Saint Hilda’s Church in Crofton Park is said to be ‘one of the best Edwardian churches in London’

Saint Hilda’s Church in the Crofton Park area of Brockley was designed by FH Greenaway and JE Newberry and built in 1905-1908 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

When I was I Brockley last week, visiting Comerford Road and Saint Mary Magdalen Church, I also visited the neighbouring Church of England parish church, Saint Hilda’s Church in the Crofton Park area of Brockley.

Saint Hilda’s Church was designed by FH Greenaway and JE Newberry and was built in 1905-1908. The Grade II listed church is built of Crowborough brick with Chilmark stone dressings and is seen as a fine example of Arts and Crafts ideas superimposed onto Gothic church design. The church has been listed as an ambitious example of an Arts and Crafts Gothic Edwardian suburban parish church, and as the most notable example of a church by Greenaway and Newberry.

In its listing, English Heritage describes Saint Hilda’s as one of the best Edwardian churches in London, interpreting traditional form and detail in an innovative manner. The architectural historian Gavin Stamp say it is one of two ‘remarkable and inventive buildings’ that distinguish this part of South London, the other being the Horniman Museum in Forest Hill.

The church dedication to Saint Hilda (614-680), the founding Abbess of Whitby in 657, a double monastery of monks and nuns, is unusual. She is depicted in a sculpture at top of the east façade, and inside the church in a stained-glass window, a statue, a banner and hangings.

Saint Hilda’s Church seen from the south-west corner (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Although Saint Hilda’s has been a separate parish since 1900, it is closely linked to over 1,000 years of church history in Lewisham. Saint Mary’s Church, Lewisham, from which Saint Hilda’s parish was formed, dates back to the year 918, when Elfrida, daughter of King Alfred the Great, bequeathed the Manor of Lewisham to the Abbot of Ghent, who may have built the first Saint Mary’s Church in Lewisham.

Originally Lewisham parish shared the same boundaries as the present borough, apart from the ancient parish of Lee, and for many centuries Saint Mary’s was the only church in the area. The 19th century brought many changes, and by the late 1880s the ancient parish of Lewisham was subdivided into 16 separate parishes to meet the needs of the growing population.

Crofton Park is part of Brockley, but it was not until the railway station was built and named Crofton Park that the district became known as Crofton Park. In the early 1890s, the Revd Samuel Bickersteth (1857-1937), who had become Vicar of Lewisham in 1891, embarked on providing the district with a church of its own. Bickersteth later became Vicar of Leeds and then a canon of Canterbury and a chaplain to George V.

With the support of the Morley Trustees, a site was secured to build the Mission Church, followed by a permanent church and a parsonage. Work on building a temporary church began by mid-1899, and it was opened by Bishop Edward Stuart Talbot of Rochester on 22 May 1900. The new parish of Saint Hilda, Crofton Park, was formed on 17 September 1900, with the Revd John Hartforth Jacques as the first vicar.

The Crucifix Gate at Saint Hilda’s Church … one of two ‘remarkable and inventive buildings’ that distinguish its part of South London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Hilda’s was the first of a group of churches built by Greenaway and Newberry for the new Diocese of Southwark and it is probably their most notable church, inspiring the later Saint Martin’s, Dagenham, by Newberry and Fowler and built in 1932.

The church is an example of Arts and Crafts ideas imposed on a Gothic form, and this produces a building that is a rich synthesis of later 19th century secular and church design. Saint Hilda’s was inspired by a wide range of architects and seminal buildings, such as the demolished Saint Agnes, Kennington (1874-1877), designed by GG Scott junior.

FH Greenaway (1869-1935) was articled to Sir Aston Webb, and JE Newberry (1862-1950) to Edward Hide. They went into partnership in 1904, and their work reflects the rich diversity in later 19th century church architecture.

Other early 20th century church works by Greenaway and Newberry include the church hall at Saint Faith, Herne Hill (1907), the enlarged mediaeval church of Saint Nicholas, Plumpstead (1907-1908), All Saints, Hampton (1908), Saint Peter’s, Wimbledon (1911-1912), and Saint John the Baptist, Sutton (1915). After Greenaway retired in 1927, Newberry entered into partnership with CW Fowler and retired in 1946.

Saint Hilda’s was built on a corner site beside the earlier mission church that is now the church hall. The new church was consecrated by Bishop Talbot, by then Bishop of the new Diocese of Southwark, on 3 June 1908. A new vicarage was built in 1911.

The robust tower set on the corner with Brockley Road has an octagonal base designed for an intended turret or spire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Hilda’s is built of brown Crowborough brick with Chilmark stone dressings, it has Welsh slate roofs, while the interior was originally of exposed yellow washed brick with Corsham Bathstone dressings, but has been painted, probably over limewash.

The church has a five-bay nave with broad aisles leading to a long chancel in the High Church manner. The Lady Chapel is in a shallow north transept that opens onto the chancel.

The church has a monumental east end and a tower set on the corner of the site overlooking Brockley Road. The robust square tower with polygonal battered buttress turrets has an octagonal base designed for an intended turret or spire, with flush chequer-work brick and limestone panels and horizontal stone bands.

The south face of the tower has three ground floor windows under recessed brick arches, between brick buttress shafts but linked by a deep stone cill. The lower stage is enriched by flush stone bands. Above is a tall tripartite window. The bell chamber has narrow louvred lights with traceried heads.

The tower was commissioned after a generous donation, but its height was determined by its position on the footings of the already planned south transept.

The figure of Saint Hilda on the east front is by the Scottish sculptor Albert Hemstock Hodge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The east end has battered angle buttresses linked at the head to the main building by a stone saddle. A shallow east window is set high on the elevation between tall, facetted shafts that run the full height of the building. Above it is a carved stone niche containing the figure of Saint Hilda, by the Scottish sculptor Albert Hemstock Hodge (1875-1918), under a gable cross. To each side, and set below the level of the east window, are narrow lancets under ogee stone heads with tall finials.

Under the easternmost window on the south side is an entrance set back under a shallow stone arch. The south-west gable porch fills a full bay and has a pair of doors on the east side.

The nave is strongly horizontal, under deep swept eaves without a clerestorey, which brings the roofline in scale with the neighbouring houses. Three triangular louvred roof lights are set at the junction of the nave and aisles.

The nave has five bays, with large windows each under a broad semicircular brick arch with a narrow tile hood. Each has five lights of panel tracery, in an early 20th century interpretation of a traditional form, with blind panels to each side, all with a continuous stone cill. They are set between battered brick buttresses with stone dressings at cill level.

In contrast to the tall, enriched east face, the west end is relatively sparse with brick battered buttresses with minimal stone dressings. The west window has panel tracery under a slightly pointed arch. The aisle windows are shallow under broad semicircular arches and similar to the nave windows.

Inside Saint Hilda’s Church, facing the Chancel, High Altar and east end (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Inside Saint Hilda’s, the nave arcade has tall simple octagonal arches with chamfers which die into the piers, between narrow shafts that rise to the wall plate.

The aisles are wide and lead to the north transept and the base of the tower to the south. The chancel arch is similarly treated and frames a wide but long chancel that was laid out in Anglo-Catholic tradition, with steps rising to the chancel and again to the sanctuary.

The chancel was enclosed by low stone screens to each side that have since been reduced, and gates that have been removed. There is a crypt beneath the chancel.

The chancel windows are small but have long deep sloping cills, said to reduce glare from the morning sun, and allow for a tall reredos in a timber frame under a shallow canopy and faced with fabric by William Morris, some of which survives.

The chancel floor is of Portland stone and green Westmorland slate; the sanctuary floor and steps are of Sicilian marble and green slate. The oak choir stalls by JE Newberry have carved front panels. The pulpit is also of oak and is set against the north chancel arch.

The font at the west end is octagonal with shafts and standing on a plain octagonal stepped base, and with a plain octagonal honey-coloured alabaster bowl. The nave, aisle and transept floors are of woodblock, parquet and large red tiles.

The stained glass in the chancel is by Henry Holliday. The organ loft is set above the south side of the chancel over a narrow ambulatory, and the organ is in the north transept. The fittings include an oak and aluminium altar cross and candlesticks designed by Newberry, made by the Artificers’ Guild. The nave chairs date from 1910.

Inside Saint Hilda’s Church, facing the font and the west end (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Hilda’s parish suffered many losses during World War II (1939-1945). Both the vicarage and the assistant priest’s house were destroyed in September 1944 and the Parish Hall was badly damaged. The church suffered less severely, the church and parish hall were restored and the vicarage was rebuilt in 1951

The golden jubilee of the church was celebrated in 1958 by placing of the tester over the High Altar, and renewing the hangings and carpeting in the Sanctuary. Since then, coloured hangings that change with the seasons in the Church Calendar have been made to augment the red and gold hangings of 1958.

The crypt, the first part of the church to be built in 1905, housed vestries and a chapel.

The church was refurbished in the 1970s, and the internal brickwork and most of the stonework has been limewashed (1950s) and painted (1970s).

A children’s corner installed in memory of the dead of World War II was removed when parish rooms and a lobby were built inside the church in 1994. However, the statue of the Infant Christ was refurbished and placed in the new entrance lobby.

In the Lady Chapel in the north transept (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

During a serious burglary in 1996, the eagle lectern, statues of Saint Mary and Saint John that were part of the rood beam in the former Saint Cyprian’s Church, one of the large candle sticks before the High Altar and other items were stolen. The processional cross was later found snapped in two and thrown away on the railway bank at Crofton Park station.

A new statue of Saint Hilda was installed in 1998, and a new statue of Saint Mary placed in a shrine in the north aisle was a gift from Our Lady and Saint George Church, Walthamstow. A new banner of Saint Hilda was acquired in 2000.

The church hall beside the church was originally built as a temporary mission church in 1899-1900. It too was designed by JE Newberry in the Arts and Crafts style it is also Grade II listed.

The war memorial in front of the church is in the form of a granite Celtic cross and is inscribed with 141 names of the war dead. It was unveiled on 29 May 1920 by General Sir Ian Hamilton and dedicated by William Hough, Bishop of Woolwich, who had once been in charge of the Corpus Christi College Cambridge Mission on the Old Kent Road and was then Vicar of Lewisham. One woman’s name included in the list is that of Rosabelle Stanley, a nursing sister.

The war memorial in front of the church was unveiled in 1920 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

• Saint Hilda’s is in Diocese of Southwark and the Revd Canon Julian Sampson has been the Parish Priest and Vicar since September 2025. The worship and liturgy in Saint Hilda’s in the modern Catholic tradition of the Church of England. The Sunday Masses are at 8:30 (Said Mass) at 10:15 am (Solemn Mass, followed by refreshments, tea and coffee at 12 noon). During the week, there is a Said Mass at 10 am on Tuesdays and 7 pm on Thursdays.

Saint Hilda and the Northumbrian poet Cædmon depicted in a window in the narrow ambulatory on the south side of the chancel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

At sea in the Aegean 30 years ago, when tensions between Greece and Turkey raised fears of war

Peaceful afternoons on the beach near Rethymnon are seldom interrupted by sonic booms and overflights, unlike 30 years ago (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I have been coming to Greece and to Crete in particular, for almost 40 years, since the 1980s. I remember how I felt at home the very first morning, as I was being taken by coach from Iraklion Airport to Rethymnon. Greece grew on me very quickly, and there were times when I was back and forth to Greece two or three times a year, sometimes for family holidays, sometimes for social visits, and often as a working journalist, covering Greek politics, culture, economic crisises, tensions with Turkey in the Aegean. On other trips, I was visiting monasteries and churches, including Mount Athos and Patmos, or attending lectures and seminars in Athens, Thessaloniki and on the remote and tiny island of Halki off the coast of Rhodes.

One of those busy years was 1996, when I found myself writing about Greek life and politics on a regular basis. I was reminded of this last month when friends posted about the 30th anniversary of the death of Andreas Papanddreou, a towering and heroic modern Greek leader and a key figure in bringing about the collapse of the colonels’ regime in 1974. He died on 23 June 1996, and I wrote his obituary for The Irish Times the next day.

But 1996 was a busy year for me in Greece. I wrote profiles of the new prime minister, Costas Simitis, interviewed the foreign minister, Theodoros Pangalos, followed the tensions in the Aegean over the Turkey’s agressive claims to the islets of Imia, wrote features on the poetry of Yiannis Ritos and CP Cavafy, reported on the growing clamour for the return of the Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum to Athens, and analysed Greek political support for the application by Cyprus for EU membership.

In recent years, I have been returning regularly to Rethymnon and the suburban areas to the east at Platanias and Tsesmes and even further east at Panormos. It is a relatively quiet area for holidays, with the long sandy beches stretching for miles east of Rethymnon. There is a family-friendly and laid-back atmosphere, with few if any signs offering cheap beer to lager louts, as I have seen further east in places such as Hersonissos and Malia.

It is easy to fall asleep in the afternoon at places like Pavlos Beach in Platanias, undisturbed in the sunshine. But it was not always so, and it was not so 30 years ago, back in 1996. Not because of loud lager louts, not because Crete was attracting the wrong sort of tourists, and certainly not because of bad management on anyone’s part. But because of the threat of war.

An afternoon’s snooze on the beach was regularly interrupted in the 1980s and the 1990s by the sonic booms of overflying Greek air force jets, preparing or returning from buzzing their Turkish counterparts over the blue waters of the Aegean and the Mediterranean.

It almost came to a full-scale war between Greece and Turkey 30 years ago, and all because of a dispute over who owned the two tiny uninhabited rocky islets of Imia. I was flown into the middle of it all in 1996, and ended up as a part of a press posse that was threatened with coming under fire from the Turkish navy.

The dispute back in 1996 cost the lives of three crew members of a Greek Navy helicopter who died during a mission, and 30 years later, despite improved relations between Athens and Ankara in the intervening decades, many Greeks have not forgotten this tense time in modern Greek history a generation ago.

The crisis had international leaders scrambling to urge both sides not to come to blows over what was derided as a pile of rocks. But Greece insisted they were ‘Greek rocks’m and Athens refused to back down as Ankara tried to assert Turkish sovereignty. Greeks were reminded all too easily of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus over 20 years earlier on 20 July 1974.

Windmills at the entrance to the harbour in Rhodes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Imia is part of the Dodesanese islands, which are dripping with history and oozing with culture: Kos, where Hippocrates formulated the foundations of modern medicine; Patmos, where Saint John the Divine wrote the Book of Revelation; Kalymnos, Leros and Symi, with their neo-classical mansions; and Rhodes, where the giant Colossos once straddled the harbour of Mandhraki, holding aloft the flame of freedom that inspired the Statue of Liberty.

At the crossroads of three continents, this island chain was once ruled by Alexander the Great and Ptolemy; it has been occupied by the Romans, the Crusaders, the Venetians, the Knights of Saint John, the Turks, the Italians and Nazi Germany. Only with the end of World War II was it finally handed over by Britain and incorporated into the Greek state almost 80 years ago, in 1947.

Today, only 26 of the Dodecanese islands are inhabited: the largest, Rhodes, has about 100,000 people, but most have only a few hundred residents or less, and there are only 79 people left on Pserimos.

The large Turkish minorities in Rhodes and Kos and the mosques and minarets still dotting the skylines of many islands are ever-present reminders that Turkey occupied the Dodecanese for almost 400 years, from 1522 to 1912. Turkey is Greece’s nearest neighbour, and on many islands you can feel it is almost possible to touch the Turkish coast with its harbours and towns, houses and hotels.

On 29 December 1995, Turkey asserted the Imia islets were Turkish territory, registered in the prefecture of Bodrum. The dispute began when a Turkish cargo ship, Figen Akat ran ashore on the islets and had to be salvaged. It turned out that maps of were showing conflicting claims of the islets by Greece and Turkey, and there was a conflict between the Turkish captain and the Greek authorities over who was responsible for the salvage operation.

For more than 60 years, Turkey had accepted the maritime boundaries in the Aegean, defined by treaties and agreements with the Italians in 1923 and 1932, and ratified by the Treaty of Paris in 1947. The boundaries were never challenged by Ankara until that December. But, as Turkey faced a major political crisis with the unexpected electoral success of the Islamic Welfare Party, the Foreign Ministry in Ankara claimed for the first time that Imia was part of the Turkish province of Mugla.

The official response of Greece came on 9 January 1996. The then-Greek Foreign Minister, Theodoros Pangalos, sent a reply to Turkey claiming an indisputable Greek sovereignty over the islets. The dispute was escalated when the Mayor of the Greek island of Kalymnos and a priest landed on the islets on 26 January and raised a Greek flag on the rocky outcrop.

Tensions escalated, and on 27 January Turkish journalists from the daily Hurriyet landed on the largest of the two Imia islets, tore down the blue and white Greek flag and hoisted the red and white star and crescent of Turkey.

Four days later, Turkish troops landed on the smaller rocky outcrop. Tensions heightened as Greek, Turkish and NATO forces sailed to the islets. At dawn on 31 January, a Greek navy helicopter flying over Imia said reported that Turkish troops had landed on the islets. The helicopter then crashed in mysterious circumstances. The crash was blamed on bad weather conditions, but some reports said the weather reports amounted to a mutual cover-up to hide that it was shot down by Turkish fire.

Both Athens and Ankara were accused of concealing what really happened to prevent war. The two countries had been on the brink of war when President Clinton intervened and the Turkish troops withdrew.

The minaret of a mosque in Rhodes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

At the time, I was the Foreign Desk Editor of The Irish Times and I found myself in the middle of this crisis. I flew to Athens to interview the new Greek Prime Minister, Costas Simitis, his Foreign Minister, Theodoros Pangalos, and other cabinet ministers. A few days later I was one among a small group of about two dozen journalists who travelled from Athens and boarded the NV Nissos in Kos Harbour, close to the Plane Tree of Hippocrates and the Mosque of Hatzi Hassan.

At the time, the NV Nissos offered day trips to Turkey on Saturdays and Sundays, leaving Kos at 9 a.m. and returning at 5 p.m. But this was to be no pleasure cruise. We were reminded of an ever-present fear of an invasion from Anatolia, 5 km across the stretch of water. The local people were talking in terms of ‘when the Turks come’, not ‘if’.

With blue skies and blue seas, it could have been an idyllic summer trip. Apart from goat herds and environmentalists, few people ever bothered to visit the more remote rocks off the coast of Kos, Kalymnos, Kalolymnos and Pserimos. The crew took down the sign reading ‘Turkey’ as we sailed off for the islets of Imia or Limnia, two flat pancakes less than two miles from Kalolymnos, almost 2½ miles from the Turkish island of Cavus, and over three miles from the western-most Turkish coast on the peninsula of Bodrum.

The Greek naval frigate HS Limnos, which had taken part in operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, was fresh back from the Adriatic and had offered to take us out to look at the rocks. But before we left, Turkey protested formally and summoned the Greek Ambassador in Ankara, Dimitrios Nezeritis, to warn against the media trip.

It was no idle warning: two days earlier, a Greek coastguard vessel and a Turkish patrol boat had collided in Greek waters, a mile south of Imia.

As we sailed out of Kos, the military tension was palpable and visible. Greek and Turkish jets buzzed overhead sporadically, a Greek coastguard vessel and a navy ship were within sight and, in the distance, we could catch a glimpse of a ship with Turkish naval markings.

Costas Bikas, the Foreign Ministry spokesman from Athens on board the Nissos, insisted there was nothing out of the ordinary about the cruise and that it was none of Ankara’s business. But the Turks made it their business. As the Greek and Turkish jet fighters swooped low over the area, the Turkish foreign ministry took a group of foreign and local journalists out from Bodrum. Once again, there were new Turkish claims to the islets known to the Turks as Kardak – by Defence Minister Oltan Sunguklu and by naval spokesman Ali Kurunahmut, who told cruising journalists: ‘Kardak is a Turkish islet and we are in Turkish waters.’

Trailing both groups were reporters and camera crews from the Greek and Turkish press and television. The crisis had moved from territorial claims and counter claims to cruise and counter cruise for journalists in the Aegean. As Imia faded out of sight, we followed past Pserimos, Kalolymnos, Leros and Kalymnos, through the straits separating Kalymnos and Telendhos, into Pothia, the port harbour of Kalymnos – names that once tripped off the tongues of backpackers in the 1970s.

As we disembarked at the dockside in Pothia, the microphones and cameras crowded into our faces: the foreign media had become the message.

The rocky island of Kalymnos is famous for its traditional sponge fishing; its fame in the past rested on Homer’s reference in the Iliad to the ships from the ‘Kalyndian Islands’ taking part in the Trojan wars. That day, we felt war remained an ever-present threat to the peace of the islanders and their sponge fishers.

The Nissos returned to Kos to prepare for Sunday’s day trippers to Bodrum, and a launch from the Hellenic Coast Guard took us out from the harbour to the navy frigate Limnos, with its crew waiting to take us on to Rhodes. For four hours, we watched the crew tracking Turkish moves in the Aegean sea and skies, before our odyssey came to an end and Rhodes came into sight with its mediaeval castles and palaces, mosques and minarets and three harbours.

Two deer stand at each end of Mandhrki where the Colossos once straddled the entrance to the harbour, with ships passing through its towering legs. A small tug, the Herakles, took us ashore, reminding us of the apt inscription that once graced Colossus, praising the lovely gift of unlettered freedom. ‘For to those who spring from the race of Herakles, dominion is a heritage both on land and sea.’

The crisis was a temporary boost at home to Turkey’s Tansu Ciller as she searched (in vain) for a coalition partner to keep her in power. But it threatened to bring down Costas Simitis, Theodoros Pangalos and their Pasok government in Athens in 1996. Both sides agreed to withdraw their forces from the area around Imia and return to the status quo ante, although Ms Ciller continued to press Turkey’s claims to 3,000 Aegean islands – the sum total of all islands in Greek waters.

After intense pressure from the US, Greek and Turkish government removed their military forces from Imia. The territorial issue has remained unresolved since then. Imia and other islets in the Aegean are considered as ‘grey zones’ of undetermined sovereignty by Turkey.

When I returned to Crete a few weeks later for a family holiday in Piskopiano, my interviews with the Greek media and my appearances on Greek television became a topic of conversation over lunch with Greek friends on the island. Overhead, the sonic booms of fighter jets continued to break the peace of afternoon naps by the pool or on the beach.

When I returned a second time from Greece, The Irish Times published a major feature on my adventures on this day 30 years ago, 6 July 1996. I think the headline ‘Dropping Ankara in Rhodes,’ with its intended pun, was written by the then Design Editor, Andy Barclay.

The casual freedom of land and sea, to hop from one island to the next, is part of the lure of a holiday in the sun in many parts of Greece. But it is a freedom that comes with a price, a freedom that is valued by the local Greeks, and a freedom that is denied 30 years later to many refugees who come in search of it as they make the difficult passage from the coast of Turkey to the islands of the Dodecanese.

Greek and Turkish flags flying on a passenger ferry plying the Aegean between Greek islands and the Turkish coast (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Holy Trinity Church, Oxford, the church on Blackfriars Road lost in 1950s slum clearances

Blackfriars Road, Oxford … Holy Trinity Church was built in 1845 and demolished in 1957 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

As I made my way from the Grandpont area of south Oxford, crossing the River Thames and Gasworks Pipe Bridge to search for the site of the former Greyfriars at Westgate, I could not but notice the ecclesiastical tone to many of the street names between the river and Westgate Oxford: Friars Wharf, Preachers Lane, Blackfriars Road, Trinity Street …

This southern part of Saint Ebbe’s parish was once known as the Friars, recalling the Greyfriars or Franciscans and Blackfriars or Dominicans who settled in Saint Ebbe’s in the early decades of the 13th century.

The two friaries were abolished in the 1530s at the dissolution of the monastic houses during the Tudor Reformation, and most of their buildings were demolished. But their memory lived on in the local placenames such as Greyfriars, Friars Wharf, Preachers Lane, Trinity Street and Blackfriars Road.

That part of Saint Ebbe’s parish changed dramatically in the early decades of the 19th century when the gasworks opened on the north bank of the River Thames in 1818. As the population of Saint Ebbe’s increased, a schoolroom was licensed for services in 1842 and a new parish – Holy Trinity – was formed from the southern part of Saint Ebbe’s parish, with a stipend of £150 provided for the incumbent.

Holy Trinity, Blackfriars Road, Oxford ca 1910 … opened in 1845 and closed in 1954 (Photograph © Oxfordshire History Centre, Oxfordshire County Council)

The new parish church, Holy Trinity Church, was designed in Early English style by the Oxford-based architect Henry Jones Underwood (1804-1852). It was built on the corner of Blackfriars Road and Trinity Street in 1844-1845 and opened in 1845.

Around the same time, a similarly-named Holy Trinity Church was being built in the village of Headington Quarry, Oxford, in 1848-1849. That church was designed by the architect George Gilbert Scott and later became known for its associations with CS Lewis.

Henry Jones Underwood, the architect of Holy Trinity Church, Blackfriars Road, was a brother of the architects Charles Underwood and George Allen Underwood, and spent most of his career in Oxford. He trained in London as a pupil of Henry Hake Seward and then joined the office of Sir Robert Smirke.

Underwood moved to Oxford in 1830 to work on alterations to the Bodleian Library. Much of his subsequent work involved designing churches and educational buildings as the city and the university expanded and the Oxford Movement increased in influence. He designed the library of the Oxford Botanic Garden (1835), and Saint Paul’s Church, Walton Street (1836), the first new parish to be created in Oxford and the first new church to be built in Oxford since the Reformation. Both were built in the Greek Revival style, but Underwood is best known for his work in the Gothic Revival style.

Underwood also designed Saint Mary and Saint Nicholas Church in Littlemore for John Henry Newman in 1835, and it became a model for his other churches. The church was originally built as a chapel of ease to the parish of the University Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, Oxford. Littlemore became its own parish in 1847 and in time the church became a centre of Anglo-Catholicism.

Underwood’s other works in Oxford included Saint John the Baptist Church, Summertown (1831, demolished 1924); buildings for Exeter College on Turl Street and Broad Street (1833-1834); rebuilding Cardinal Wolsey’s Almshouses to make a grander entrance for Pembroke College (1834); and the north aisle of Saint Thomas’s Church (1846). Underwood died by suicide in 1852 at the White Hart Hotel, Bath, and JC Buckler completed his extension to Oxford Prison, now the Malmaison Hotel.

A legacy photograph of the interior of Holy Trinity Church, Blackfriars Road (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Holy Trinity parish was in one of the poorest quarters of Oxford and the church was built from cheap materials. There were two services each Sunday in 1854 and a monthly Communion service. The parish was a densely populated and very poor area to the south of the city centre. Great poverty, many beer shops, Sunday work in the colleges, ‘unbelieving masters’, and people tainted with ‘Calvinism and infidelity’ were blamed for what were regarded at the time as small church attendance figures.

By 1869, there were four Sunday services, with Holy Communion every Sunday and on holy days, and daily Morning and Evening Prayer. At the request of the churchwardens and ‘principal parishioners’ a surpliced choir had been introduced, all indicating the influence of the Tractarian movement and early Anglo-Catholicism.

Daily Morning Prayer was abandoned in 1872, but the number of Easter communicants rose steadily from 135 in 1872 to 199 in 1884. The patronage of Holy Trinity belonged alternately to the Crown and the Bishop of Oxford until 1881, when the Revd Edward Penrose Hathaway (1818-1897) bought the advowson and vested it in the Oxford Churches Trust.

Hathaway was a former barrister and ‘an austere old-fashioned evangelical’ who founded the Oxford Churches Trust in 1864 to appoint evangelical clergy to local parishes and to counter the increasing influence of the Tractarian movement and early Anglo-Catholicism. Through his zeal, he played a central role in establishing a strong evangelical tradition at several Oxford churches, including Saint Ebbe’s, Saint Aldate’s, Saint Clement’s, Holy Trinity, and Saint Peter-le-Bailey, and his trust appointed him the Rector of Saint Ebbe’s from 1868 to 1874.

Hathaway paid £1,000 for the advowson of Holy Trinity in 1881 and this was used to increase the stipend. A further augmentation was made in 1890 to meet the gift of a house for the living. The net income of the benefice in 1898 was £228.

Attendance figures at Holy Trinity remained steady or even increased until World War I, when most of the adult parishioners were either in the army or employed in war work. During World War I, 90 men from the parish died in the war and they were later commemorated on the Holy Trinity War Memorial.

The Oxford Churches Trust, founded by Hathaway in 1864, exchanged the advowson of Holy Trinity with Simeon’s Trustees in 1914 for that of Saint Matthew’s, Grandpont, and Simeon’s Trustees remained patrons of Holy Trinity until Holy Trinity was united with Saint Aldate’s in 1956.

Photographs of Holy Trinity Church, inside and outside, ‘appear to be rarer than rocking horse droppings’

Some of the poorer houses in the area were cleared in the 1930s, but a major redevelopment plan was delayed by World War II.

By 1951, the fabric of Holy Trinity Church was in poor condition. Meanwhile, the population of the area was declining as slum clearance programmes gathered pace. Holy Trinity Church was closed in 1954 and the parish of Holy Trinity was united with Saint Ebbe’s in 1956. The building was deemed unsafe, and with encroaching urban clearance the church was demolished in 1957.

The 1914-1918 war memorial was removed from the church during demolition. It was later discovered in the 1980s resting against a wall in the rear garden of the former Holy Trinity Rectory. The memorial was eventually moved to Saint Aldate’s Parish Centre in Pembroke Street, and was later stored in a wooden case at Saint Ebbe’s Church. The memorial has since been removed from its rotten mounting and is said to be in a poor condition, covered in patina or crust.

Eventually, over 900 properties in the area were demolished, the last – 84 Blackfriars Road – in 1978. Many streets were wiped from the map or renamed. The records of Holy Trinity Church were deposited with the Bodleian Library in 1975 by the then Rector of Saint Aldate’s, and were transferred to Oxfordshire Archives in the 1980s. Further records were deposited in 2019.

No trace remains today of what was perhaps one of the shortest-lived churches in Oxford. One site says photographs of Holy Trinity Church, inside and outside, ‘appear to be rarer than rocking horse droppings’. The name of the church survives in the full name of Saint Ebbe’s Parish, which is formally Saint Ebbe with Holy Trinity and Saint Peter le Bailey, while the names of Friars Wharf, Preachers Lane – once known as Gas Street – Blackfriars Road and Trinity Street are reminders of the ecclesiastical communities that were once part of life the area.

Preachers Lane … a reminder of the ecclesiastical presence in the area in the past (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Matthew’s Church serves a parish in Grandpont south of Folly Bridge and the River Thames in Oxford

The west end of Saint Matthew’s Church, facing onto Marlborough Road, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

When we were in Oxford earlier this week, and as temperatures rose during the day and the heatwave took a grip on the land, I spent part of the day walking by the river and in search of some churches and ecclesiastical sites I had not visited before, including Holy Rood Church near Folly Bridge on the Abingdon Road, and Holy Rood Church, the Roman Catholic parish church of Grandpont, which I was writing about yesterday.

Saint Matthew’s Church on Marlborough Road is the neighbouring Church of England parish church. The Grandpont area was named after the ‘grand pont’ or big bridge, which was more of a causeway with a series of bridges leading to the road to Abingdon. The causeway was first built by the Norman baron Robert d’Oilly, who had been made Governor of Oxford by William the Conqueror.

The low-lying land south of the River Thames at Folly Bridge remained part of Berkshire until it was incorporated into the City of Oxford in 1889. This opened the way for much house building in the area that became known as Grandpont.

It takes no more than half an hour to walk from one end of the parish to the other. It is just over a mile long, has an area of 0.4 sq miles and had 3,154 residents at the 2011 census. The parish begins at Folly Bridge, stretches south down the Abingdon Road, past Salter’s Steamers and the site of the original boatyards, and by Holy Rood Church. Within the bounds of the parish are college playing fields, the Buddhist Vihara house and the former South Oxford Baptist Church, now the home of the Oxford Salvation Army and a South Asian congregation.

Saint Matthew’s Church was designed by the London-based architects JT Christopher and EE White and was consecrated on 21 June 1890 by Bishop William Stubbs (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The streets of Grandpont around Saint Matthew’s form a grid of Victorian and Edwardian terraces, with some student accommodation, and a development of retirement apartments. To the south and west of the parish is the Church of Saint John the Evangelist, New Hinksey, part of the Parish of South Oxford with New Hinksey. Saint John’s is in the Catholic tradition of the Church of England, with episcopal oversight from the Bishop of Ebbsfleet. From time to time, members of Saint Matthew’s have joined Saint John’s for services.

Immediately to the north of the parish, Saint Ebbe’s is a large evangelical church that shares the governance of Saint Ebbe’s Primary School with Saint Matthew’s. To the north and east of the parish, Saint Aldate’s is the large city centre church where Saint Matthew’s has its roots.

Canon Alfred William Millard Christopher (1820-1913), who had been the Rector of Saint Aldate's Church since 1859, raised funds to build a large church on Marlborough Road, one of the principal roads in Grandpont that followed the line of a former spur track from the nearby Great Western Railway.

Thw west door of Saint Matthew’s Church, facing onto Marlborough Road (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

aint Matthew’s Church, Grandpont, was designed in 15th-century Gothic style by the Bloomsbury-based architects JT Christopher and EE White. The partners were John Thomas Christopher (1830-1910), who had worked briefly in the office of William Burges (1821-1881), the architect of Saint Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Cork (1863), and who may have been a younger brother of Canon Christopher; and Eley Emlyn White (1854-1900), who also designed Saint John’s Church, Watford. Whyte’s private life was turbulent: he separated from his wife and shot himself in Kensington in 1900 after shooting a young actress.

Saint Matthew’s Church was consecrated on 21 June 1890 by William Stubbs (1825-1901), Bishop of Oxford and former Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford. The church became independent from Saint Aldate’s in the 1920s, with its patronage going to the Oxford Churches Trust, while the patronage of Saint Aldate’s remained with the Simeon Trustees.

A brass plaque on the south wall is in memory of James Arthur Paintin of Marlborough Road, a steward on the Titanic who drowned when the liner sank in April 1912.

The Rev Wilfred Williamson was the vicar during World War I, when 66 men from Grandpont died in the war. Those 66 men are commemorated on the war memorial, and two of them, William Reginald King and Charles George Tyrrell, both 20, are commemorated in plaques on the north wall of the church.

Land behind the church to the east was leased from Brasenose College in 1921 and a small hall was built on the site. The vicarage was originally in Edith Road but a large house on the Abingdon Road was left to Saint Matthew's by an Oxford bookseller, and it remained the Vicarage until 1979.

The Revd (later Canon) David Keith Stather-Hunt (1896-1979) became Vicar in 1929 and remained until 1975. He had been in the Machine Gun Corps during World War I, and was a chaplain in the Territorial Army throughout World War II.

Saint Matthew’s Church struggled during World War II and in the absence of Stather-Hunt, despite Cecil Pain, a churchwarden and the local undertaker, urging him to return to Saint Matthew’s. After the war, and after a sharp disagreement in the parish in 1949, Saint Matthew's sub-let part of its land to Oxford City Football Club.

‘Lord, teach us to pray’ (Luke 11: 1) … the lettering over the west door of Saint Matthew’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the congregation and Canon Stather-Hunt had aged, and church attendance was in decline. Only 12 parishioners attended his last AGM in February 1975, and at the age of 79 he retired as both Vicar of Saint Matthew’s and prison chaplain in Oxford at Easter 1975, with speculation that Saint Matthew’s would close and become a snooker hall.

Thanks to the efforts of the Revd Keith Weston, Rector of Saint Ebbe’s and Area Dean, the Revd Brian Ringrose became priest-in-charge in September 1975 on his return from mission work in India. When he moved to Scotland in 1979, Saint Matthew’s once again become part of Saint Aldate’s Parish, with the curate of Saint Aldate’s as priest-in-charge of Saint Matthew’s. The Revd John Woolmer, and the curates who followed him, lived at 60 Abingdon Road, and it became ‘the Vicarage’.

John Woolmer was succeeded as priest-in-charge by the Revd David Hawkins, who later became Bishop of Barking (2002-2014). Slowly, Saint Matthew’s began to grow again with the encouragement of Saint Aldate’s Church and the arrival of new, active parishioners.

When the church floor was being replaced in 1982, the congregation of Saint Matthew’s found hospitality for six weeks at Holy Rood Catholic Church on the Abingdon Road, the church I was writing about yesterday.

‘Thy face Lord will I seek’ (Psalm 27: 8) … the lettering over the south door of Saint Matthew’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Rev John Samways became the curate of Saint Aldate’s and priest-in-charge of Saint Matthew’s in 1986, and when the parish again became independent from Saint Aldate’s in 1995, he became the Vicar of Saint Matthew’s.

Brasenose College repossessed the adjacent Oxford City White House football ground in 1992 and began to redevelop the site, including land leased by Saint Matthew’s with the parish hall. At the same time, Saint Matthew’s bought a yard on the north side of the church. The compensation and changes enabled the parish to build Saint Matthew’s Family Centre beside the church, a new vicarage was built on Marlborough Road, and the church was refurbished.

When John Samways moved to Keynsham near Bristol, he was succeeded by the Revd Steve Hellyer as priest-in-charge from 1998 and then as vicar from 2010.

A glimpse inside Saint Matthew’s Church, Oxford, earlier this week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Matthew’s Church today has a similar appearance to when it was built In 1890, The choir vestry has been removed, and the rood screen has been placed at the back of the church. It was decided in recent year to ‘worship in the round’, the pews are no longer fixed, the chairs are movable, and a projector and screen were installed in 2013.

Saint Matthew’s is in the centre of Grandpont, close to the river and city centre, and has an average Sunday attendance of 120, with about one-third living in the parish.

A new council estate was built in the early 1930s, and Stather-Hunt built a wooden church there dedicated to Saint Luke in 1933. That building served the Saint Luke’s end of the parish until it was rebuilt in 2013. The new Saint Luke’s was officially opened by the Bishop of Oxford in 2014. Saint Luke’s Church is about a mile away, in the Cold Harbour area and marks the southern-most point of the parish.

Saint Matthew’s and Saint Luke’s have their own distinct styles. Saint Matthew’s has an ‘Open Evangelical’ tradition, but the spirituality in the congregation includes the contemplative, the charismatic, and people with a passion for social action.

The Revd Dr Jenni Williams, the Vicar of Saint Matthew’s and Saint Luke’s, is a former tutor in Old Testament at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, and the author of several books; the Revd Jon Williams is the associate vicar, the Revd Mike Rayner is the associate minister, and the Revd Rob Rogers and the Revd Bethan Willis are curates.

The staff team includes a families’ worker, youth worker and children’s worker.

• The usual Sunday services in Saint Matthew’s Church are: 10:30: Holy Communion, 6 pm: Evening Prayer (first Sunday); 9:45: Holy Communion, 10:30: Morning Prayer, 6 pm: Evening Prayer (second Sunday); 10:30: Holy Communion, 3 pm: Messy Church, 6 pm: Evening Prayer (third Sunday); 9:45: Holy Communion, 10:30: Morning Prayer, 6 pm: ‘Sustain’ (fourth Sunday); 10:30: Morning Prayer; 6 pm: ‘Sustain’ (fifth Sunday).

The east end Saint Matthew’s Church, Oxford, seen from Hodges Court (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Ten good reasons why I am not going to the pub to watch any World Cup games played in the US

I have decided not watch any of this year’s World Cup matches played in the US

Patrick Comerford

I have spent much of the day in London, meeting a writer fried from New Zealand, and now I’m on my way back to Milton Keynes, hoping to find an appropriate place in Stony Stratford this evening to join friends and neighbours watching the opening match in this year’s World Cup tournament, when the co-hosts Mexico plan South Africa.

Mexico is one of the three host nations, each staging its own opening ceremony ahead of its first match. Canada follows tomorrow night (Friday 12 June 2026), with its first game against Bosnia-Herzegovina in Toronto. The USA hosts the third and last opening ceremony on Saturday (13 June), before facing Paraguay in Los Angeles.

Scotland’s first match is against Haiti in Foxborough, Massachusetts in the far-too early hours of Sunday (2 am, 14 June), and England has to wait almost a week before playing Croatia in Dallas next Wednesday (17 June, 9 pm).

Doubtless, Trump will try to hijack the events, although his appearance at a major basketball game in New York was meet with Booing throughout the stadium – hopefully setting an example of how to welcome him to any World Cup games.

Today’s opening ceremony is in the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City, the first stadium to host matches in three World Cups – it was there Maradona blamed it all on the ‘hand of God’ in 1986 and there Pelé passed to Carlos Alberto in 1970.

The opening ceremony in Canada takes place tomorrow at the BMO Field in Toronto while the opening ceremony for the US tomorrow when the USA and Paraguay play in the SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, which also hosts the opening ceremony for the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.

In addition, two extra ceremonies are planned for 4 July as part of the celebrations marking the 250th anniversary United States during the Last 16 fixtures in Philadelphia and Houston.

I still remember my enthusiasm in my childhood and teenage years for World Cup finals: in 1962, when Brazil beat Czechoslovakia 3-1 in Chile … in 1966, as a schoolboy finding a place in Ballinskelligs, Co Kerry, to watch England win dramatically 4-2 against West Germany in London … in 1970, when Brazil beat Italy 4-1 … And who from Ireland can forget Ireland’s performance in Italia 1990, reaching the quarter final and losing 1-0 to Italy in what every Irish fan still thinks of as a victory for heroes?

But, despite all my enthusiasm, I have decided that I am going to watch televised matches played olny in Mexico and Canada, but I am not going to watch any matches played at venues in the US, even though this means I am going to miss England’s three fixtures in the Group Stage, including the opening game against Croatia in Dallas next Wednesday, and the other games against Ghana in Boston, Panama in New York or New Jersey.

Of course, I never had any notion, ever, of going to the US, or any other World Cup competition for that matter. It has never been my idea of how to spend time or to spend money. But if I was so disposed, I have no doubt I would have been refused a visa. And how could I, in all conscience, feel safe on the streets of any city in the US when even US citizens, never mind foreigners, are not safe from the capricious actions of ICE?

And if, in conscience, I would not be safe and comfortable being in the US for this World Cup, why should I feel comfortable and safe at home, watching it from a distance?

But, while I may continue to watch matches staged in Mexico or Canada, here are ten good (or bad) reasons for not watching any fixtures at venues in the US:

1, Haiti has qualified for the World Cup for the first time in 52 years, and plays against Scotland on late on /early on Sunday Saturday in Boston, in the heart of the exiled Haitian community in Foxborough. The national stadium in Port-au-Prince has been controlled by armed gangs since 2024, so the team played every home qualifier in exile, and clinched a World Cup place with a 2-0 defeat of Nicaragua.

But Trump’s travel ban bars Haitian visitors from entering the US. The players and staff have been given an exemption, but their fans have no such exemption. This can only be put down to racism. During the 2024 election campaign Trump repeated baseless claims that illegal immigrants from Haiti have been eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. During ABC’s presidential debate, he claimed: ‘In Springfield, they are eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats. They’re eating – they are eating the pets of the people that live there.’

2, Iran’s supporters are banned too. Iran’s first game is due to be against New Zealand in Los Angeles on Tuesday (16 June), but there are real fears that the team may never get there. Iran has qualified for the FIFA World Cup last March, but after months of war Iran has had to switch basecamps from Tucson, Arizona, to Tijuana in Mexico. Under the conditions of their visas, they will have to fly in and out of the US on matchday for each of their three group games. It emerged last Saturday that the US had denied visas to members of the team’s backroom staff, with 15 administrative officials denied entry.

Iran’s allocation of fan tickets for the group stage was revoked this week just days before the start of the tournament, and the US has cancelled all tickets that have been sold to Iran’s supporters. Since the US war against Iran began in February, the US military targets have included the Azadi Stadium in Tehran, where the national team trained.

3, Omar Artan, a FIFA-employed referee from Somalia and named as Africa’s best referee last year, was refused entry to the US at Miami International Airport despite having a valid travel visa and was deported to Istanbul.

4, The Iraqi striker Aymen Hussein was held and questioned for almost seven hours at O’Hare airport in Chicago, the team’s official photographer was sent back despite having a valid visa, and team members from Senegal and Uzbekistan were taken aside when they arrived and given full cavity searches.

5, The Swiss midfielder Breel Embolo was denied an entry visa – although Swiss authorities seem to have been successful in appealing against the decision.

6, The South African football team faced a 24-hour delay in their departure over a visa bungle, fans from Senegal and the Ivory Coast face restrictions despite qualifying for the tournament, and 90 per cent of Moroccan fans with tickets have been denied entry.

7, Tickets to the games are costing up to $8,000, wich means these are not fixtures for ordinary football fans. Instead, for whom the ‘beautiful game’ has became an ugly game and a game only for the rich.

8, Fans from 27 of the 48 nations taking part need a US visa, costing between $185 and $435. This represents wages that an average person in many countries in the Global South would take several months to earn. The US has a FIFA Priority Appointment Scheduling System (PASS), supposed to speed up the visa process for fans who have bought tickets through FIFA. But last month, about 150 fans in Ghana had their visa applications rejected.

9, Amnesty International is warning World Cup fans about the dangers involved in travelling to the US. Human Rights Watch has reported how an asylum seeker who attended the Club World Cup final last year in New Jersey with his children was arrested by ICE and deported.

10, FIFA’s president Gianni Infantino had no shame about giving a ‘peace prize’ to Trump, the petulant president who knows how to make demands but not how to keep commitments. When the US was bidding in 2018 to host this World Cup, Donald Trump personally wrote to FIFA promising that ‘all eligible athletes, officials, and fans from all countries around the world would be able to enter the United States without discrimination.’

It all amounts to a complete package of lies, humiliation, discrimination, racism, petty vindictiveness and an apparently planned and co-ordinated effort to humiliate black and Muslim players and team officials. So much for football being the ‘beautiful game’. So much for that FIFA ‘peace prize’ for Trump, who is using this world cup for propagamda in the same way Hitler used the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

These may be small gestures on my part. They may have no impact at all. And I don’t want anyone to interpret them or misrepresent them as anti-American protests. Nor do I want any family members or friends in the US to take offence, to take umbrage. I have had too much of the Trump regime, and I do not want Trump to have one more viewer who adds to his capacity to boast that this year’s World Cup was his World Cup and his success, his triumph.

I have decided not watch any of this year’s World Cup matches played in the US

‘Silence seems to us to to be the worst thing we can do on these issues’

Antifa graffiti in the narrow streets of Rethymnon … the people of Crete have been marking the 85th anniversary of the Battle of Crete and the struggle against fascism (Photographs: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

There have been two important anniversaries over the past week or two: the 85th anniversary of the Battle of Crete in 1941, and the 82nd anniversary of the D-Day landings in 1944.

Both recall the sacrifices made by so many. It is important remember that both the D-Day landings and the Battle of Crete were key landmarks in the struggle against the anti-democratic, far-right racism that had enslaved most of Europe and that by 1944 threatened too to engulf or overwhelm Britain which had not yet been invaded by the forces of fascism.

The D-Day landings marked the beginning of the end of fascism, for that generation. As the far-right tries to stir up hatred against people fleeing in small boats across the Channel, victimising vulnerable people who are seeking sanctuary from oppression, at home, I remind myself that 82 years ago a flotilla of boats in the Channel on D-Day marked the turning of the tide against racism and the far-right across Europe.

But victory is only of the day, at best of the generation. The anti-democratic and racist far-right must be named, shamed, and stopped once again. The collaborators with fascism in Britain in the 1930s, Oswald Moseley and his blackshirt thugs, were humiliated at the Battle of Cable Street 90 years ago in 1936, but they still had to be locked away for the duration of World War II.

Meanwhile, in the small and petty minds of JD Vance and Pete Hegseth, Europe is under siege, civilisation is collapsing, western values are in retreat, migration is threatening social cohesion, and the future of Europe hangs in the balance.

Pete Hegseth, who wants us all to call the US Defence Department the US War Department, tried during the weekend to warp and twist the meaning and significance of the D-Day landings and to hijack the anniversary for his own twisted and warped political agenda.

It is bewildering that this critique of life in Europe is being advanced by senior politicians from the US, where thousands of children die from gun violence every year, where mass shootings have become routine, where political polarisation is actively encouraged by the regime, and where trust in the institutions of democracy and justice continue to vaporise.

Who gave Pete Hegseth or JD Vance the right to lecture anyone or anywhere in Europe about justice, about human rights, about the risks and dangers of war, about core values and social cohesion?

My grandfather fought in the Gallipoli landings during World War I, and was then sent to Thessaloniki and the Balkan front. He caught malaria, was sent home in 1916, and my father was conceived soon after. But the malaria he caught in northern Greece was incurable, and he died a lonely and frightening death on 21 January 1921, soon after my father’s second birthday, leaving my widowed grandmother and four sons and two daughters.

Ireland was neutral during World War II, as were most European countries until they were invaded. But my father spent much of that war in a cavalry intelligence unit in the reserve army (LDF). He would later recall that when German military personnel, Nazi agents or spies were caught in Ireland, they were sent to prison camps where they spent the rest of the war; when his unit met Irish personnel who were in the British or allied forces and who were on leave for family visits, they ensured they had the fare to return to their units or their bases.

It was clear to my father whose side Ireland was neutral in favour of. He later rejoiced in the acclamation for one of his childhood friends, the journalist and writer Cornelius Ryan (1920-1974), known for his award-winning book The Longest Day: 6 June 1944 D-Day (1959), which was turned into the 1962 film The Longest Day. Both men were in their teens when they visited Rome a few years before World War II began and were shocked then by what they saw of fascism in Mussolini’s Italy.

In their own way, men like these passed on to my generation an acute awareness of the horrors and the sacrifices entailed in war, and an appreciation for others in their generation who risked their lives to save European civilisation from fascism and Nazism. In the previous generation, my grandfather had learned and experienced the horrors of war in Turkey and Greece.

The war graves at Suda Bay near Chania … a reminder of the Battle of Crete and the consequences of dangerous ideologies (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In a posting last year I recalled the names of the dead from World War II from the extended Comerford families that I have found recorded on memorials and graves by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The 19 members of this extended family I have found to date on Commonwealth War Graves include soldiers in the D-Day landings, merchant seamen torpedoed in Atlantic convoys, brothers and sisters, and prisoners of war of the Japanese in Borneo, Burma (Myanmar), Hong Kong and Japan.

They are buried or commemorated in the Phaleron War Cemetery near Athens, in Normandy, Hong Kong, Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery and the Rangoon Memorial in Burma (Myanmar), Yokohama War Cemetery in Japan, and the Labuan Memorial on Labuan Island off the coast of Sabah in Borneo, Malaysia.

Thomas Matthew Commerford, a trooper, Royal Armoured Corps, 8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars, was 36 when he died on 19 August 1944 after the Normandy Landings. He is named in Banneville-la-Campagne War Cemetery and left a widow in Sunbury.

In Europe, we do not need lessons on the consequences of dangerous ideologies. An entire generation was buried after World War I, millions more were buried after World War II. The Holocaust was a European experience, not confined or limited to one country. The Cold War was a European experience that lasted for half a century after World War II.

We have cemeteries, war graves and Holocaust memorials across the entire continent because of wars and because of war-mongers and extreme political ideologies. When Pete Hegseth and JD Vance warn Europe about ideological invasions, we know where the threat comes from today.

In Europe at the weekend we were reminded that are now exposed to a dangerous foreign ideology, one obsessed with culture wars, one that sees compromise as weakness, one that turns every disagreement into an existential battle, one that relies on fear and outrage and creates phantom enemies rather than developing political strategies and government programmes to meet the real needs of real people.

And just as Oswald Moseley became the mouthpiece for Hitler and Mussolini on the streets of Britain in the 1930s, Farage and Lowe have become mouthpieces for the Oval Office 90 years later, the hand-picked voices for Elon Muck, stirring up the baying mobs on the streets and in the towns of Britain.

In his weekend rant, Hegseth claimed: ‘Beaches in Spain, Italy, Greece and Bulgaria, boats and men arrive. When will European capitals do something about that invasion, or is it too late? I pray not, and I believe not.’ Who was praying to? What does he truly believe in?

My grandfather suffered on the beaches of Gallipoli and in the Bay of Thessaloniki as a victim of ideological war mongering 110 years ago.

The people of Crete still remember 85 years later the consequences of invasions engineered and directed by far-right regimes.

The threat of invasion across Europe today comes not from the frightened families on small boats crossing the Channel or arriving on beaches in southern Europe, or from huddled families crossing borders in the dead of night. The threat to Europe comes today in social media, cable television, political influencers and visiting politicians and moguls who pretend they are the guardians of western civilisation.

When Vance ignores the wishes of Henry Nowak’s families and lectures people here about protecting children and preserving civilisation, I cannot but realise the irony in all of this considering how thousands of children and teenagers are killed in gun violence in the US every year. When he repeats the prattling of Farage and Lowe about ‘two-tier’ policing, I cannot but realise the irony as I recall how ICE kills protesters on the streets of the US without any consideration of due process or accountability and ponder how a pompous president plots to use public funds to reward the rioters who stormed the Capitol violently on 6 January 2021. One of those rioters, Elias Irizarry, has even been given a key security role in Hegseth’s Pentagon.

Democracy survives not through fear but through restraint, not through outrage but through institutions that guarantee justice, not through cultural wars but through coexistence. My grandfather who landed on the Gallipoli beaches and went on to catch malaria in Thessaloniki, those who died in the trenches of the Somme, the brave but frightened boatloads who crossed the Channel to the beaches of Normandy, those buried in mass graves across Europe, each and very one of them continues to remind the rest of us of what happens when politics becomes a crusade and opponents become enemies.

The Nazi spies my father helped to track down and put away for the duration of World War II in supposedly neutral Ireland were searching for collaborators and potential provocateurs among people whose political heirs and descendants today are in the parties led by Farage and Lowe.

Hegseth’s rambling rant at the weekend in Normandy was described by the historian Simon Schema as a ‘special kind of loathsomeness: a blend of historical deafness, grotesque stupidity and comically ludicrous self-importance. As if the little people’s rage immigration is somehow superior to to the war against the Third Reich and entitles this comic-book nobody to lecture the actual heroes.’ One local resident Colleville-sur-Mer is quoted in The Guardian today as saying: ‘The words must be spoken, he must be called out for who he is, for the values he represents: colonial, warmongering, racist, far-right values. Silence seems to us to be the worst thing we can do on these issues.’

Anti-Nazi graffiti on the streets of Exarchia in Athens … Europe needs no lessons from Washington on the dangers of extreme ideologies and invasions (Photographs: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in the Ordinary Time 2026: 30, Saturday 6 June 2026

‘He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury’ (Mark 12: 41) … the Treasury at Delphi (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and tomorrow is the First Sunday after Trinity (7 June 2026). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Ini Kopuria (1945), Founder of the Melanesian Brotherhood.

Stony Live 2026, Stony Stratford’s Festival of music, dance, recitals, readings and the arts, begins today (6 June 2026) and continues until next Friday (14 June 2026), and today’s events include live music and dance on the streets. Also today, Το Στεκι Μας, Our Place, the pop-up Greek café that opens every first Saturday of the month, is open from 10:30 am and 3 pm. in the Swinfen Harris Church Hall beside the Greek Orthodox Church on London Road, Stony Stratford. Meanwhile, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

‘A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny’ (Mark 12: 42) … small coins for sale in an antique shop in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 12: 38-44 (NRSVA):

38 As he taught, he said, ‘Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the market-places, 39 and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honour at banquets! 40 They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.’

41 He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. 42 A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. 43 Then he called his disciples and said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. 44 For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.’

A two lepta coin issued in Greece in 1857 … the widow’s two lepta were the smallest coins in the Mediterranean world

Today’s reflections:

There is a saying in the US that refers to something as rare or as odd as a $2 bill – although that saying may change if Donald Trump pursues his vanity project of printing $250 dollar notes with his own image on them.

$2 bills or notes actually exist, but their scarcity means many people are not aware they are still being printed and in circulation. This has inspired several urban legends and misinformation about $2 bills and people often find it difficult if not impossible to spend them.

Some shops and businesses are unfamiliar with $2 bills and question their validity or authenticity. Significant numbers of the notes are removed from circulation and collected by people who believe $2 bills are scarcer and more valuable than they actually are.

In the mid-20th century, $2 bills acquired a negative reputation as it was said they were widely used for betting at horse races, tips at strip clubs, and for bribery when politicians were seeking votes. For most of their history, $2 notes have been unpopular, and are seen as unlucky or awkward to spend. $2 notes were often returned to the Treasury with corners torn off, making them mutilated currency and unfit for reissue.

So, during my brief visits to Singapore I was curious to find a $2 note is in common circulation there and the most common small note in general use.

In the Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Mark 12: 38-44), the poor widow at the Treasury in the Temple donates not a $2 dollar bill but two small copper coins, two lepta. Saint Mark’s Gospel says these two small copper coins are worth a κοδράντης (kodrantes), the smallest Roman brass coin, rendered as a penny in the NRSV translations and a farthing in the KJV (Mark 12: 41-44). It was also equal to one-sixty-fourth of a denarius, which was considered a fair day’s wage.

This poor widow arriving at the Treasury in the Temple would have had nothing of her own. All her husband’s (husbands’) wealth has gone to her husband’s (husbands’) family. Without children, she is left with no visible means of support.

All she has are two of the smallest coins known in the Mediterranean basin – two lepta in Greece are worth only two cent. Until recently there were 100 lepta to the drachma, and until the drachma was withdrawn from circulation there were 370 drachmés to the Euro.

At any time in history, the two lepta coins she had were worthless. But they are all she has. She has little to live for, and she has little to live on. Yet all she has to live on she offers to God. Christ-like, she gives up everything.

In the Kingdom of God, there will be neither lost lepta nor squandered zillions, neither high priests nor widows. All that will matter is whether we have lived our lives as lives that point to the Kingdom of God.

The wealth of the Sadducees, like their faith, died at death. The wealth of the woman, like her faith, multiplied beyond calculation in the Kingdom of God.

Generosity, as in this reading, must always be freely given, but should never be sought.

When it is sought, it becomes coercive, and can never be properly measured.

When it is freely given, it can never be measured but always becomes a sign, a real expression not just of the generosity of the giver, but of the faith of the giver. And then, God becomes the true giver, and the true receiver.

$2 bills are the smallest banknotes in general circulation in Singapore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 6 June 2026):

A new edition of Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), was published last week, in time for the USPG conference in the High Leigh, Hertfordshire, which took place from Tuesday to Thursday (2-4 June). The theme this week, from 31 May to 6 June 2026 (pp 6-7), has been ‘Peacebuilding in the Gulf’. This theme was introduced last Sunday with a reflection from Saint Christopher’s Cathedral in Bahrain.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 6 June 2026) invites us to pray:

God of light, may your Church continue to bear witness through prayer, presence, and care, showing that even in danger, hope endures. Help us, too, to be the ‘salt of the earth’ and the ‘light of Christ’ (Matthew 5: 13-14) in our daily lives.

The Collect:

Almighty and everlasting God,
you have given us your servants grace,
by the confession of a true faith,
to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity
and in the power of the divine majesty to worship the Unity:
keep us steadfast in this faith,
that we may evermore be defended from all adversities;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Almighty and eternal God,
you have revealed yourself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
and live and reign in the perfect unity of love:
hold us firm in this faith,
that we may know you in all your ways
and evermore rejoice in your eternal glory,
who are three Persons yet one God,
now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

Holy God,
faithful and unchanging:
enlarge our minds with the knowledge of your truth,
and draw us more deeply into the mystery of your love,
that we may truly worship you,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Collect on the Eve of Trinity I:

O God,
the strength of all those who put their trust in you,
mercifully accept our prayers
and, because through the weakness of our mortal nature
we can do no good thing without you,
grant us the help of your grace,
that in the keeping of your commandments
we may please you both in will and deed;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Old 1, 5 and 10 lepta postage stamps from Greece … the widow’s two lepta were the smallest coins in the Mediterranean world

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