Saint Andrew’s Church is the oldest building in Headington, and has a Norman chancel arch

Saint Andrew’s Church is the oldest surviving building and the oldest church in Headington, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

During my visits to Headington last week, and in between appointments in the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, I visited some of the churches in the area, including Saint Andrew’s Church, Headington, Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry, Saint Michael and All Angels, New Marston, Headington Baptist Church and Corpus Christi Catholic Church.

Although Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry, is well-known for its associations with CS Lewis, Saint Andrew’s Church is the oldest surviving building and the oldest church in Headington, with some parts of the church dating from the 12fth century.

Saint Andrew’s is thought to have been founded by Hugh de Pluggenait, who was Lord of the Manor of Headington in 1142-1201. However, there was probably an earlier small church on the from Saxon times, so that there has been a place of worship there for over 900 years, and archaeological evidence suggests the site may have become a place of worship more than 1,700 years ago.

The altar, chancel arch and chancel in Saint Andrew’s Church, Headington (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

By the time Saint Frideswide founded her church on the site of Christ Church in Oxford in the late seventh century, the nearest centre of government was Headington. Mediaeval Oxford was carved out of the royal domain at Headington by the 912. It was a royal seat when later Anglo-Saxon kings reigned and King Ethelred is thought to have been baptised there. The earliest known mention of the royal village of Headington is in a deed of King Ethelred, dated Saint Andrew’s-tide, 7 December 1004.

The first reference to the church, however, is in a charter of Henry I in 1122. Henry I, who died in 1135, may have been the last king to live in the parish.

The early stone church had a nave and chancel. The nave ended a few feet beyond the present tower arch and is shown by the change in texture of the wall. The oldest remaining parts of the church are the arch and part of the chancel, which date from Norman times. The south aisle was added in the mid-13th century to create the Lady Chapel.

The windows in the north and south walls of the chancel date from the 14th century; and the oldest of the bells, dating from the mid-15th century, bears the inscription ‘Sancta Margareta Ora Pro Nobis’. The present tower was not completed until ca 1500, and the south porch was added in 1598.

The chancel, high altar and east window in Saint Andrew’s Church, Headington (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Despite the opening of Holy Trinity Church in Headington Quarry in 1849, Saint Andrew’s was not large enough to cope with the expansion of Old Headington and the development of New Headington village in the 19th century. By 1862, the church was considered to be more in need of repair than any other in the Diocese of Oxford, then largest diocese in England, with parishes in four counties.

The Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, described the church as ‘incumbered with galleries and pews, woodwork of different ages and every imaginable shape, position and proportion, the floor well below that of the churchyard, broken and uneven. The roof admits an abundant supply of rain.’

Some attempts were made that year to repair and enlarge the church. When the architect John Chessell Buckler (1793-1894) surveyed the church, he reported the church ‘was almost ruinous’ and he drew up plans to enlarge the church while preserving its architectural features. Buckler’s work in Oxford included repairs and additions to Saint Mary’s Church, and Oriel College, Brasenose College, Magdalen College, and Jesus College.

The Gothic Revival architect William Wilkinson (1819–1901) designed a new aisle and vestry on the north side of the church in 1880.

The Norman chancel arch has been described as the glory of Saint Andrew’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The glory of the church is the Norman chancel arch. Even now, green, blue and red pigments from the Middle Ages painting appear on the stone of the Norman Arch when it is lit by the sunlight. During some remodelling of the church at the end of the 14th century, a pointed arch was inserted about the Norman Arch to relieve it of the weight of the gable wall.

At the end of the 14th century, the chancel was rebuilt with larger windows, paved with patterned tiles and given a new timber roof with its principals resting on the carved stone corbels.

The East Window is a Victorian depiction of the Visit of the Magi. A fourth figure dressed as a knight and carrying a crown may refer to one of the kings connected with Headington. The window in memory of the Revd EFG Tyndale, Vicar of Headington in 1870-1889, was designed by Henry Holiday.

The chancel windows depicting Saint Thomas Aquinas and the life of Saint Margaret of Antioch (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The chancel north window depicts Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), the Dominican scholar and theologian, and the south window depicts two legends in the life of Saint Margaret of Antioch.

A member of the family of Sir High Pluggenait, a knight from Brittany who was lord of the manor in 1142, was miraculously cured of blindness, deafness and paralysis in his right arm. In response, Sir Hugh bestowed a lamp to burn perpetually before the altar in thanksgiving. A lamp still burns today to mark the place where the Blessed Sacrament is kept, to the left of the High Altar. At the top of a window on the south side, are fragments of 12th century glass.

A small mediaeval door, known as a priest’s door, was uncovered during the restoration of this area in 1997. There are several floors beneath the chancel, and that work in 1997 revealed a floor composed of gravestones from the Civil War period beneath two later tiled floors.

In the wall separating the nave from the Lady Chapel, an opening with steps led to an ancient rood beam that stood above the chancel arch with a figure of Christ on the cross with the Virgin Mary and Saint John on either side.

The Lady Chapel was restored during the Victorian restoration in 1864 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Before the Victorian restoration of the Lady Chapel in 1864, the jambs of the two lancet windows in the Lady Chapel were still decorated with 13th century wall paintings. They depicted a popular account of the Flight into Egypt by the Holy Family. A kneeling female donor In the corner of one of the panels was thought to be Philippa, widow of Henry, Earl of Warwick, who was Lady of the Manor from 1220-1265.

The window above the altar in the Lady Chapel was bought by the pennies of the poor. During a smallpox epidemic in the parish, those who could afford to moved away from the parish. But a faithful priest, the Revd John Robinson, stayed behind to care for the poor and died. The statue of the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child is by the sculptor Ulrica Lloyd and was donated in 1980. Although a modern work it is in Romanesque style and is cast in metal-filled polyester resin.

The two new windows in the north aisle were designed by Nicholas Mynheer and created by Steven Cowan of Master Glass Artists (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Two new stained-glass windows were installed in the north aisle of Saint Andrew’s in August 2023 to mark the 900th anniversary of the charter of Henry I granting a chapel at Headington to Saint Frideswide’s Priory in Oxford, founded in 1122. They were designed by Nicholas Mynheer and created by Steven Cowan of Master Glass Artists Ltd.

The left window, with two adjacent lights, shows Christ, calling Saint Andrew in his boat, catching fish in a net, with a swallow above him symbolising the Resurrection. The depictions on the left also include: Saint Frideswide, bathing the eyes of King Algar in a stream; Henry I holding a charter of 1122; and Sir Hugh Pluggenait holding a lantern for a stone mason working under the church’s Norman arch; the images on the left include the woman washing Jesus’s feet in Simon’s house; and the Headington windmill

The right window shows (on the right): the Good Samaritan; the church bells; the Morris Motors and Pressed Steel Fisher factories, where many Headington people worked; a Hawker Hurricane being repaired at Morris Motors during World War II; and robots now working in the car factory.

The font in Saint Andrew’s Church, Headington (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The font was moved to its current place in 1961 from the back of the north aisle. The oak font cover was commissioned in 2013. The hand carved panels of fish and nets recall that Saint Andrew was a fishermen.

The organ at the west end was built by Kenneth Tickell in Northampton in 2008 and was installed in 2009. It replaced a JW Walker organ originally built for Merton College and installed in Saint Andrew’s in 1967.

The 1932 west window by Archibald Nicholson is in memory of Vashti de Montfort Wellbourne. The window depicts the Virgin Mary and Saint Anne, Simon de Montfort, founder of the English Parliament, Queen Vashti of Persia, the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey, where the parliament was convened, and Barton Manor where Vashti and her mother lived.

The tower was completed in 1500, and was restored in 1679, 1972 and 2015. The ringing chamber in the tower was restored and the six bells re-hung in 1967. The oldest bell, from the mid-15th century has the inscription Sancta Margareta, Ora Pro Nobis (‘Saint Margaret, pray for us’).

The organ and the west end in Saint Andrew’s Church, Headington (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The mediaeval cross in the churchyard, near the south porch, was certainly standing in the 15th century when the kings had a chapel in the royal manor of Headington. The quatrefoil frieze base of the cross probably dates from the 15th century, but the shaft has been restored. The sundial at the top dates from 1961.

Saint Andrew’s had a number of patrons over the centuries. Until the suppression of the priory in 1542, the benefice was held by the Prior and Canons of the Priory of Saint Frideswide. After that, the successive patrons were Cardinal College, King Henry VIII College and finally Christ Church College, Oxford.

The patronage was sold In 1545 to John Browne, lord of the manor of Headington and it remained with the manor until it was transferred to Keble College, Oxford, in 1928.

The sundial on the mediaeval cross in the churchyard at Saint Andrew’s Church, Headington (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

At one time, the parish stood in the Traditional Catholic tradition of the Church of England and passed Resolutions A and B in 2010, rejecting the ordination of women. But the church had since moved to the liberal Catholic tradition.

The Revd Emma Hopegood Jones is the Vicar of Headington. The associate priest, the Revd Dr Jennifer Strawbridge, is Professor in New Testament and Early Christian Studies at Oxford University and a former chaplain at Keble College, Saint Andrew’s patron. Father Oliver Wright, the assistant curate, is a Junior Research Fellow at Pembroke College, with a special interest in the intersection of theology and AI.

The East Window by Henry Holiday depicts the Visit of the Magi … notice the fourth figure (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

• The Sunday services in Saint Andrew’s are: 8 am, Eucharist (Book of Common Prayer); 10 am, Parish Eucharist (Common Worship). The regular services during the week include: 9 am, Morning Prayer, Monday to Friday; 9:30 am, Monday; 10 am, Eucharist, Wednesday; 5 pm, Evening Prayer, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Saint Andrew’s seen from the High Altar and the Chancel … the Eucharist is celebrated on Sundays at 8 am and 10 am (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

For my guide to Oxford churches and chapels, visit here

A return to Headington, where I find the story of an anti-war protest behind the ‘Headington Shark’

The Headington Shark is a sculpture of a large shark embedded head-first in the roof of a terraced house at 2 New High Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Headington is a suburb in east Oxford, at the top of Headington Hill overlooking the city in the Thames valley below, with Marston to the north-west, Cowley to the south, and Barton and Risinghurst to the east. When I first visited Oxford in my teens, around 1969 or 1970, I stayed in Headington at the youth hostel in Cowley House on Jack Straw’s Lane, which closed in 2001.

I have been through Headington many times in recent years, on my way to and from the hospitals. But an appointment earlier this week at John Radcliffe Hospital and a follow-up visitlater in the week, offered opportunities and time to walk around Headington, and to see the ‘Headington Shark’, the area’s most celebrated landmark and an anti-war protest. There was time too to see Saint Andrew’s Church, Holy Trinity Church and some other churches in the area; to see the ‘Black Booy’ – a pub with a controversial name; and to look into some of Headington’s literary, academic and cultural connections, including links with CS Lewis and Isaiah Berlin.

The commercial and shopping life of Headington and traffic through the area focuses on London Road, the main road between London and Oxford. But Headington also has not one but two High Streets, New High Street and Old High Street. And it was on one of those streets that I found the ‘Headington Shark’ and other noticeable sites.

The Headington Clock in the centre of commercial and shopping life and traffic on London Road in Headington (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Headington Shark – properly named ‘Untitled 1986’ – is a sculpture of a large shark embedded head-first in the roof of a terraced house at 2 New High Street. It began as protest art, installed 40 years ago by Bill Heine and John Buckley, without planning permission and as an anti-war protest, symbolising bombs crashing into homes and buildings.

The shark was installed on 9 August 1986 on the roof of the home of Bill Heine, an American-born radio presenter. Heine and Buckley came up with the idea of the shark while they were drinking wine on the street, and imagined the shark as a metaphor for bombs falling from the US warplanes that flew overhead on their way to bomb Libya.

The shark is in deliberate contrast with its ordinary suburban location. It was designed, created and installed by the Leeds-born sculptor John Buckley with his friend Anton Castiau, a local carpenter. ‘The shark was to express someone feeling totally impotent and ripping a hole in their roof out of a sense of impotence and anger and desperation’, Heine said. ‘It is saying something about CND, nuclear power, Chernobyl and Nagasaki’.

The painted fibreglass sculpture weighs 200 kg (450 lb), is 7.6 metre (25 ft) long, and the title ‘Untitled 1986’ is written on the gate. It took three months to build the installation, and it was put in place on the 41st anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945.

The Headington Shark began as anti-war and nuclear statement by John Buckley and Bill Hein (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Over time, there were complaints about the conditions of the sculpture and the house, so to mark the shark’s 21st anniversary it was renovated by Buckley in 2007. Magnus Hanson-Heine, bought the house in 2016 to preserve the shark, before his father Bill Heine died on 2 April 2019. The house has been an Airbnb guesthouse since 2018.

The shark was controversial and was the subject of a six-year battle between Oxford City Council and Bill Heine. The council tried to remove the shark on the grounds of safety and because it did not have proper planning permission. However, the shark had much local support. The Department of the Environment ruled on planning grounds in 1992 that the shark could remain in place because it did not harm a visual amenity.

Oxford City Council had the shark listed with Historic England in 2016 and designated the sculpture a heritage site in 2022, despite objection from Magnus Hanson-Heine, who said, ‘Using the planning apparatus to preserve a historical symbol of planning law defiance is absurd.’

Saint Andrew’s Lane in Old Headington … people have lived in Headington ever since the Stone Age (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

People have lived in Headington ever since the Stone Age, and excavations in Barton Lane suggest a date in the 11th century BCE, while pottery found on the Manor Ground is evidence of an Iron Age settlement in the 7th century BCE. The site of a Roman villa and Roman kilns from about 300 CE have been found, and Anglo-Saxon burial remains from about 500 CE have been discovered.

The name Headington comes from the Old English Hedena’s dun, meaning ‘Hedena’s hill’, and it was the site of a palace or hunting lodge of the Kings of Mercia. Æthelred the Unready, in a charter in 1004, gave land in Headington to Saint Frideswide’s Priory, including the quarry and the area around it.

Henry I granted a chapel at Headington to the Augustinians of Saint Frideswide’s Priory when the priory was founded in 1122. Saint Andrew’s Church, the oldest surviving building in Headington, was built in the mid-12th century, enlarged in the 13th century, the bell tower dates from the 13th or 14th century and the Gothic Revival architect JC Buckler restored the church and lengthened the nave in 1862-1864.

Stone from Headington Quarry was used to build Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1474, and was later used to build Cardinal College, later Christ Church.

Headington Football Club, later Headington United, was formed in 1893 and eventually became Oxford United.

Headington developed rapidly in the early 20th century, with new housing around the mediaeval village, now known as Old Headington, around Saint Andrew’s Church. New Headington, south side of London Road, dates from the late 19th century, and other neighbourhoods include Highfield, Quarry and Headington Hill.

Today the main employment sectors are medicine, education and research. The area includes the main campus of Oxford Brookes University, Ruskin College, which moved to Headington in 2012, and Oxford’s main hospitals, including the John Radcliffe, Nuffield and Churchill.

A plaque at the gate of the Headington House commemorates Sir Isaiah Berlin, who lived there from 1956 until he died in 1997 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Headington’s notable residents have included the poet Elizabeth Jennings; CS Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia, who lived in the area until he died in 1963 and who is buried at Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry; JRR Tolkien, author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, who lived in Headington from 1953 to 1968; the author Elizabeth Bowen; the newspaper publisher Robert Maxwell; and Lord Nuffield (William Morris).

Oxford academics who have lived in Headington include Sir Anthony Kenny, who died earlier last month (3 August 2026), and Sir Isaiah Berlin, who married Mrs Aline Halban of Headington House in 1956, and lived there until he died in 1997. The comedian David Mitchell, star of the BBC series Ludwig, grew up in Headington.

Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo (1886-1978), a Spanish writer, diplomat, writer, historian and pacifist and Professor of Spanish at Oxford University, lived in Headington before and after the Spanish Civil War, in 1929-1931 and 1940-1973. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Nobel Peace Prize, received the Charlemagne Prize in 1973.

The house in Headington where Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo lived before and after the Spanish Civil War (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The original, 17th century Black Boy stood from 1667 or earlier at the corner of Barton Lane and Old High Street. The board above the door showed a black boy-servant, a sign commonly hung outside coffee houses in the 17th century. The pub was rebuilt on the site as the present Black Boy on Old High Street in 1937.

The rebuilt pub used to have a sculpted figure of a black servant in the niche above the entrance, but this was smashed in 1990 and was replaced by the painting of a chimney-sweep’s boy, which was supposedly more politically correct. Even so, in 1997 there was an unsuccessful attempt by Oxford students to get the pub’s name changed on the grounds that it was offensive.

The niche remained empty from about 2008, but now a black horse decorates the façade as a new story is told about the pub taking its name from a racehorse. Watching school children walk by in the afternoon September sunshine, I wondered what any black child in Headington would think of the name of the pub, no matter what explanation or excuse is offered.

The Black Boy at the corner of Barton Lane and Old High Street was rebuilt on the site in 1937 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

I have yet to be convinced by those explanations or excuses. Instead, I visited the White Hart at 12 St Andrew’s Road, across the street from Saint Andrew’s Church. The White Hart dates from the late 17th century, and is believed to have been the inn once known as ‘Joan of Headington’s’. It is a listed building, and retains some of its original panelling and doors.

In the 17th century, Headington was a favourite destination of Oxford academics taking a walk into the country. As the present main road through the centre did not exist at the time, after reaching the top of Headington Hill they would continue along Cuckoo Lane to the alehouse where the Joan of Headington apparently offered more than ale. By 1750, the inn had become more respectable and it was given a new name as the White Hart.

The White Hart was the annual meet for the South Oxfordshire Hounds, and was also a centre for the mummers. A 26 ft-deep well was discovered in the courtyard in 1976, but was covered for safety reasons.

As for the former youth hostel, which I stayed in when I was 17 or 18, it was renamed Dorothea Beale House after one of the founders of St Hilda’s College, its address is now 32B Jack Straw’s Lane, and it is a children’s nursery.

But more about Saint Andrew’s Church and some other churches in Headington, Jack Straw’s Lane and the connections with CS Lewis in the days to come, hopefully.

The White Hart at 12 St Andrew’s Road, across the street from Saint Andrew’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Ebbe’s Church, part of church life in Oxford for 1,000 years, but standing apart from diocesan life

Saint Ebbe’s Church, Oxford … the north side faces onto Pennyfarthing Lane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

In Oxford last week, after visiting Holy Rood Church and Saint Matthew’s Church in Grandpont, searching for the extensive site of Greyfriars, the mediaeval Franciscan friary, and walking through the sites of the old gasworks and the slum clearance programmes in Saint Ebbe’s parish in the 1950s and 1960s, I decided to see once again whether I could see inside Saint Ebbe’s Church.

Saint Ebbe’s Church on Pennyfarthing Lane in central Oxford describes itself as a ‘conservative evangelical’ church, identifying with groupings such as ReNew, Gafcon and ReNew network’s Alternative Selection Panel (ASP).

Saint Ebbe’s has been part of life in Oxford for more than 1,000 years. Although the mediaeval and later church was largely rebuilt in the early 19th century, the tower and parts of the nave were retained and, along with the finely carved 12th century doorway, they form an imposing composition.

The west end and tower of Saint Ebbe’s Church, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The church stands on the site of an earlier church dedicated to Saint Æbbe before 1005. Most sources suggest that this was the Northumbrian Saint Æbbe of Coldingham, but it has been suggested that Æbbe of Oxford was a different saint. The name was first recorded ca 1005, when the church was granted to Eynsham Abbey by Ealdorman Æthelmær the Stout and it was already recorded as the ‘ancient Saint Ebbe’s.’

The earlier church had a nave and north aisle under the same roof, a chancel and north chapel, with a tower and north and south porches. The church seems to have been rebuilt ca 1170, and this is the date of the earliest surviving fabric The nave dated from the 12th century or earlier. The north wall was 15th century, as was the chapel.

When the Franciscans arrived in Oxford in 1224, they settled beside the church, outside the city wall, where they built a large friary, Greyfriars, that completely overshadowed Saint Ebbe’s. The Franciscans were given permission to make a ‘little gate’ in the city wall, to give them access to the city, and this is reserved in the name, Littlegate Street.

Meanwhile, the mediaeval synagogue in Oxford was established in 1228 close to Saint Ebbe’s Church, opposite Pennyfarthing Lane. Among the great Franciscan scholars in Oxford by the end of 13th century, Roger Bacon, was a philosopher and scientist whose work included research into light, lenses and gunpowder. He died in 1294 and was buried in the parish. He gives his name to Roger Bacon Lane, where Saint Ebbe’s church offices are now located.

The Franciscan philosopher and theologian Roger Bacon gives his name to Roger Bacon Lane, where Saint Ebbe’s has its church offices (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

For centuries, Saint Ebbe’s Parish was one of the poorest parts of the city. The church was partially rebuilt in 1648 after part of the church tower fell in 1648, and the whole church was thoroughly repaired in 1696.

By 1813, two architects reported the church was in a dangerous condition. On their recommendation it was demolished, but for the lowest part of the tower, probably dating from the 12th century, and 22 ft of walling at the south-west corner.

A new church, including the nave and chancel, was built 1814-1816 to a design by William Fisher in the Early English style on the same site but extending further north to include the site of the former rectory house on the corner of Saint Ebbe’s Street and Church Street.

The new or rebuilt church was paid for mainly by the Bishop of Oxford and Oxford colleges, but was already described as being too small by 1826. However, it was not enlarged until 1862-1868, when it was enlarged and restored under the diocesan architect, George Edmund Street, who added a south aisle with windows in the Decorated style, created a north aisle by inserting an arcade, and rebuilt the top stage of the tower.

The East Window is a memorial to Thomas Valpy French (1825-1891), who was the Rector of Saint Ebbe’s until 1850. He went to Lahore in Pakistan as a missionary, became the first Bishop of Lahore, and died in Muscat.

The Norman door beside the tower of Saint Ebbe’s Church was inserted in the west wall in 1904-1905 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The church tower was heightened in 1904-1905 to designs by the Oxford-based Gothic Revival architect Alfred Mardon Mowbray (1849-1915). At the same time, a 12th century door from the old church was inserted in the west wall to the south of the tower base. This Norman doorway, from ca1170, had been taken from the south wall in 1813. It has two orders of colonettes, decorated scallop capitals, an inner arch order of beakhead and an outer order of zig-zag.

The Church of Holy Trinity, Blackfriars Road, was designed by the Oxford-based architect Henry Jones Underwood (1804-1852), who was best known for his Gothic Revival architecture. The church opened in 1845, but it was deemed unsafe in the 1950s, it was demolished in 1957, and the parish was merged with Saint Ebbe’s.

During slum clearance programmes in the 1950s and 1960s, many families in the area relocated to newer housing estates on the periphery of Oxford, the gasworks beside the church were demolished in 1960, and the surrounding tightly-packed residential terraces were replaced by new houses and commercial property.

The parish of Saint Peter-le-Bailey merged with Saint Ebbe’s in 1961, when Saint Peter’s Church was transferred to Saint Peter’s College for use as the college chapel.

Many of the properties in the parish of Saint Ebbe’s were demolished in the 1960s and 1970s to make way for the Westgate Shopping Centre, now Westgate Oxford. The church underwent further restoration in 2017 under the direction of Quinlan Terry. During that restoration, some of the internal fittings were sold off as architectural antiques and the organ was moved to Saint Denys Church, York.

The former Saint Ebbe’s Rectory in Paradise Square was designed by George Edmund Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The old Saint Ebbe’s Rectory in Paradise Square stands in the last remaining part of the grounds of the Greyfriars, the mediaeval Franciscan friary. It was once ‘a large plot of ground partly enclosed by a rivulet and whereon was so pleasant a grove of trees, divided into several walks, ambits and recesses, as also a garden and orchard adjoining, that by the citizens of Oxon was called Paradise.’

The rectory was designed by GE Street and built in 1852 and altered in 1868. This two-storey stone house has gables, mullioned windows and a stair turret can be seen in this view.

A blue plaque on the former rectory commemorates the Revd Dr John Stansfeld (1854-1939), the Rector of Saint Ebbe’s in 1912-1926. As a civil servant, he studied part-time for degrees in theology (Exeter College) and medicine, and he ran the Oxford Medical Mission in Bermondsey before moving to Saint Ebbe’s parish.

A blue plaque on the former rectory commemorates Canon John Stansfeld, a former Rector of Saint Ebbe’s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Ebbe’s was then a poor and overcrowded parish. He set up a medical dispensary in the rectory garden and fought to have public baths built in Paradise Square. As in Bermondsey he was a firm believer in the importance of boys’ clubs and recruited undergraduates to run them.

Canon Stansfield used his personal resources in 1919 to buy 20 acres of land at Shotover to set up summer camps and a country retreat for the urban poor of Saint Ebbe’s. It continued until 2014 as the Stansfeld Outdoor Study Centre.

The former rectory was the Cherwell Tutorial College in recent years and it now houses the Oxford Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma.

The south side of Saint Ebbe’s Church, Oxford … Saint Ebbe’s describes itself as a ‘conservative evangelical’ church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Today, Saint Ebbe’s describes itself as a ‘conservative evangelical’ church, but the Guardian has described it as ‘a hardline evangelical church in Oxford.’ The church has passed resolutions to reject the ordination of women and female leadership in the church. It receives alternative episcopal oversight from the Bishop of Ebbsfleet, Bishop Rob Munro, and before him from Bishop Rod Thomas when he was the Bishop of Maidstone.

Canon Vaughan Edward Roberts has been the Rector of Saint Ebbe’s since 1998. He was educated at Winchester College, studied law at Selwyn College, Cambridge, and studied for ordination at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. He was ordained deacon in 1991 and priest in 1992. He joined Saint Ebbe’s in 1991 as a curate under the Revd David Fletcher, who once ran the controversial, abusive Iwerne camps associated with his brother Jonathan Fletcher and the late John Smyth. When David Fletcher retired from Saint Ebbe’s, Vaughan Roberts succeeded him as rector in 1998.

Jonathan Fletcher, who had a high-profile and influential ministry, was the vicar of Emmanuel Church, Wimbledon, and was also a regular preacher in Saint Ebbe’s. A recent report has exposed his bullying, coercive and abusive behaviour over many years, with a long-running pattern of sexual and spiritual abuse.

Since 2009, Roberts has also been Director of the Proclamation Trust, founded to train ‘conservative evangelical’ preachers by Dick Lucas and Jonathan Fletcher. ReNew network’s Alternative Selection Panel (ASP) was involved in the recent ‘alternative ordinations’ this year and last year conducted by Bishop Martin Morrison of the breakaway Reformed Evangelical Anglican Church of South Africa at the East London Tabernacle, a Baptist chapel in Mile End.

These ‘alternative ordinations’, which have been reported in the Church Times (4 July 2025 and 26 June 2026). But the men involved have not been named, and I cannot find out whether any of them are linked with Saint Ebbe’s. Five of the seven deacons are graduates of the Proclamation Trust’s Leaders’ Training Course (LTC), formerly known as Cornhill Plus.

Vaughan Roberts was one of more than 100 clerics who signed a letter in 2018 criticising the approach of the bishops in the Diocese of Oxford to sexual ethics, claiming ‘the situation [in the diocese] is serious.’ In a recent book, he described struggles with unwanted same-sex attraction, and later confirmed this in an interview, but said he does not define himself as homosexual and that he has chosen to remain celibate.

The East End of Saint Ebbe’s Church … the East Window is a memorial to a former rector, Bishop Thomas Valpy French (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

When I arrived at Saint Ebbe’s last week, the church was closed, and even the garden beside the church was padlocked on a hot sun-soaked summer afternoon.

The parish is formally Saint Ebbe with Holy Trinity and Saint Peter le Bailey. The clergy team includes Canon Vaughan Robets, the Revd Peter Wilkinson, the Revd Glenn Nesbitt, the Revd Josh Skidmore, the Revd Al Horn, the Revd Tim Dossor and the Revd Ben Vane.

Saint Ebbe’s has three services each Sunday at 10 am, 4 pm and 6:30. Weekday services from Monday to Friday are at 8:45. The church possesses beautiful Communion plates of Elizabethan and Jacobean date. The church says all of these are still in regular use, and it uses gluten-free Communion and non-alcoholic Communion wine. But I am still unable to find when or how often the Eucharist is celebrated in Saint Ebbe’s, and I have still not been inside the church.

When I arrived at Saint Ebbe’s on a hot sun-soaked summer afternoon, the church was closed and the garden was padlocked (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

A search for the site of Greyfriars and the heart of Franciscan intellectual life in mediaeval Oxford

‘The new religion is consumerism and massive malls are its cathedrals’ … Westgate Oxford was built on top of the extensive remains of the mediaeval Greyfriars friary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

The large shopping centres throughout Britain represent the consumer-driven urban environment that thrived with Thatcherism. The new religion became consumerism and massive malls became its cathedrals, where people are found like sheep with a shepherd, shopping around for salvation.

As Brian Appleyard pointed out in the Independent back in 1993, we have turned many run-of-the-mill towns into cities by building cathedrals called malls: ‘The religious parallel is precise and detailed: these malls have naves, aisles, triforia, clerestories, cruciform plans and holy water features. Here, through shopping, we seek out ‘value’, apply the moral code of consumerism and aspire to a better life.’

Westgate Oxford, previously known as the Westgate Centre and built as Westgate Shopping Centre, is the main shopping centre in the centre of Oxford. It was first built in 1970-1972 to designs by Douglas Murray and it was extensively remodelled and extended in 2016-2017.

When the centre was first built in the 1970s, part of the work destroyed archaeological remains of part of mediaeval Oxford. During the redevelopment in 2015-2017, Oxford Archaeology carried out architectural investigations into the extensive remains of the mediaeval Greyfriars friary (1244-1538), and the discoveries included stone foundations, wooden and other artefacts, and part of a mediaeval tiled floor.

My search for the remains of the vast Greyfriars site in Oxford began at Friars Wharf (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

I had a brief view of the modern Greyfriars buildings in Oxford recently, including the Church of Saint Edmund and Saint Frideswide or Greyfriars on Iffley Road in East Oxford. So, when we were back in Oxford a few days ago, one of the ecclesiastical sites I went in search of was the original Greyfriars or Franciscan friary, founded by Saint Agnellus of Pisa in 1224.

After visiting two neighbouring churches, Holy Rood Church on Abingdon Road and Saint Matthew’s Church on Marlborough Road, last week, I crossed back over the River Thames at the Gasworks Pipe Bridge to the site of the former gasworks and Friars Wharf to begin a search for the once extensive site of the medieval friary that had been an influential establishment in Oxford for over 300 years.

A new interactive archaeological and history trail has been developed at Westgate, showcasing artefacts uncovered during the excavation of the site, the largest exposure of medieval buildings yet seen in the city. The trail has been created in partnership with Oxford Archaeology and involves several marker in and around Westgate.

Each marker includes information and items of significance uncovered in archaeological excavations, including:

• the vanished suburb of St Ebbe’s
• original pavement from the Franciscan Friary
• art inspired by the Franciscan theologian and philosopher Roger Bacon

Visitors and local people are invited to interact with the trail and to find out more about the dig by scanning the QR codes on the totems in the centre, or by visiting the Westgate Oxford website with their smartphones. Printed maps are also available.

The trail signposts other locations in Oxford, including the Weston Library, the Bates Collection at Saint Aldate’s Church, the Pitt Rivers Museum and Oxford Castle Quarter. The trail was the culmination of many years work alongside Oxford Archaeology.

Roger Bacon Lane … one of the street names remembering the Franciscans of Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Franciscans were founded by Saint Francis of Assisi in 1210. He sent nine friars to England in 1224 under Saint Agnellus of Pisa, who founded the Franciscan or Greyfriars Friary in Oxford between Saint Ebbe’s Church and the city wall.

The friary started in a single house between Saint Ebbe’s Church and the mediaeval city wall. The popularity of the Franciscan friars as teachers in the University of Oxford meant they soon outgrew their original site. In 1244, Henry III granted the Greyfriars land and water south of the city wall and they received royal permission to demolish part of the wall to build their new church. The Franciscans were given permission to make a ‘little gate’ in the city wall to give them access to the city, and this is reserved in the name of Littlegate Street.

The T-shaped plan of the friary church provided the largest possible preaching area. Pieces of stained and painted glass, decorated floor tiles and a small statue, probably of a saint, were among the archaeological finds and give a glimpse of what the church might have looked like. Burials were found under the floor of the church, but the body of Saint Agnellus was not identified. Other burials were excavated from the graveyard.

The cloisters were to the south of the church and a complex of other buildings south of that probably included the monks’ sleeping quarters or dormitory, their washhouse or reredorter, the chapter house, the sacristy, and possibly a watermill.

More friars minor moved to Oxford when the University of Paris was dispersed in 1229-1230. The Franciscan friars of Oxford quickly earned their international academic and intellectual reputations, they had the ear of kings and popes, and they put Oxford more prominently on the map. They were politically influential and that in turn helped to give the university greater status, attracting more top teachers and students.

The friary became one of the greatest mediaeval teaching institutions in Oxford and it had a pivotal importance in the history of Oxford University. Along with the Dominicans of Oxford, the Franciscans were a major force in transforming the university, focusing on intellectually rigorous and challenging subjects.

Oxford University claims to have been founded in 1096, and it grew rapidly from 1167, when Henry II prohibited English students from attending the University of Paris. Before the Franciscans arrived in Oxford, it was already specialised in teaching practical vocationally oriented courses like letter writing, Latin grammar, classical speech-making, basic maths and practical law.

However, the Franciscans and their Dominican contemporaries and rivals introduced a new emphasis on theology in the curriculum that in turn led to teaching advanced philosophy, physics, natural history, geology and even optics. At that stage, theology was regarded as the cutting-edge intellectual discipline, and was known as the ‘Queen of the Sciences’.

The friars used theology and the Bible as ways to approach all other intellectual disciplines, and these mediaeval friars made Oxford the international centre of scholarship it remains to this day.

A plaque remembering Roger Bacon, the Franciscan philosopher known as Doctor Mirabilis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Among the eminent mediaeval scholars who taught at Greyfriars were:

• Robert Grosseteste, one of mediaeval Europe’s first great mathematicians and physicists was also Bishop of Lincoln and the first Chancellor of the University of Oxford;

• Roger Bacon, a philosopher, linguist and pioneer of empirical science whose work included research into light, lenses and gunpowder;

• Haymo of Faversham, a diplomat who taught in Paris, Tours, Bologna and Padua, as well as Oxford;

• John of Peckham, who became Archbishop of Canterbury;

• John Duns Scotus, considered among the most important philosopher-theologians in Western Christendom during the late medieval period, alongside Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure and William of Ockham;

• Alexander of Hales, a theologian and philosopher instrumental to the development of scholasticism;

• William of Ockham, a philosopher and radical political theorist who gives his name to the problem-solving principle known as ‘Ockham’s Razor’;

• the Italian friar Peter Phillarges, who was born in Neapoli in Crete and was later widely recognised as Pope Alexander V during the schism in the early 14th century, although he is now generally listed as an antipope.

Four of these great intellectual friars had interesting Latin monikers: Alexander of Hales, Doctor Irrefragabilis; Roger Bacon, Doctor Mirabilis; John Duns Scotus, Doctor Subtilis, and William of Ockham, Doctor Invincibilis.

The Castle on Paradise Street … the names of Paradise Square and Paradise Street are reminders of the ‘Paradise’ orchard at Greyfriars (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Franciscan order divided into two branches in 1517: the friars who had been living in city-convents and teaching in universities became known as Conventuals, while the friars who lived a more eremitical life became known as Observants; the Capuchins developed in 1528.

Greyfriars continued as an educational and religious centre until it was dissolved at the Tudor Reformations in 1538. After the dissolution of the monastic houses, the Greyfriars buildings were pulled down and many of the foundations were removed to provide building materials. The Capuchins did not return to Oxford until 1905.

The site of the Greyfriars gardens, known as Paradise, was turned into famous market gardens. By the end of the 19th century, the whole site of the Greyfriars had been was built over with streets of terraced housing, known as ‘The Friars’.

The footprint of the mediaeval friary at the south-west corner of the city walls was extensive, running between the present-day Paradise Street and the Westgate Oxford Shopping Centre.

The archaeological investigations are uncovering what life in Oxford was like during that crucial transition. The archaeological investigations are also important because the Franciscan Friary or Greyfriars was home to some of the most important scholars in mediaeval Oxford and in wider European academic life.

The first archaeological excavations of the Greyfriars were carried out in 1967-1972, before Westgate Shopping Centre was built. These uncovered the T-shaped plan of the friary church and the different phases of its construction over almost 300 years, from the 1240s until the Reformation.

Only a small part of these buildings were identified in the 1970s, but much more was discovered with further excavations in 2015-2016, revealing many more stone buildings south of the friary church. Combined, these excavations constitute some of the most extensive plans of any mediaeval urban friary in England.

Paradise Garden (2017) is a sculpture by William Cobbing (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Paradise Garden (2017) is a sculpture by William Cobbing that consists of seven quarried stone boulder forms inlaid with glazed ceramic tiles. They reference the archaeology, history and flora of the place, and the constellation of sculptures complements the landscaping design of Greyfriars Place, inviting the viewer to reflect on the history of the site.

Many of the street names and placenames in the area recall the presence of the Franciscan friars and the Dominicans in the area until the 16th century, including Old Greyfriars Street, Blackfriars Road, Friars Wharf, Preachers Lane, Trinity Street.

Roger Bacon gives his name to Roger Bacon Lane, where Saint Ebbe’s Church has its offices. The names of Paradise Square and Paradise Street are reminders of the ‘Paradise’ orchard at Greyfriars.

Old Greyfriars Street at Westgate is a reminder of the presence of the Franciscans in Oxford for over 300 years (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Old Palace Lodge and its Tudor walled gardens prompted a search for a lost Eleanor Cross in Dunstable

In the Tudor walled gardens at the Old Palace Lodge in Dunstable on a summer afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

I was in Dunstable last week, mainly to visit the Priory Church of Saint Peter and Saint Mary’s Church on West Street, the 1960s church by Peter Williams that typifies his work and the liturgical insights that came at the time of the Second Vatican Council.

But throughout Dunstable, there is no escaping the fact that this town in Bedfordshire owes much to a continuous royal presence from Henry I building a small palace or hunting lodge and then endowing the foundation of the Augustinian priory, to the choice of Dunstable as one of the stopping places for Queen Eleanor’s funeral cortege in 1290 and the erection of one of the 12 Eleanor Crosses, to the annulment of the marriage of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon in the Lady Chapel of the Priory Church in 1533.

Today, the Old Palace Lodge on Church Street, opposite the Priory Church of Saint Peter, is an ivy-clad hotel and restaurant. The building was converted from a farmhouse in the 18th century, but it stands on the site of Kingsbury Palace, frequented by monarchs and royalty ever since the 12th century. The wood panelling and furnishings create an ambience of warm old English charm in the Old Palace Lodge that dates back several hundred years.

Henry I came to the throne in 1100 and soon became engaged in the development of Dunstable at the junction of two roads dating back to the Roman era. He built a palace near these crossroads, appointed a steward, and Kingsbury Palace was finished and furnished ready for a royal visit in 1109.

When the old palace became too costly to maintain, King John gave handed it over to the Augustinian Priory. In 1290, Dunstable became one of the stopping points along the elaborate funeral procession of Queen Eleanor.

The Old Palace Lordge had been owned in the past by kings, monks, cardinals, merchants, doctors and farmers and is now an hotel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Cardinal Thomas Wolsey’s secretary and biographer, George Cavendish (1497-1562), bought the old palace immediately before the dissolution of the monastic houses, perhaps saving it from destruction. Cavendish married Margery Kemp, a niece of Sir Thomas More, and was related to Bess of Hardwick and the ancestors of the Dukes of Devonshire.

William Marshe and his wife Elizabeth were living at Kingsbury by 1600 and their children grew up there. Later generations of the Marshe family built the Marshe Almshouses further along Church Street in 1743.

When the Old Palace Lodge was depicted in the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1816, the house was part of Kingsbury Farm, which included 164 acres across the three parishes of Dunstable, Houghton Regis and Caddington. The east end of the house was re-roofed in the 1920s, with a gable end facing Church Street that altered the appearance of the façade.

The house was divided in two in the 1930s, one part being Kingsbury Court, Dr Ashton’s house, the other the home for a time of a Mr Wallis who re-named it the Old Palace Lodge. Creasey Hotels bought the premises in 1959 and opened as the Old Palace Lodge Hotel in 1960. That year, a barn that once belonged to Kingsbury Farm, and was later Kingsbury Stables, was converted into a public house that became the Norman King. When the inn was built, stone was brought from a Norman castle and a cottage near Cambridge, with panelling from a mediaeval inn in Caxton, Cambridgeshire.

Wood panelling and warm furnishings create an ambience of old English charm in the Old Palace Lodge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The thatch of the Norman King caught fire in in August 2011, the fire burned all night, and the pub was destoyed. The Tudor Walled Gardens at the Old Palace Lodge were designed by Matthew George Garden Design in 2018-2019. They have been laid out on the site of the Norman King Inn in an ambitious heritage project of classic gardening.

Ornamental grasses give a modern feel to the planting and provide year-round interest with seasonal flowering bulbs and annual flowers in beds and linear zinc jardinières. The main planting compliments the hard landscape materials of the classic English garden style, while evergreen clipped hedges, box and yew topiary set within borders of hardy perennial plants and small ornamental trees bring the Tudor theme to life.

Shrubs and climbing roses add colour and scent, with some fruit trees along the walls. Outside the hotel entrance, topiary yew cones are growing in large stylish terracotta planters. Along the red brick wall, bordered with pearls of lights in the evening, evergreen hedges create natural alcoves for private seating while at the centre is a terrace of grey porcelain pavers with rattan sofas and a fire pit.

An aged zinc water feature set in front of the Norman stone wall is surrounded by exotic grasses and herbaceous plants, sweet shrubs and yew trees. There is an oak-framed gazebo on the left hand side of the garden, a shaded pergola walkway and two glass pods that can be hired for private dining.

The Eleanor Cross erected by Edward I in Dunstable in 1291-1293 was razed by parliamentarians in 1643 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Dunstable was the location of one of the 12 tall decorated stone columns or Eleanor Crosses erected by King Edward I to mark the route of the funeral of his wife, Eleanor of Castile. She died at Harby, near Lincoln, on 28 November 1290 and her body was brought to Westminster Abbey on a journey that took 12 days, following a route that stopped at several important religious houses.

A chapel was built In Harby, the village where she died. When she was taken to Lincoln, her viscera or internal organs were removed and buried in a tomb in the cathedral and her body was embalmed. The original viscera tomb and what remained of Eleanor were destroyed by Cromwell’s troops in the 1640s, and it was restored in 1891.

The entourage continued south towards Watling Street and crossed the Great Ouse at Stony Stratford on the journey to Woburn Abbey. A stop at Stony Stratford was not part of the original plan and flooding and short winter days meant crossing the river took some time. It is unclear where Eleanor’s body stayed in Stony Stratford, but it was possibly at the parish church of Saint Mary Magdalene, whose tower still stands.

From Stony Stratford, the procession continued on to Woburn Abbey before reaching Dunstable on 11 December. There her coffin rested on a bier in the middle of the town’s marketplace before being taken to the Priory Church, where it stayed overnight before going on to St Albans the next day.

Dunstable is the only place on the route where the king did not stay in the same town as his wife’s body. Instead, he had gone ahead to St Albans for the election of the new abbot, John of Berkamsted. In London, her heart was buried at Blackfriars while her body was buried in Westminster Abbey.

A modern sculpture of Queen Eleanor by Dora Barrett was a gift to the people of Dunstable in 1985 (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

In all, 12 Eleanor Crosses were erected along the funeral route. All were tall, stone monuments, almost 40 ft high. They differed in detail, but all were built in three tiers, decreasing in size as they ascended, surmounted with a cross, and all elaborately carved with statues and coats of arms.

The first Eleanor Cross to mark the journey was at Lincoln, but only three survive: Geddington Cross, Northamptonshire, the best-preserved and most complete of the crosses; Hardingstone, Northampton, on a hill overlooking Delapré Abbey; and Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire. The original crosses at Charing Cross, London, and St Albans were destroyed during the Reformation and Civil War, but are marked by modern replicas and plaques.

The Eleanor Cross at Stony Stratford was also destroyed during the Civil War, and no trace remains of it, although there is a plaque on the arch at 157 High Street. The local artist Luke McDonnell has also created a mural of Eleanor at the corner of High Street and New Street, diagonally opposite the Old George.

In the Tudor Walled Gardens at the Old Place Lodge in Dunstable (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

For about two years, from 1291 to 1293, stonemasons and sculptors worked to create the Eleanor Cross in Dunstable, with its effigies of the queen and other carved decorations. It remained a landmark in Dunstable until the English Civil War, when Cromwell’s Roundhead troops smashed it to pieces in 1643. Nothing above ground has survived.

It is difficult today to identify the exact location of the Eleanor Cross in Dunstable, and the layout of the crossroads and the site of the market have changed over the years. Most sources seem to agree that the foundations of the cross probably lay beneath the crossroads, near the Church Street exit, and a plaque on street corner recalls the cross.

A small shopping precinct opened in 1985 on the west side of High Street North, opposite the Quadrant shopping centre, and was named Eleanor’s Cross Shopping Precinct. A modern sculpture of Queen Eleanor by Dora Barrett was a gift to the people of Dunstable and was unveiled on 23 October 1985 as a symbolic replacement for the long-lost cross, though no-one claims that this was the site of the 13th century Eleanor Cross.

Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon … portraits in the Old Palace Lodge in Dunstable (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

If Edward did not stay at the priory or the old palace in Dunstable during Eleanor’s funeral, then neither did Henry VIII during the hearing of his annulment and the proceedings against Catherine of Aragon in the Lady Chapel in the priory church. Instead, he stayed at the White Horse Inn on High Street North during his visit in 1533.

When Catherine of Aragon died in 1536, she did not receive an elaborate funeral like Eleanor in 1290. Instead, she was buried in the monastic church that is now Peterborough Cathedral. Henry returned to Dunstable with Anne Boleyn in 1537 and once again stayed at the White Horse Inn.

The entrance to the site of the White Horse Inn at No 13 High Street North incorporates the Anchor Gateway, an early 17th century gatehouse. A paved setting on the street recalls that Henry VIII stayed at the White Horse Inn and played a game of bowls on the green behind the inn, near the site of Christ Church today.

At the end of last week’s walk around Dunstable, I sat in a shaded area in the Old Palace Lodge, lazily nurturing a long cool drink and looking out on the recreated Tudor Walled Gardens. The panelled walls are filled with mementoes of Henry VIII, including portraits of Henry, Catherine of Aragon and Cardinal Wolsey. One portrait frames Henry between all his six wives – perhaps a light-hearted talking point for wedding guests who might otherwise find any conversation of annulments, divorces or even beheadings, inappropriate in the company of a bride and groom.

Summer thoughts of royal residents in the Old Palace Lodge in Dunstable (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)