A photograph is my part in a Heritage Open Day library talk next week on Hooke’s church in Willen

The poster for Jacky Scott’s talk on Willen Church in Stony Library next Monday afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

There is something satisfying about one of my photographs being used for a poster for an event next week that brings together church history, local history, architecture and my local library.

Jacky Scott is going to talk to the Friends of Stony Stratford Library (FoSSL) in the library next Monday (14 September 2026) at lunchtime as part of the National Heritage Open Days, and one of my photographs has been used for the poster.

She will be celebrating Saint Mary Magdalene Church, Willen, when she speaks on ‘Robert Hooke and his Willen Church – As if he didn’t have enough to do!’

Jacky Scott is known to many from her time as CEO of The Stables. She is now immersed in the history and potential of her local church, Saint Mary Magdalene in Willen, which was designed by the great scientist Robert Hooke – hence the talk’s title!

The Church of Saint Mary Magdalene, Willen, is the only surviving church designed by Robert Hooke (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Church of Saint Mary Magdalene is the only surviving church among the buildings designed by the scientist, inventor, and architect Robert Hooke (1635-1703). The church is a classic of early English baroque architecture and one of the finest churches in Milton Keynes, in a beautiful setting close to Willen Lake and beside the Hospice in Willen.

Sir Simon Jenkins lists the church as one of the ‘1,000 Best Churches in England.’ It was designated a Grade I listed building in 1966.

Jacky Scott is offering an inquisitive exploration of Robert Hooke’s life and science, and on Monday she will ask whether genius, timing and context may have converged to create Willen church, one of the most significant historic gems in Milton Keynes.

The baroque interior of Saint Mary Magdalene Church, Willen, facing east (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Willen is a small village on the north edge of Milton Keynes, on the west bank of the River Ouze. It appears there was a Romano-British industrial settlement just to the north of the village, near Caldecote Farm. The settlement was abandoned in the late Roman period, and the area seems to have remained largely unsettled until the 11th century.

By 1292, Willen was large enough to have a church served by a vicar.Between 1150 and 1524, the advowson was held by Tickford Priory, near Newport Pagnell. It then formed part of the foundation of Cardinal College, Oxford, and its refoundation as Henry VIII’s College. The advowson reverted to the crown in 1545.

The advowson was granted in 1676 to the Revd Dr Richard Busby (1606-1695), the long-serving headmaster of Westminster School (1638-1695). He bought the manor in 1672, and as lord of the manor oversaw rebuilding the parish church.

When Busby died in 1695, he left the manor and the advowson to the trustees of Dr Richard Busby’s Charity. The trustees were to use the annual income from the manor for the relief and support of poor clergy in Lincolnshire, Oxfordshire, Middlesex, and Buckinghamshire. The Vicar of Willen was to deliver 30 lectures a year by the vicar of Willen in the parish church, and Busby stipulated that the vicar was always to be a student of Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford.

Inside Saint Mary Magdalene Church, facing the west end (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Busby commissioned and paid for building Saint Mary Magdalene Church, designed and built in 1678-1680 by his former pupil, Robert Hooke. The project cost almost £5,000, not including the materials taken from the former church on the site. George Lipscomb observes that ‘with good management the church might have been built for a third part of the money.’

Busby is said to have funded the cost of the church by asking for a silver spoon from each of his pupils. Among his more illustrious pupils were Sir Christopher Wren, Robert South, John Dryden, John Locke, Matthew Prior, Henry Purcell, Thomas Millington, Francis Atterbury and Robert Hooke, who designed the church and supervised its construction.

While Hooke was studying at Christ Church College, Oxford, he worked as an assistant to Robert Boyle. He met Wren at Oxford ca 1655 at a meeting of the club that later formed the core of the Royal Society. He was the Gresham Professor of Geometry, and the secretary and curator of Experiments at the Royal Society.

As the City Surveyor after the Great Fire of London in 1666, Hooke helped Wren rebuild London. Their collaboration included Saint Paul’s Cathedral, where the dome uses a method of construction that Hooke had conceived.

Details in the plaster work on the ceiling of Saint Mary Magdalene Church, Willen (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

When London was being rebuilt after the Great Fire, Hooke proposed redesigning the streets on a grid pattern with wide boulevards and arteries, a pattern later used in the renovation of Paris, Liverpool, and many cities in the US. However, his proposal was thwarted by arguments over property.

Hooke also worked on the design of London’s Monument to the fire, the Royal Greenwich Observatory, Montagu House in Bloomsbury, and the Bethlem Royal Hospital (‘Bedlam’). He was also involved in designing the Pepys Library in Magdalene College, Cambridge, where the diaries of Samuel Pepys offer the most frequently cited eyewitness account of the Great Fire of London.

Other buildings designed by Hooke include the Royal College of Physicians (1679), Ragley Hall, Warwickshire, and Ramsbury Manor, Wiltshire.

Saint Mary Magdalene Church has a three-stage west tower topped with four pineapple finials (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Mary Magdalene is the only known church entirely of Hooke’s design. The building replaced a mediaeval church, and demolition rubble from the old church may be present on the north side of the churchyard. The church is similar in style to several of the 52 churches rebuilt by Wren after the Great Fire of London.

This unique restoration church retains an almost complete interior of 1680. It is a plain structure in the Italian style, built of brick with stone dressings, and it consists of a simple rectangular nave with a chancel, a west tower, and an apse added in 1862.

The church is entered through a three-stage west tower topped with four pineapple finials. It originally had a cupola, but this was removed in 1814. There is a vestry on the north side of the tower, and on the south side is a room erected for a library, chiefly for theology, founded by Busby for the use of the vicar.

The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner notes how the west door, set in a limestone apsidal recess, matches the south doorway by Wren at Saint Mary-le-Bow in London. The oak door is in oak in a classical style, with a gilded beading and fixed tympanum.

The inside two-leaf oak door also dates from 1680. At eye height is a pierced ornamental ironwork panel, in a fretwork style, with a glass panel fitted at a later date.

The original box pews from 1680 … an extremely rare survival in an English church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Inside the church, the original features from 1680 include an elaborate baroque plaster ceiling, box pews, a pulpit and clerk’s desk, and a fine font. The addition of an apse at the east end in 1862 reversed Hooke’s original plan for a simple nave and a decorative tower.

The nave has three bays, and the eastern-most bay is functionally the choir. The trusses and bands of foliate plasterwork create a barrelled and coffered ceiling, and the motifs include gilded foliate bosses, plaster cherubs, gilded scallop shells and open books. The date 1680 also is divided across two gilded shields.

The ornamental baroque font with cherub heads, swags and foliate detail, and a cover with cherub heads and swags of fruits and flowers (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The ornamental baroque font has a white marble bowl on a black marble stem and base, and an oak cover. The marble bowl has cherub heads, swags and foliate detail, the cover has characterful cherub heads and swags of fruits and flowers and is topped by an urn shaped finial. The carved oak cover has been attributed to Bates, one of the carpenters identified in Hooke’s diary as working for him in Willen.

The pulpit against the south wall of the nave, between the choir and nave seating, dates from 1680. It was originally a three-decker pulpit, but alterations mean it has lost its sounding board and the whole structure has been lowered.

The two western-most bays of the nave retain the majority of the 1680 seating, though with some alterations in the form of the pew platforms and the replacement of seat boards. The seats are box pews of oak with scrolly tops to the ends. This largely complete set of seats from the 17th century is an extremely rare survival in an English church.

The small apse was added in 1862 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The small apse was added in 1862, possibly by TH Lewis. It has three slender round-headed windows, in which the glass is plain and leaded. The floor is of diamond set limestone flags with darts of black quarry tiles, probably dating from 1862.

The baroque plaster ceiling in the apse roughly follows the precedent of the coffered ceiling over the nave, although the foliate plaster detail and cherubs are less well executed.

The open framed oak altar has baluster legs and a tacked on moulding. Some sources date the altar to the late 17th century. A small credence table fixed to the north face of the chancel arch may have been made from the sounding board of the pulpit.

The easternmost bay of the nave has fixed collegiate-style stalls from 1680 that were altered ca1862. Two rows of benches on each side of the choir give seating for 20-24 people. The Communion rail may have formed part of a semicircular railed enclosure around the altar and was relocated in 1862 when the apse was formed.

The pulpit dates from 1680 and was originally a three-decker pulpit (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A new organ was installed in 1985. The original organ dated from 1680, and the case and the original low gates were adapted to house the new organ in the 20th century.

A plaque east of the doorway refers to a Benthall family vault. It is unlikely that this is in its original position, but it proves there is burial vault somewhere in the church.

The tower has three bells, each inscribed: ‘Richard Chandler made me 1683’. The ring of three bells was converted from full circle to level chiming in 1991. The bells were hung dead in 2023 and provided with electromagnetic hammers.

Restoration work began in 1956 and continued until 1970. During that time, copper roofs were replaced with lead, electric heating was installed under the pews, and stonework repairs were carried out. The interior was redecorated in 1970 and 1988, the plasterwork was repaired and in 1972 the 19th century stained glass was replaced with clear modern glass.

To the west of the church, a long avenue lined with lime trees leads to the west gate. To the east of the church is the former village school, now a private house, and a small green with the village war memorial and a carriage circle.

The east apse, added to the church in 1862, faces a small green with the village war memorial (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Manor Farm, formerly the manor house, was bought in 1978 to establish a hospice, and Willen Hospice continues there today.

The 18th century vicarage was rebuilt in 1930. It was part of Saint Michael’s Priory when the Society of the Sacred Mission or the ‘Kelham Fathers’ were responsible for the parish from 1974 to 1985.

A new ecumenical lay community, the Well, was established in the priory in 1997 and the SSM brothers moved to a smaller house nearby. The name refers to the story of Christ meeting the Samaritan woman at the well (see John 4: 5-30). The Well ran a conference and retreat centre, and worked with homeless and distressed people.

The SSM priory and the Well merged in 2007, and was known again as Saint Michael’s Priory from 2016. The priory closed in 2019, and the remaining members moved to Saint Antony’s Priory, Durham.

The former village school is now a private house (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today, Saint Mary Magdalene, Willen, is part of the Stantonbury Ecumenical Partnership, involving six churches from four denominations in north-east Milton Keynes: Saint Lawrence, Bradwell; Saint James’s, New Bradwell; Saint Andrew’s, Great Linford; Saint Mary Magdalene, Willen; Cross and Stable Church, Downs Barn; and Christ Church, Stantonbury.

Sunday services at 9:30 are led regularly by the Revd Dr Sam Muthuveloe. Stephen Fletcher and Margaret Moakes are the Licensed Lay Ministers.

Saint Mary Magdalene Church is open for private prayer or quiet reflection on Mondays from 10 am until evening.

The long avenue to the west of the church is lined with lime trees (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Nagasaki cathedral blesses a new bell replacing the bell destroyed 80 years ago by the second atomic bomb

Urakami Cathedral, Nagasaki … the new bell was hung in the north bell tower (left) today, 80 years after the atomic bombing of Nagasaki (Photograph: Yomiuri Shimbun

Patrick Comerford

Eighty years ago this week, the world passed into a terrifying new age. The mushroom clouds that rose above Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945 announced not only that we have the capacity to slaughter each other in staggering numbers, but also that humanity now possesses the means to raze all civilisation as we know it. Yet, despite the defining nature of these bombings, these dreadful events at the end of World War II may feel distant for many eight decades later.

Today, every one of the crew members who carried out the bombings is dead. But many of the survivors, now in their 80s, still live with the physical, psychological and social scars of that dreadful week.

I was involved earlier this week in a number of events marking the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. Two of us attended the annual Hiroshima Day commemorations at the Japanese Peace Pagoda by Willen Lake in Milton Keynes on Wednesday evening. I also recorded reflections and memories of my own activism for events organised by the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship and Christian CND and in Dublin by the Peace and Neutrality Alliance. But I am conscious too that today marks the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki three days later on 9 August 1945.

One of the bell towers at Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki was left empty all those years until a replacement bell was finally installed earlier today. The replacement bell was installed after a successful international effort to fund it raised $125,000 in just over a year from more than 600 donors.

The atomic bomb at Nagasaki killed 70,000 people instantly, while many thousands more continued to die for months and years afterwards from the effects of burns, radiation sickness and other injuries compounded by illness and malnutrition. The bomb fell near the cathedral, where killed g two priests and 24 people inside among the more than 70,000 dead in the city. Nagasaki Peace Park, which marks the centre of the explosion, includes a section of wall from the destroyed cathedral.

Following the bombing of Nagasaki, the parishioners at Urakami Cathedral managed to dig up one of the original bells at the site of the destroyed cathedral, and that bell was installed in the right-hand bell tower of the new cathedral when it was rebuilt in 1959. The other bell was destroyed and the second bell tower of the rebuilt cathedral has remained empty for decades.

The funding initiative for the replacement bell was launched by James Nolan, a professor of sociology and anthropology at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. His recent books include Atomic Doctors: Conscience and Complicity at the Dawn of the Nuclear Age (Harvard University Press, 2020). The book examines the moral dilemma of medical doctors who took part in the Manhattan Project, is based on materials his grandfather left behind.

Dr Nolan’s involvement in the project has a personal aspect: his grandfather served as the chief medical officer at the Los Alamos facility in New Mexico, where the atomic bomb was developed, and he later visited Nagasaki and Hiroshima with a survey team following the atomic bombing of the two cities.

Professor Nolan visited Nagasaki frequently while he was researching and writing a book about the local Catholic population and their response to the bombing. He told the Catholic News Agency (CNA) how Kojiro Moriuchi, a parishioner at the cathedral, told him two years ago (2023) that it would be ‘wonderful if American Catholics gave us the bell for the left tower’. He responded by helping to spearhead the efforts to make it happen.

Archbishop Peter Michiaki Nakamura Nagasaki blessed the new bell last month (17 July 2025) and named it the ‘Saint Kateri Bell of Hope’.

Speaking at the blessing ceremony, Professor Nolan said that US Catholics ‘expressed sorrow, regret, sadness and a wish for forgiveness and reconciliation’ on learning about the destruction wrought at Nagasaki.

One person wrote to him: ‘May the ringing of these bells continue to remind the people of Nagasaki of our sorrow for what their people have endured and reassure them of ours and God’s love for them.’ Another told him that the gift of the new bell would help ‘heal the wounds’ of the war and bolster ‘progress to world peace’.

The bell was officially installed earlier today, 80 years to the day after the cathedral and the surrounding parish were levelled by the atomic bomb. The bell was rung at 11:02 am, the exact moment when the bomb detonated about 1,600 ft from the cathedral.

Dr Nolan says he hopes the new bell at the cathedral ‘will bear the fruit of fostering hope and peace and solidarity between American and Japanese Catholics’.

A prayer for Nagasaki today

All the crew members who flew on the missions to Hiroshima and to Nagasaki have died. Meanwhile, the numbers of hibakusha, the people who survived the attacks, are rapidly dwindling in numbers too. We are passing into a twilight of history, yet the world has become a more dangerous place. More nations are developing nuclear weapons with few, if any, effective international controls. Trump has redeployed nuclear missiles closer to Russian territory, Putin and Kim Jong-un have explicitly threatened tactical nuclear strikes, we have come close to war in the Middle East over responses to allegations that Iran is close to having a bomb, and India and Pakistan, two covert nuclear powers, have come close to war in recent months.

The bomb was tested in New Mexico on 16 July. Its blast was equivalent to the destructive payload of 2,000 B-29s. The New Mexico test explosion was described as the hottest and brightest thing since the creation. Little Boy, the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima used enriched uranium. But Fat Man, the Nagasaki bomb, was more sophisticated, using plutonium.

Nagasaki was never the first choice as a target. Three cities were selected, in a descending order: Hiroshima, Kokura (now called Kitakyushu) or Nagasaki; and the deciding factor would be the weather.

Originally the second bomb was intended to be dropped on 11 August – five days after Hiroshima. Kokura was 100 miles north of Nagasaki and home to one of Japan’s largest military arsenals. With Hiroshima devastated, this No 2 city had now moved up to the top of the list and Nagasaki was a backup in case bombing Kokura was ruled out.

The weather forecast predicted clear conditions over Kokura. But on the morning of 9 August the US plane ran headlong into the first of the thunderstorms. Kokura was saved by an accident of weather. When the crew diverted to Nagasaki, the city was covered in cloud.

In a bizarre coincidence, the Nagasaki bomb was detonated almost directly over the factory that once made the torpedoes used in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Six days later, on 15 August, battered by both nuclear attacks and suffering a crushing Soviet invasion of Japanese-occupied Manchuria, Japan finally surrendered.

The number of people who were killed in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on those two fatal mornings will never be known, but they may number 200,000 to 300,000 people or more. They were men, women, and children. The overwhelming majority were in their own homes on those mornings. Few were in the military, the overwhelming majority were civilians. Nuclear weapons are indiscriminate: they do not distingush between cvilians and the miliary, between adults and children, betweem hospitals and factories. They are weapons of mass destruction, they are agents of genocide, they are crimes against humanity.

80 years after Hiroshima, we are 89 seconds to midnight.What are we to do?

Patrick Comerford

It is now 89 seconds to midnight.

Well, actually, it’s earlier in the day. I’m at the Japanese Peace Pagoda at Willen Lake in Milton Keynes. Later this evening, this place is going to mark the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, 80 years ago, on 6 August 1945.

This year’s ceremony also recalls the bombing of Nagasaki, the nuclear disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima, and remembers all the victims of war everywhere.

It is 80 years since the first day nuclear weapons were ever used. And it has only got worse ever since.

We are now 89 seconds to midnight.

It is a stark warning that came from the Bulletin of the Scientific Scientists as they reset the Doomsday Clock earlier this year [28 January 2025]

They set the Clock one second closer to midnight, they say, because the world is so perilously close to the precipice. A move of even a single second is an indication of extreme danger and an unmistakable warning that every second of delay in reversing course increases the probability of global disaster.

By moving the Doomsday Clock from 90 to 89 seconds to midnight, the scientists warn that we are now the closest to catastrophe we have ever been.

They list a number of alarming signals as they warn about the risk of nuclear war, including:

The war in Ukraine, which could become nuclear at any moment because of a rash decision or through accident or miscalculation.

The conflict in the Middle East is threatening at every moment to spiral out of control into a wider war.

The countries that have nuclear weapons are increasing the size and role of their arsenals, investing hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons that can destroy civilisation.

The nuclear arms control process is collapsing, and high-level contacts among nuclear powers are totally inadequate given the danger at hand.

Alarmingly, it is no longer unusual for countries without nuclear weapons to consider developing arsenals of their own – actions that would undermine longstanding non-proliferation efforts and increase the ways in which nuclear war could start.

It is now 89 seconds to midnight.

As we have seen this year, nuclear weapons are not – and have never been – a deterrent, a way of preventing an outbreak of war.

We have seen the US and Israel use stoked-up fears of nuclear capability to bomb supposed nuclear facilities in Iran. But in all this, they never acknowledge the hypocrisy of continuing to grow their own nuclear stockpiles.

We have seen India and Pakistan – two of the covert nuclear powers – move close to the brink with a border clash, and being reprimanded by Trump and other world leaders who continue to keep their fingers on their own nuclear triggers.

In addition, the scientists warn that the impacts of climate change increased in recent months as sea-level rise, global temperatures surpass previous records, other indicators surpass all records, and greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise.

The dangers they list are greatly exacerbated by a potent threat multiplier: the spread of misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories degrade the communication ecosystem and increasingly blur the line between truth and falsehood.

The United States, Russia and China have the collective power to destroy civilisation. They have the prime responsibility to pull the world back from the brink. They can do so, but only if their leaders seriously begin good-faith discussions about these global.

They have to take that first step without delay. The world depends on immediate action.

It is 89 seconds to midnight.

The Cold War came to an end over 30 years ago, in 1991. During those tense years, for almost half a century after Hiroshima, we were told by the United States and the Soviet Union that nuclear weapons were only there as mutual deterrents – what was called MAD or ‘mutual assured destruction.’

But instead of things getting better since then, things get worse, and they look like getting worse.

Trump is committed to a horrendous increase in his nuclear armoury, he has sent troops onto the streets against the people of his nation, and he is silencing the voices not only of protest but of critical journalists who ask basic yet simple questions.

Putin has waged war against his nearest neighbour, even critics within the system are dealt with capriciously.

Britain has agreed to take even more US nuclear missiles on British soil, unravelling all the achievements of the women at Greenham Common in the 1980s and 1990s.

All the nuclear powers, instead of using their power for good, are complicit in the use of starvation, hunger and famine as weapons of mass destruction in the Gaza Strip and the sectarian slaughters in Syria.

We are frozen in fear, a fear that is more immobilising than the most freezing days of the Cold War.

And we are 89 seconds to midnight.

What are we to do?

What are people of faith to do?

It is easy to despair when we see so-called evangelicals in America, dazzled and enthralled by the Trump regime, unquestioning in their blind allegiance, uncritical in their response, falling down before the idolatrous altar of a god-less and fear-less regime.

It is easy to despair when we see the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church, concocting theological positions that justify their unquestioning and blind allegiance to the Putin state, uncritical in their response, falling down before the idolatrous altar of a god-less and fear-less regime.

It is sad when a retired Bishop of the Church of England sees fit to take up almost a full page in the Church Times close to this anniversary to twist the ‘just war’ theory to justify the continuing stockpiling of nuclear weapons (see the Church Times, 25 July 2025, p 17).

Today is the Feast of the Transfiguration. The bright light of the Transfiguration is a very different light to the atomic flash that consumed Hiroshima 80 years ago.

In today’s Gospel reading (Luke 9: 28-36), Peter, James and John, instead of being transfigured, are transfixed. They are terrified.

They want to remain frozen in the present or even in the past, building memorials instead of engaging in action.

But Jesus leads them back down the mountain, and leads them into action. Immediately after, he heals, he rebukes evil (verse 43-47, 49-50), he shows how valuable the children and the voiceless are (46-48), he calls us to Costly Discipleship (verses 43-45, 57-62), and he actually rebukes and condemns indiscriminate violence against civilian populations and people we are in danger of seeing as our ideological opponents, as enemies (verses 51-56).

We are 89 seconds to midnight.

But we have hope. We are called to action. We are called to speak up for the voiceless and those seen as having no value; we must rebuke violence and chastise the powerful.

80 years after Hiroshima, we are 89 seconds to midnight.

But let us not be transfixed or be immobilised. Christ calls us to go back down that mountain to act, and to be living signs of the Kingdom.

We are 89 seconds to midnight.

But we are children of light.

(Revd Canon Professor) Patrick Comerford is a former President of the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), a former chair of Christian CND, and an Anglican priest. This reflection was prepared for an online vigil on Hiroshima Day 6 August 2025, organised by Christian CND and the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship.

Saint Thomas’s Cathedral in Kuching is at the heart of Anglican life in Sarawak

Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching, is the cathedral of the Anglican Diocese of Kuching, which includes Sarawak and Brunei (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

I attended the Cathedral Eucharist this morning in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching, the cathedral of the Anglican Diocese of Kuching, which includes Sarawak and Brunei. For the past week or so, we have been staying in the Marian Boutique Lodging House beside the cathedral. The hotel was once the boarding house for Saint Mary’s, the diocesan girls’ school, and later became the diocesan guesthouse.

A small, discreet gate at the car park links the grounds of the Marian and the cathedral grounds, which include the cathedral, the bishop’s house on the top of a hill, the diocesan offices, the cathedral hall, the parish centre, and the House of the Epiphany.

Saint Thomas’s Cathedral was built in 1954-1956. It is a plain but modern structure that in many ways is typical of many large churches of this size and importance built in the English-speaking world in the mid-20th-century.

Inside Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching, facing the east end from the west doors (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The cathedral faces Padang Merdeka (Independence Square) with its monumental kapok or Java cotton tree. But the cathedral compound is also accessed from Jalan McDougall, a street named after the first Anglican bishop in Kuching, Francis Thomas McDougall, who arrived on Saint Peter’s Day, 25 August 1848.

The Borneo Church Mission and McDougall and his party were invited to Sarawak by James Brooke, the Rajah of Sarawak. Francis Thomas McDougall who led the group was both a doctor and a priest. The Rajah gave the missionaries a considerable area of jungle-covered hill. There they built Saint Thomas’s Church, a wooden church that could seat up to 250 people.

Saint Thomas’s served as a pro-cathedral for many years and stood on a hill where the parish hall now stands, about 50 yards north of the present cathedral. These first missionaries also built a school that later became Saint Thomas’s and Saint Mary’s, and a dispensary.

Inside Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching, facing the west end from the chancel and choir at the east end (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Kuching was then within the Diocese of Calcutta, and Bishop Daniel Wilson of Calcutta, consecrated Saint Thomas’s Church on 22 January 1851. The church became the home church and base of the Borneo Church Mission in Sarawak.

McDougall returned to England in 1853 to manage the transfer of the mission from the Borneo Mission Society, whose funds came to an end, to the Anglican mission agency SPG (the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel), now USPG.

The initiative to create a separate diocese for based in Kuching and SPG contributed £5,000 (about £875,00 today) towards the endowment of a new diocese. McDougall returned to Sarawak in 1854 and the work of the mission grew.

McDougall was appointed the first Bishop of Labuan and Sarawak in 1855. His title was chosen carefully because Labuan was a British territory and Sarawak was not. He was consecrated a bishop at Calcutta on Saint Luke’s Day, 18 October 1855, by Daniel Wilson, Bishop of Calcutta under a commission from John Bird Sumner, Archbishop of Canterbury. His consecration was said to be ‘the first consecration of an English bishop performed outside the British Isles.’

The cathedral chancel was built with funds from SPG (USPG) to mark more than 100 years of links between SPG and the Diocese of Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Saint Thomas’s Church was wrecked in the Chinese insurrection in 1857 but was restored soon afterward, and continued to serve as the Pro-Cathedral after McDougall returned to England in 1868.

Walter Chambers (1824-1893) was the second Bishop of Labuan, Sarawak and Singapore from 1868 to 1881. He had arrived in Sarawak in 1851, Chambers brought his first four converts to Kuching to be baptised on Christmas Eve 1854. He married Lizzie Wooley, another missionary and a cousin of McDougall’s wife, Harriette McDougall, in 1857.

George Frederick Hose (1838-1922), a former Archdeacon of Singapore, was the third Bishop of Labuan, Sarawak and Singapore from 1881 to 1909. He organised the first Iban conference in 1893, and expanded mission work in Sabah. Hose is also credited with having planted the first rubber seeds in Borneo.

The Lady Chapel in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral was the gift of Yap Ghee Heng (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

When Hose retired, a separate Diocese of Singapore was formed, and the diocese reverted to the name of Labuan and Sarawak with William Robert Mounsey (1867-1952) as the fourth bishop (1909-1916). He founded the Borneo Mission Association in 1909, and after he retired, he joined the Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield, where he was known as Father Rupert.

Ernest Denny Logie Danson (1880-1946) was the fifth Bishop of Labuan and Sarawak (1917-1931). During his time, the old Saint Thomas’s continued to serve as the Pro-Cathedral. While Danson was bishop, the building was enlarged and given the status of a cathedral in 1920.

Danson saw these enlargements as temporary measures and by 1920 he was proposing a permanent building of brick. However, those dreams were not realised for another 35 years.

Danson was succeeded as bishop by Noel Hudson in 1932-1937 and Francis Hollis in 1938-1948. After Hudson resigned from Sarawak, he became Secretary of SPG, then Bishop of St Albans, of Newcastle and later of Ely.

The figure of the Crucified Christ on the Rood Beam appears to be modelled on a man from one of the indigenous people of Sarawak (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Francis Hollis (1884-1955) first came to Sarawak in 1916, and was assistant priest at Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching (1916-1923), priest in charge of the Land Dayak mission of Saint James, Quop and Tai (1923-1928), principal of Saint Thomas’s School (1928-1938), and Archdeacon of Sarawak (1934-1938).

He became Bishop of Labuan and Sarawak in 1938. During World War II, Hollis was interned at Batu Lintang camp near Kuching for 3½ years (1942-1945), and this period of internment seriously undermined his health and his eyesight. He resigned in 1948 after 32 years in Sarawak.

During World War II, the wooden cathedral suffered from four years of neglect and abuse, and the occupying Japanese forces used the old cathedral as a store. After the devastation of World War II, the Diocese of Labuan and the bishopric of Sarawak were joined into the diocese of Borneo.

The Baptismal Font at the west doors of Saint Thomas’s Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Nigel Edmund Cornwall (1903-1948) became the first Bishop of Borneo in 1949. His immediate task was to restore the churches, schools and other church property destroyed during the Japanese occupation. The high points of his time as bishop were the construction of the new Saint Thomas’s Cathedral in Kuching, and the centenary of the founding of the Anglican Church in Borneo.

Soon after he arrived in Kuching, Cornwall commissioned an architect in England to design a new cathedral and an appeal was launched.

The foundation stone of a new cathedral was laid by Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, on 15 October 1952. The old cathedral building was dismantled carefully, and the parts that could be reused were taken by boat to the Iban village of Sungai Tanju, located on the Samarahan division.

The architect’s plans sought to incorporate a western plan and layout with the outward appearance of the Far East. However, it was soon realised the plans would have placed a heavy financial burden on the diocese. Alfred George Church of the Singapore architects Swan and McLaren drew up new plans that were unanimously approved in October 1954.

The coats of arms of Kuching (top centre) and other Anglican dioceses above the choir and chapter stall in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The Swan and Maclaren group is one of the oldest architectural practices in Singapore and was formerly known as Swan & Maclaren and Swan & Lermit, and was one of the most prominent architectural firms in Singapore when it was a crown colony during the early 20th century.

The firm has designed numerous heritage buildings in Singapore and Malaysia, including Raffles Hotel (1899), the Teutonia Club (1900, now the Goodwood Park Hotel) and Victoria Memorial Hall (1905, now the Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall), the Chesed-El Synagogue (1905), and the Sultan Mosque (1924-1928) in Singapore.

The architect of the new cathedral in Kuching, Alfred Church, had been a prisoner of war during World War II at Kanu Camp, a Japanese POW camp in Siam (Thailand).

Bishop Cornwall cut the first sod on 27 January 1955, the building was completed by May 1956, and Cornwall consecrated the cathedral on 9 June 1956.

The six stained glass windows high above the chapter and choir stalls depict six of the seven sacraments (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Saint Thomas’s Cathedral is built in the style of a basilica, with a bright red barrel-vaulted ceiling. As light pours in the upper windows, the of yellow and golden light and the red ceiling create a combination of colours that many Chinese people associate with prayers, worship and the spiritual life.

The 12 pillars are each marked with consecration crosses. The white pillars are thin at the bottom and thick at the top, and the arches reach a height of about 48 ft. The Rood Beam has a figure of the Crucified Christ, with the Virgin Mary and Saint John on either side. The figure of Christ on the Crucifix appears to be modelled on a man from one of the indigenous people of Sarawak.

The greater part of the cost of building the cathedral came from within the Diocese of Kuching, but there were generous outside contributions, while each parish in the diocese provided a part of the building.

The chancel was built with funds from SPG (USPG) to mark more than 100 years of links between the diocese and SPG. The six stained glass windows high above the chapter and choir stalls depict six of the seven sacraments and commemorate Geraldine Ng Siew Lan, who died in 2014.

The cathedral hall stands on the site of the original Saint Thomas’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

A plaque above the lectern reads: ‘Borneo Mission Association, 1909-2015, For its memorial look around you.’

The coats-of-arms of the Diocese of Kuching, Singapore, Calcutta, London, Canterbury and other linked dioceses decorate the walls above the chapter and choir stalls.

A plaque at the west end records that Saint Andrew’s in Brunei paid for the roofing, Saint Philip and Saint James in Kuala Belait provided the cost of the terrazzo paving of the floor, and the new parish of Saint Margaret and All Saints, Seria in Brunei bore the cost of the electric lighting.

The Lady Chapel is the gift of Yap Ghee Heng (1880-1967).

The chime of bells in the tower were presented jointly in 1956 by Sarawak Oilfields Ltd, British Malayan Petroleum and the Shell Company of North Borneo. The eight bells in the tower were dedicated to eight priests who were ordained on the centenary of the diocese in 1955.

Grave stones in the old churchyard beside Saint Thomas’s Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Sarawak and Sabah became parts of the new Federation of Malaysia in 1963. Bishop Cornwall was succeeded by Bishop David Nicholas Allenby (1909-1995), and the Diocese of Borneo was the divided into the Diocese of Kuching and the Diocese of Jesselton, later renamed the Diocese of Sabah.

Allenby appointed the Very Revd Michael Lim as the first Sarawakian Dean of Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, and Ven (later Bishop) Basil Temenggong, the first Sarawakian and Iban, as Archdeacon.

Bishop Allenby retired in 1968 and spent the last years of his life at Willen Hospice, near Milton Keynes. When he died in 1995, he was is buried in the churchyard of Saint Mary Magdalene, Willen.

The Diocese of West Malaysia was formed to separate that region from Singapore in 1970.

The Bishop’s House in the grounds of Saint Thomas’s Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Bishop Basil Temenggong, who became bishop in 1968, was the first Sarawakian and the first Iban to be made bishop. He died suddenly in Simunjan while administering Confirmation in 1984. Bishop John Leong was consecrated in 1985 and enthroned in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching.

The Diocese of Kuching became a part of the Province of South East Asia when it was formed in 1996, with the neighbouring Dioceses of Sabah, West Malaysia, and Singapore.

Today, the Diocese of Kuching includes Sarawak in Malaysia and Brunei, as well as part of Indonesian Borneo lying north of the equator and west of longitude 115 42. The Right Revd Danald Jute has been the 14th Bishop of Kuching and Brunei since 2017; the Right Revd Andrew Shie is the assistant bishop.

The House of the Epiphany beside the cathedral has provided ordination training for the Diocese of Kuching (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The House of the Epiphany beside the cathedral was established in 1952 and has provided ordination training for the diocese. The House of the Epiphany has been closely identified with the work of Peter Howes (1911-2003), later an assistant bishop in Kuching. He was arrested by the Japanese at Kuap in 1942. While he was interned in the Batu Lintang Prison Camp, he celebrated the Eucharist for the prisoners, together with Biship Hollis and other missionaries.

After World War II, Howes returned to Sarawak to begin rebuilding the Church. He became the first Warden of the House of Epiphany when it opened in 1953. Later, he became Archdeacon of Sarawak and Brunei, Archdeacon of Brunei and North Sarawak, and then Principal of the re-founded House of the Epiphany (1971-1976). He was an assistant bishop in the Diocese of Kuching from 1976 to 1981.

There was a warm welcome in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral this morning from the Dean of Kuching, the Very Revd Kho Thong Meng, who presided at the Cathedral Eucharist, at which the preacher was the Revd Wity Kendu. I imagine Saint Thomas’s is going to be my home church for the next few weeks as our stay in Kuching continues.

Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching, was designed by Alfred Church of Swan and Maclaren architects, Singapore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Ronald Rae’s ‘Hiroshima’ at the peace temple by Willen Lake is a reminder of the inhumanity of war

Ronald Rae’s sculpture ‘Hiroshima’ (1988) in the grounds of the Japanese Peace Pagoda beside Willen Lake in Milton Keynes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Today marks the 79th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. I visited Hiroshima when I was a student in Japan in 1979, and for over 40 years I took part in Irish CND’s Hiroshima Day commemorations in Merrion Park, Dublin. This evening, Charlotte and I hope to attend the annual Hiroshima Day commemorations at the Japanese Peace Pagoda beside Willen Lake in Milton Keynes, a ceremony we have been attending for three years now.

The Anglican Pacifist Fellowship and Christian CND are also marking Hiroshima Day with an online vigil at 8 pm this evening.

Ronald Rae’s sculpture ‘Hiroshima’ (1988) is in the grounds of theJapanese Buddhist Temple beside Willen Lake. The temple was built by Japanese Buddhis monks who are devoted to promoting peace and nuclear disarmament, and the sculpture was donated to the temple in 2007.

‘Hiroshima’ is one of three pieces of sculpture by the Scottish sculptor and artist Ronald Rae in the parks in Milton Keynes. The work is carved from granite in memory of the people who were killed by the atomic bombing at Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 and warns of the tragedy of nuclear war.

Ronald Rae made this sculpture ‘Hiroshima’ in 1988 from Scottish granite that is 470 million years old. It measures 4 x 3 x 3 ft and weighs 2.00 tons. The figure twists in agony and looks up, saying: ‘Let this never happen again.’

The sculpture ‘Hiroshima’ or ‘Hiroshima Departed’ was bought from the Ronald Rae Exhibition at Milton Keynes in 1995-1999 and was donated to the Temple by the art consultant Edna Eguchi Read (1929-2012). She was a well-known pacifist and was once described as an ‘irresistible force and champion of public art in Milton Keynes’.

Edna Read was instrumental in many of the city’s cultural organisations, including the Milton Keynes Gallery and Theatre Company, Aim Gallery, the Public Arts Trust and the Sculpture Walk for Emigré Artists at Bletchley Park. She died tragically at the age of 83 in a car crash in October 2012. Her funeral service was held in the Church of Christ the Cornerstone, Milton Keynes.

The temple at Willen Lake is an appropriate and apt location for Rae’s ‘Hiroshima’. Every year on Hiroshima Day the Buddhist monks and nuns of the Nipponzan Myohoji (Japan Buddha Sangha) organise this memorial service at the Pagoda, which includes lighting candles around this sculpture and floating lanterns on Willen Lake.

The plaque beside the sculpture reads:

‘Hiroshima

‘Ronald Rae 1988

‘Ronald Rae’s hand-carved 470 million year old Scottish Granite Memorial does not invite admiration of heroism or self sacrifice for others.

‘This nameless, pathetic, scarcely human form conveys only the appalling history of innocent men, women and children suddenly extinguished by nuclear bombs. Ronnie is also remembering those today who die in the worlds continuing conflicts.’

Prayers for peace at the Japanese Peace Temple at Willen Lake (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Ronald Rae’s two other sculptures in public places in Milton Keynes are his ‘Animals in War’ (1998) in a hollow below the Belvedere in Campbell Park, and the ‘Cuddling Couple’ outside Milton Keynes Central Station.

‘Animals in War’ was the sculptor’s gift to the people of Milton Keynes in 2015 in memory of Edna Read, who was an active promoter of public art in the new city. It symbolises the aftermath of war and is a poignant memorial to all animals who died in wars, in particular horses who died in their millions in World War I. The soldier in the sculpture is missing half an arm and is wearing a gas mask, also referring to the horrors of chemical warfare.

The sculpture in Kemnay granite was previously on loan to Bletchley Park. The Public Arts Trust, Milton Keynes, working with partners Bletchley Park, the Parks Trust and Milton Keynes Council moved the large, 6 ton sculpture across Milton Keynes, and it was unveiled in Campbell Park on 30 July 2015 by Dr Charles Robert Saumarez Smith, secretary and chief executive of the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

Rae’s ‘Cuddling Couple’ outside Milton Keynes Central Station was bought by the Commissions for the New Towns after a major exhibition of his work in Milton Keynes in 1995-1999.

Ronald Rae was born in Ayr in 1946. His works are entirely hand-carved in granite and over the course of 58 years he carved 58 large granite monoliths, many of which are in public and private collections throughout the UK.

Rae’s largest work to date is the 20 tonne ‘Lion of Scotland.’ His sculptures have been exhibited in Milton Keynes (1995-1999), Regent’s Park, London (1999-2002), the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, and Holyrood Park, Edinburgh (2006-2007).

His eight-tonne sculpture ‘Fish’ was installed on the waterfront at Cramond in 2009 after a successful fundraising campaign by the Cramond Community.

Many of his granite sculptures in public places have Biblical themes, including five sculptures depicting the ‘Tragic Sacrifice of Christ’ in Alloway, ‘Abraham’ at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, the ‘Return of the Prodigal’ in Perth, the ‘Good Samaritan’ in Glenrothes, and his ‘Celtic Cross’ at Erdington Railway Station, Birmingham. His ‘Fallen Christ’, outside the MacLeod Centre on the island of Iona, is to the memory of Jim Hughes, a member of the Iona Community.

Ronald Rae’s ‘Hiroshima’ was donated to the Japanese temple in Willen by the art consultant and pacifist Edna Eguchi Read (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

A return visit to Willen to see the interior of Saint Mary Magdalene Church by Robert Hooke

The Church of Saint Mary Magdalene, Willen … the only surviving church designed by Robert Hooke (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Earlier this week, Charlotte and I visited the Japanese Peace Pagoda at Willen Lake for the Japanese Flower Festival, and we returned for a walk around the Temple grounds and the shore of Willen Lake yesterday afternoon. I have visited the pagoda and monastery a few times since moving here two years ago, particularly for the ceremonies marking the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945.

During these visits, I have also visited the Church of Saint Mary Magdalene, the only surviving church among the buildings designed by the scientist, inventor, and architect Robert Hooke. However, on previous visits the church was closed, and at the beginning of this week I saw inside the church for the first time.

Saint Mary Magdalene Church is regarded as a classic of early English baroque architecture. It is one of the finest churches in Milton Keynes, in a beautiful setting close to Willen Lake and beside the Hospice in Willen.

Sir Simon Jenkins lists Saint Mary Magdalene Church as one of the ‘1,000 Best Churches in England.’ It was designated a Grade I listed building in 1966.

The baroque interior of Saint Mary Magdalene Church, Willen, facing east (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Willen is a small village on the north edge of Milton Keynes, on the west bank of the River Ouzel. It appears there was a Romano-British industrial settlement just to the north of the village, near Caldecote Farm. The settlement was abandoned in the late Roman period, and the area seems to have remained largely unsettled until the 11th century. By 1292, Willen was large enough to have a church served by a vicar.

Between 1150 and 1524, the advowson was held by Tickford Priory, near Newport Pagnell. It then formed part of the foundation of Cardinal College, Oxford, and its refoundation as Henry VIII’s College. The advowson reverted to the Crown in 1545.

The advowson was granted in 1676 to the Revd Dr Richard Busby (1606-1695), the long-serving headmaster of Westminster School (1638-1695). He bought the manor in 1672, and as lord of the manor oversaw rebuilding the parish church.

When Busby died in 1695, he left the manor and the advowson to the trustees of Dr Richard Busby’s Charity. The trustees were to use the annual income from the manor for the relief and support of poor clergy in Lincolnshire, Oxfordshire, Middlesex, and Buckinghamshire. The Vicar of Willen was to deliver 30 lectures a year by the vicar of Willen in the parish church, and Busby stipulated that the vicar was always to be a student of Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford.

Inside Saint Mary Magdalene Church, facing the west end (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Busby commissioned and paid for building Saint Mary Magdalene Church, designed and built in 1678-1680 by his former pupil, Robert Hooke (1635-1703). The project cost almost £5,000, not including the materials taken from the former church on the site. George Lipscomb observes that ‘with good management the church might have been built for a third part of the money.’

Busby is said to have funded the cost of the church by asking for a silver spoon from each of his pupils. Among his more illustrious pupils were Sir Christopher Wren, Robert South, John Dryden, John Locke, Matthew Prior, Henry Purcell, Thomas Millington, Francis Atterbury and Robert Hooke, who designed the church and supervised its construction.

While Hooke was studying at Christ Church College, Oxford, he worked as an assistant to Robert Boyle. He met Christopher Wren at Oxford ca 1655 at a meeting of the club that later formed the core of the Royal Society. He was the Gresham Professor of Geometry, the secretary and curator of Experiments at the Royal Society.

As the City Surveyor after the Great Fire of London in 1666, Hooke helped Wren rebuild London. Their collaboration included Saint Paul’s Cathedral, where the dome uses a method of construction that Hooke had conceived.

Details in the plaster work on the ceiling of Saint Mary Magdalene Church, Willen (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

In the reconstruction of London after the Great Fire, Hooke proposed redesigning the streets on a grid pattern with wide boulevards and arteries, a pattern later used in the renovation of Paris, Liverpool, and many cities in the US. However, his proposal was thwarted by arguments over property.

Hooke also worked on the design of London’s Monument to the fire, the Royal Greenwich Observatory, Montagu House in Bloomsbury, and the Bethlem Royal Hospital (‘Bedlam’). Hooke was also involved in the design of the Pepys Library in Magdalene College, Cambridge, where the diaries of Samuel Pepys offer the most frequently cited eyewitness account of the Great Fire of London.

Other buildings designed by Hooke include the Royal College of Physicians (1679), Ragley Hall, Warwickshire, and Ramsbury Manor, Wiltshire.

Saint Mary Magdalene Church has a three-stage west tower topped with four pineapple finials (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Saint Mary Magdalene is the only known church entirely of Hooke’s design. The building replaced a mediaeval church, and demolition rubble from the old church may be present on the north side of the churchyard. The church is similar in style to several of the 52 churches rebuilt by Wren after the Great Fire of London.

This unique restoration church retains an almost complete interior of 1680. It is a plain structure in the Italian style, built of brick with stone dressings, and it consists of a simple rectangular nave with a chancel, a west tower, and an apse added in 1862.

The church is entered through a three-stage west tower topped with four pineapple finials. It originally had a cupola, but this was removed in 1814. There is a vestry on the north side of the tower, and on the south side is a room erected for a library, chiefly for theology, founded by Busby for the use of the vicar.

The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner notes how the west door, set in a limestone apsidal recess, matches the south doorway by Wren at Saint Mary-le-Bow. The oak door is in oak in a classical style, with a gilded beading and fixed tympanum.

The inside two-leaf oak door also dates from 1680. At eye height is a pierced ornamental ironwork panel, in a fretwork style, with a glass panel fitted at a later date.

The original box pews from 1680 … an extremely rare survival in an English church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Inside the church, the original features from 1680 include an elaborate baroque plaster ceiling, box pews, a pulpit and clerk’s desk, and a fine font. The addition of an apse at the east end in 1862 reversed Hooke’s original plan for a simple nave and a decorative tower.

The nave has three bays, and the eastern-most bay is functionally the choir. The trusses and bands of foliate plasterwork create a barrelled and coffered ceiling, and the motifs include gilded foliate bosses, plaster cherubs, gilded scallop shells and open books. The date 1680 also is divided across two gilded shields.

The ornamental baroque font with cherub heads, swags and foliate detail, and a cover with cherub heads and swags of fruits and flowers (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The ornamental baroque font has a white marble bowl on a black marble stem and base, and an oak cover. The marble bowl has cherub heads, swags and foliate detail, the cover has characterful cherub heads and swags of fruits and flowers and is topped by an urn shaped finial. The carved oak cover has been attributed to Bates, one of the carpenters identified in Hooke’s diary as working for him in Willen.

The pulpit against the south wall of the nave, between the choir and nave seating, dates from 1680. It was originally a three-decker pulpit, but alterations mean it has lost its sounding board and the whole structure has been lowered.

The two western-most bays of the nave retain the majority of the 1680 seating, though with some alterations in the form of the pew platforms and the replacement of seat boards. The seats are box pews of oak with scrolly tops to the ends. This largely complete set of seats from the 17th century is an extremely rare survival in an English church.

The small apse was added in 1862 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The small apse was added in 1862, possibly by TH Lewis. It has three slender round-headed windows, in which the glass is plain and leaded. The floor is of diamond set limestone flags with darts of black quarry tiles, probably dating from 1862.

The baroque plaster ceiling in the apse roughly follows the precedent of the coffered ceiling over the nave, although the foliate plaster detail and cherubs are less well executed.

The open framed oak altar has baluster legs and a tacked on moulding. Some sources date the altar to the late 17th century. A small credence table fixed to the north face of the chancel arch may have been made from the sounding board of the pulpit.

The easternmost bay of the nave has fixed collegiate-style stalls from 1680 that were altered ca1862. Two rows of benches on each side of the choir give seating for 20-24 people. The Communion railing may have formed part of a semicircular railed enclosure around the altar and was relocated in 1862 when the apse was formed.

The pulpit dates from 1680 and was originally a three-decker pulpit (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

A new organ was installed in 1985. The original organ dated from 1680, and the case and the original low gates were adapted to house the new organ in the 20th century.

A plaque east of the doorway refers to a Benthall family vault. It is unlikely that this is in its original position, but it proves there is burial vault somewhere in the church.

The tower has three bells, each inscribed: ‘Richard Chandler made me 1683’. The ring of three bells was converted from full circle to level chiming in 1991. The bells were hung dead in 2023 and provided with electromagnetic hammers.

Restoration work began in 1956 and continued until 1970. During that time, copper roofs were replaced with lead, electric heating was installed under the pews, and stonework repairs were carried out. The interior was redecorated in 1970 and 1988, the plasterwork was repaired and in 1972 the 19th century stained glass was replaced with clear modern glass.

To the west of the church, a long avenue lined with lime trees leads to the west gate. To the east of the church is the former village school, now a private house, and a small green with the village war memorial and a carriage circle.

The east apse, added to the church in 1862, faces a small green with the village war memorial (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The Manor Farm, formerly the manor house, was bought in 1978 to establish a hospice, and Willen Hospice continues there today.

The 18th century vicarage was rebuilt in 1930. It was part of Saint Michael’s Priory when the Society of the Sacred Mission or the ‘Kelham Fathers’ took responsibility for the parish from 1974 to 1985.

A new ecumenical lay community, the Well, was established in the priory in 1997 and the SSM brothers moved to a smaller house nearby. The name refers to the story of Christ meeting the Samaritan woman at the well (see John 4: 5-30). The Well ran a conference and retreat centre, and worked with homeless and distressed people.

The SSM priory and the Well merged in 2007, and was known again as Saint Michael’s Priory from 2016. The priory closed in 2019, and the remaining members moved to Saint Antony’s Priory, Durham.

The former village school is now a private house (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today, Saint Mary Magdalene, Willen, is part of the Stantonbury Ecumenical Partnership, involving six churches from four denominations in north-east Milton Keynes: Saint Lawrence, Bradwell; Saint James’s, New Bradwell; Saint Andrew’s, Great Linford; Saint Mary Magdalene, Willen; Cross and Stable Church, Downs Barn; and Christ Church, Stantonbury.

Sunday services at 9:30 are led regularly by the Revd Dr Sam Muthuveloe. Stephen Fletcher and Margaret Moakes are the Licensed Lay Ministers.

Saint Mary Magdalene Church is open for private prayer or quiet reflection on Mondays from 10 am until evening.

The long avenue to the west of the church is lined with lime trees (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)