supporting a gable with fleur-de-lis finial and an inset pointed arch with trefoil a motif.

The other features include wooden doors with herringbone panelling, round-arched ground floor sashes, with carved capitals supporting gauged polychrome brick heads, shallow brick pointed arch arcading with stone impost bands and gauged brick arches with stone hoodmoulds and ballflower springers and rectangular stone plaques with quatrefoil ventilation openings set in spandrels.

A continuous stone sill band has strips of white brick between windows. The central window has a two-stage head and a shaped stone hood, dated 1870, with a fleur-de-lis finial and ballflower corbels. There is a stepped brick cornice with stone gabled stops and a moulded parapet.

Barclay’s Bank took over Bassett’s Bank in 1896, and later new modern Barclays was built further down the High Street during the 1990s at the Market Hill. Meanwhile, the interior of the buikding designed by Swinfen Harris had been altered to suit modern banking and post office needs.

The Queen Anne frontage of No 60 is deceiving as the interior details indicate a much older property (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Further west along the High Street, Nos 60, 66 and 68 High Street form an architecturally interesting group of buildings.

No 60 High Street is an excellent example of an early 18th century town house. The Queen Anne frontage is deceiving, however, as the interior details indicate a much older property.

For most of the 20th century, this was the home of the Newport Pagnell Urban District Council.

This red-brick three-storey house with a hipped tile roof has a beautiful wooden doorcase with a fanlight above and two reeded Ionic pilasters, a stone plinth, bands and quoins, and a plaster coved cornice. There is an entablature with a pulvinated frieze and dentilled pediment.

No 68 High Street was once a 16th century dwelling house (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

A few doors down, on the same side of the street, No 68 is the offices of the Nationwide Building Society. It was once a 16th century dwelling house, although the timbers are about the only original building material remaining.

Brewery House is a Queen Anne red-brick house with a shell porch and doorcase (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Brewery House at 84 High Street is a Queen Anne red-brick period house with a shell porch and doorcase, and was carefully restored and renovated recently. It is a three-storey early 18th century house. The central panelled door has a fanlight, with a rusticated surround and a shell hood on consoles. The interior retains some attractive period features, including 18th century panelling and early 19th chimneypieces.

The house was home to the owners of the brewery that once stood beside it. The brewery buildings were used by Cooper’s the agricultural engineers, for more than half a century. They were demolished in 1990 and replaced by the present Boots Pharmacy and medical centre.

No 38 High Street is an early 17th century half-timbered house built of timber frame and plaster (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Walking along the High Street in Newport Pagnell, I had to look again at some of the many other interesting buildings along the street. No 38 High Street is an early 17th century half-timbered house built of timber frame and plaster.

Now a shop, this building is a three-storey house with an attic on a prominent site. The old timber framing was covered for many years by heavy rendering, but this is exposed once again, and the interior also has a fine early l7th century staircase .

I also peeped through the archway that leads to the United Reformed Church. The church dates back to 1659 and was built by independents or nonconformists on the site of an ancient meeting barn after the Revd John Gibbs, who had been the Vicar of Newport Pagnell until 1659, had been ejected for not administering the Sacrament to a notorious local drunk.

In time, the Independents grew in numbers and eventually built their own new chapel. The former Congregational church is now part of the United Reformed Church.

An archway leads to the United Reformed Church in Newport Pagnell (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Newport Pagnell Town Clock on the High Street commemorates the bicentenary in 2010 of the rebuilding of the town’s bridges in 1810.

The ornamental centre pillar and railings reflect the design of the Tickford Iron Bridge, the oldest cast iron bridge in the world remaining in everyday vehicular use.

Close to Tickford Bridge, Queen Annes Almshouses on Saint John’s Street were originally founded in 1287 as Saint John’s Hospital. It was rebuilt in 1891 to designs by Ernest Taylor a former assistant of Edward Swinfen Harris. Taylor also designed the reredos in Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church.

But more about these almshouses and this link with Swinfen Harris on another evening, hopefully.

The Newport Pagnell Town Clock on the High Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Church of the Servant King, Furzton, is part of an ecumenical partnership in Milton Keynes

The Church of the Servant King at Dulverton Drive, in Furzton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I spent part of today [12 March 2025] at a meeting of clergy in the Milton Keynes area at the Church of the Servant King at Dulverton Drive, in Furzton, in south-west Milton Keynes.

The Church of the Servant King is an ecumenical church in Furzton. The church forms part of the Watling Valley Ecumenical Partnership, a Local Ecumenical Partnership (LEP) that belongs to the Church of England, the Baptist Union, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church.

The Watling Valley is a large area on the west side of Milton Keynes. This area is covered by one Anglican parish. The other churches in the Watling Valley Ecumenical Partnership are: All Saints’ Church, Loughton; Saint Mary’s Church, Shenley; Holy Cross Church, Two Mile Ash; and Saint Giles’ Church, Tattenhoe.

Inside the Church of the Servant King in Furzton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The congregation in Furzton started meeting in a community house in the area, led by a Church Army sister. As numbers grew, they moved first to the Meeting Place in South Furzton, and then to Coldharbour School.

The present church building has been in use since June 1992, and was opened officially in September 1992. The building, on Dulverton Drive, is shared with the Ridgeway Community Centre.

The church is used throughout the week for groups catering to all ages, including the Furzton Tots Preschool, Beavers, Cubs, Scouts and Brownies, fitness groups, a 50+ Club every Tuesday afternoon, choir practices and a theological reading group.

The Church of the Servant King in Furzton opened in 1992 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Furzton is in south-west Milton Keynes, in the civil parish of Shenley Brook End, just north of Bletchley, and roughly 3.2 km (2 miles) south of Central Milton Keynes.

The housing in South Furzton was built in the early to mid-1980s, with the Parkside and Favell Drive housing to the east coming first. Development then moved west along Blackmoor Gate. The shops were built after 1984 – before then, the nearest local shops were at Melrose Avenue, in Bletchley.

Before North Furzton was built, the land on the north side of the brook in the linear park was farmland, and the residents of South Furzton had only a short walk to reach open countryside. When plans were announced for North Furzton, particularly the extension of Dulverton Drive to form the link between the two sides, residents’ meetings were called to protest at what residents expected would be a significant increase in traffic.

Most of the South Furzton housing was complete when the construction of the lake started. North Furzton housing and shops were built between 1990 and 2004.

Because of its clay soils and relatively flat topography, the designers of Milton Keynes had to make provision for flood control. A key element of this strategy is to restrain floodwater from reaching the River Great Ouse lest it create problems for downstream settlements, using balancing lakes and managed flood plains.

Loughton Brook rises in Whaddon, beyond Tattenhoe, and joins the Ouse at New Bradwell. It is usually a very minor tributary, little more than a metre wide at that point. It has quite a large catchment area, added to by the hard surfaces of the surrounding developments.

Furzton Lake was built in the 1980s, and with an area of 28 ha (70 acres), is the first major balancing lake Loughton Brook encounters. The flood plain of the brook forms a linear park about 200 metres wide that runs through the district west to east. The lake and its surroundings provide an important local leisure facility.

The Church of the Servant King in Furzton is part of the Watling Valley Ecumenical Partnership (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Meanwhile, after many years of heavy use, the church and community centre are showing signs of wear and tear and a £130,000 refurbishment project involves improving the facilities.

The work is being carried out as the funding comes in, and the future plans include a community coffee shop.

The Sunday services are relaxed and welcome people of all ages: 10.30 am Morning Service includes Holy Communion on the second and fourth Sundays, and ‘All Ages Together’, an informal service for all ages, on first Sunday.

The Church of the Servant King in Furzton is used throughout the week by a variety of groups (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)

A day to learn about the story of Westminster College, the college chapel, and the work of the Woolf Institute

Celebrations and pre-Christmas drinks with the IOCS at Westminster College, Cambridge, last weekend (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

It was a true joy and pleasure to be back in Cambridge last weekend and to take part in the celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies. The celebrations provided a delightful opportunity for about 70 people to celebrate and reflect on the work of IOCS over the past quarter of a century in promoting a ‘Generous Orthodoxy’.

I had been a student on the summer courses IOCS offered at Sidney Sussex College over many years (2008-2026), and this was an opportunity to renew old friendships and to make new friends.

I was my third time back in Cambridge this year. But Saturday – as well as being a day of celebrations and reflections – was also a day for prayer and worship, and it was my first time to visit Westminster College and its chapel, to visit the Woolf Institute and to learn about its work.

Westminster College on Madingley Road, Cambridge, is the theological college of the United Reformed Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Westminster College on Madingley Road, Cambridge, is the theological college of the United Reformed Church, training people for ordained ministry and also providing wider theological training in the URC.

The college was founded in London in 1844, after the synod of the newly-formed Presbyterian Church in England in 1842 decided to set up ‘as speedily as possible’ a college that would provide men with ‘a literary, philosophical and theological education, to qualify them for the office of Holy Ministry in the Presbyterian Church.’

The new English Presbyterian College was formed at Exeter Hall on the Strand in 1844. The Revd Dr Peter Lorimer (1812-1879) was appointed the first principal in 1845 and was also Professor of Hebrew and Biblical Criticism, teaching Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Syriac and Chaldee, as well as exegetical theology.

The college then had three successive homes in Bloomsbury: 51 Great Ormond Street, (1852-1858), 29 Queen Square (1858-1864) and Queen Square House, Queen Square (1864-1899). It was involved in the proposals in 1890 for a new federal University of Westminster, involving most of London’s higher-education institutions. When these proposals failed, the college moved to Cambridge in 1899 as Westminster College.

The portraits of Agnes Smith Lewis (left) and Margaret Dunlop Gibson in the Dining Hall in Westminster College (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The site near the centre of Cambridge was bought from Saint John’s College, and was the gift of Scottish twin sisters Agnes Smith Lewis (1843-1920) and Margaret Dunlop Gibson (1843-1926), both noted biblical scholars, linguists and orientalists. They are known for their study of one of the earliest versions of the earliest Gospel manuscripts, the Syriac Sinaiticus or Codex Sinaiticus Syriacus, discovered in Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai.

The contributions of these sisters to Biblical studies also include the publication of the Codex Climaci Rescriptus, a sixth-century palimpsest that contains portions of the Old Testament and New Testament, and palimpsest manuscripts in Aramaic of the Forty Martyrs of the Sinai Desert and the Story of Eulogios, the Stone Cutter. They edited many other key manuscripts in Syriac and Arabic.

They found many of the manuscripts in the antiquities market in Cairo and acquired them for the library in Westminster College. While Lewis and Gibson were travelling in the Middle East in 1897, they also found and bought some fragments of parchment of the Cairo Genizah. With the support of Solomon Schechter, they made several more trips to the Middle East, locating the majority of the Genizah at the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo. Schechter identified the fragments as part of the Hebrew Wisdom of Sirach.

The story of these women is told by Janet Soskice, Professor Emerita of Philosophical Theology at Cambridge, in her book Sisters of Sinai (2009), and their portraits hang above the High Table in the Dining Hall in Westminster College.

Inside the college chapel in Westminster College, facing the liturgical east (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Following an appeal for funds, particularly among Presbyterians in England, Westminster College commissioned a new building designed in the Arts and Crafts style by Henry Thomas Hare (1860-1921), the architect who also designed Oxford Town Hall (1897), and the college was built in 1897-1899.

The college began to amalgamate with Cheshunt College, Cambridge, in 1967, in advance of the union of the Congregational Church in England and the Presbyterian Church of England to form the United Reformed Church in 1972.

Cheshunt College, the former theological college of the Congregationalists, was founded in 1768 by Selina Countess of Huntingdon after six Anglican students were expelled from St Edmund Hall, Oxford because of their alleged Methodist leanings. It moved to Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, in 1792 and to Cambridge in 1906.

Inside the college chapel in Westminster College, facing the liturgical west (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The college chapel was the gift of Sir William Noble (1863-1935), later Lord Kirkley, and his wife Margaret (née Dixon) to commemorate their son William Black Noble, who died in 1915 during World War I, and was dedicated in 1921. Noble was a shipowner and a partner in Cairns, Noble & Co, who ran the Cairn Line.

The chapel looks more like a traditional Cambridge college chapel than a Presbyterian meeting house. It includes an antechapel with a gallery, a screen with gates leading into the choir, and a raised apse. The communion table is designed for standing rather than sitting, although it is set forward from the wall.

Three of the 11 stained-glass windows in the college chapel by the Scottish artist Douglas Strachan (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The 11 stained-glass windows in the chapel are by the Scottish artist Douglas Strachan (1875-1950). Beginning at the far right as one enters is a series of windows, four from the Old Testament on the right and five from the New Testament on the left. Linking all the windows is the text of the canticle Benedicite opera omnia in the top panels: ‘O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord.’

The sequence begins with Ezekiel’s vision of God on one side of the organ and then Noah sacrificing at an altar after the Flood on the other. In the antechapel is a scene of the Ark of the Covenant in procession and another of Elijah with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel.

The Old and New Testaments are linked by figures over the gallery, Law and Love, before coming to a Nativity scene, the Baptism of Christ, the Temptations, Christ stilling the storm and, finally, Saint John’s vision of the New Jerusalem.

Other symbolism and figures in the chapel includes the signs of the Zodiac, a Bambi-like deer, a robin in the snow and Sir Isaac Newton.

The decoration of the apse was completed in 1929 by W Jowsey, and there is some fine needlework in the hassocks.

An icon of the Samaritan Woman at the Well … a gift from the Fellowship of Saint Alban and Saint Sergius (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

There are two small icons on the screen, a reminder of the role of the college in facilitating ecumenical dialogue involving the Orthodox Church.

An icon of the Samaritan Woman at the Well was a gift from the Fellowship of Saint Alban and Saint Sergius. A small version of Andrei Rublev’s ‘Hospitality of Abraham’ was presented by Bishop Konstantin Tikhvinsky (Goryanov) of Tikhvin, Rector of St Petersburg Theological Academy and Seminary, when he visited Westminster College in 1999.

The war memorial plaques include one with the names of both English and German students who died in World War II.

The Dining Hall in Westminster College … the portraits of Lewis and Gibson hang above the high table (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

To this day, the portraits of Lewis and Gibson hang above the high table in the Dining Hall in Westminster College. But the college sold many of the manuscripts found by Lewis and Gibson to the Green Collection in 2010 and they have since been put on show in the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC.

Three years later, the Cairo Genizah collection was sold by Westminster College for £1.2 million in 2013. The Bodleian Library of the University of Oxford and Cambridge University Library got together to buy the collection.

Westminster College used the money to help finance a refurbishment of the college in 2013-2014.

Preparing for a celebration of the Holy Communion in the chapel in Westminster College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Westminster College is not part of the University of Cambridge officially, but with other courses and institutes, including the IOCS and the Woolf Institute, it forms the Cambridge Theological Federation, which is affiliated with the university. Most students at Westminster College work for either a BA or MA degree from Anglia Ruskin University or a BTh or BA degree from Cambridge University.

The 11 member and associate member houses of the Cambridge Theological Federation are: the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide; the Eastern Region Ministry Course (Anglican); the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion; the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies (Orthodox); the Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology (Roman Catholic); Ridley Hall (Anglican); Wesley House (Methodist); Westcott House (Anglican); Westfield House (Lutheran); Westminster College (Reformed); and the Woolf Institute of Abrahamic Faiths.

Westminster College has been home to both the Woolf Institute and the Faraday Institute since 2017. The Margaret Beaufort Institute has a home at the Woolf Institute since moving in October from Lady Margaret House in Grange Road, the convent of the Canonesses of Saint Augustine.

The Woolf Institute in the grounds of Westminster College is also part of the Cambridge Theological Federation (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The Woolf Institute, where most of our discussions took place on Saturday afternoon, was founded in 1998 by Edward Kessler and Martin Forward to ‘provide an academic framework and space in which people could tackle issues of religious difference constructively.’ It is dedicated to the study of interfaith relations between Jews, Christians and Muslims and aims to foster greater understanding and tolerance.

The institute began as the Centre for Jewish-Christian Relations, and expanded over time to include the Centre for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations and the Centre for Policy and Public Education. The three centres were combined in 2010 and renamed as the Woolf Institute in honour of Lord (Harry) Woolf, a patron of the institute and former Lord Chief Justice.

The Woolf Institute also contributes to the MPhil in Middle East Studies at the University of Cambridge, and offers a doctorate in collaboration with the Cambridge Theological Federation and Anglia Ruskin University.

Edward Kessler, the founder president of the Woolf Institute, is a leading thinker in interfaith relations, primarily Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations, and chairs the Commission on the Integration of Refugees. He is a Fellow of Saint Edmund’s College, Cambridge, and is also a Principal of the Cambridge Theological Federation.

The Woolf Institute, the venue the IOCS seminars on Saturday, was founded in 1998 by Edward Kessler and Martin Forward (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)