A return visit to Wolseley after 55 years and lunch in the Wolseley Arms

The Wolseley Arms, by the River Trent, near Rugeley in Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

I think it must be about 55 years since I previously Wolseley and interviewed Sir Charles Wolseley for the Lichfield Mercury and the Rugeley Mercury.

I was supposed to be training as a chartered surveyor through Jones Lang Wootton in Dublin and London and at the College of Estate Management, then part of Reading University, Charles Wolseley even offered to take me on as a trainee with him at Smiths Gore in Lichfield. Butat that age I had my heart set on becoming a journalist instead.

I was about 19 at that time, and that interview and feature secured my first freelance contract, writing a short series of features for the Lichfield Mercury and the Rugeley Mercury.

I have since passed Wolseley on the route between Stafford and Lichfield a number of times, but some inexplicable reason had never paid a return visit in all those years. I revisited it for the first time last week, when I decided to hop off the Stafford-Lichfield bus at Wolseley Bridge to have lunch at the Wolseley Arms, to walk by the River Trent and the lakes, and to visit the Wolseley Centre on the former Wolseley estate.

Woseley Bridge replaced a mediaeval bridge swept away in a flood in 1795 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Family tradition says the Wolseley estate was given to the family in Anglo-Saxon times by King Edgar in 975 AD as a reward for ridding the area of wolves. As a reminder of that tradition, the Wolseley family adopted the motto Homo Homini Lupus (‘Man is a wolf towards his fellow man’), with a hunting dog in the shield of their coat of arms and a wolf’s head as the crest.

The Wolseley Arms sits on the banks of the River Trent, beside Wolseley Bridge, about 3 km (2 miles). A mediaeval wayfarers’ chapel was built on the bridge, supposedly on the central arch, but it was swept away with the rest of the bridge in 1795.

The pub is said to date back to the 15th century and originally was a hunting lodge on the Wolseley estate before being transformed into a coaching inn on the Liverpool-London route, and at one time, as a staging post for coaches, over 100 horses were kept at the Wolseley Arms.

The Wolseley Arms, said to date back to the 15th century, was known for some decades as the the Roebuck Inn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Wolseley Arms was the regular meeting place of the founder members of the Trent and Mersey Canal Co over 250 years ago. The first public meeting of the canal company, chaired by Granville Leveson-Gower (1721-1803), Earl Gower and later Marquess of Stafford, met there on 30 December 1765. When work on building the canal started, the inaugural spade-full of soil was dug out by Josiah Wedgewood at a point close by the inn. The stone section of the canal was completed in 1771.

Much to the chagrin of Sir Charles Wolseley (1769-1846), the seventh baronet, the coach traffic at the Wolseley Arms included the ‘Convict Van’ that stopped there in June 1834 to change horses and feed the convicts. The 18 prisoners were each offered a meal of white bread, cold beef and half a pint of ale.

Wolseley had a radical reputation and might have been expected to be more sympathetic to the plight of prisoners: as a young man in Paris, it is said, he took part in the storming of the Bastille in 1789; and in 1820, a year after his election as an MP, he was jailed for 18 months on charges of sedition and conspiracy.

A faded image of Wolseley Hall in the Wolseley Arms (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Wolseley Arms changed its name to the Roebuck Inn after the original Roebuck on the other side of the road closed in the 1870s. Apparently, the pub had become known as a place of ill-repute and the Wolseley family did not want their name linked with a place like that.

The old name was partly restored and it became the Roebuck and Wolseley Arms around 1952, and it was still known as both the Wolseley Arms and the Roebuck Inn in 1963, when the Rugeley Times suggested it was one of the few pubs in England known by two names and with two signs to reflect this.

However, only the Wolseley Arms sign remained by 1973. The Wolseley Arms was enlarged that year and given a makeover with a mediaeval theme. It was renovated again in July 1982 when it was officially opened by the photographer Patrick Anson, 5th Earl of Lichfield.

Viscount Wolseley’s coat-of-arms from his ex libris bookplate

The interior decorations and fittings include many mementoes of the Wolseley family, including a faded and jaded image of Wolseley Hall, the seat of the Wolseley family, which was damaged by fire in the 1950s and finally demolished in 1966.

Interestingly, the only portraits on the walls of the Wolseley Arms of members of the Wolseley family are two of Field Marshal Garnet Joseph Wolseley (1833-1913), 1st Viscount Wolseley. But he was actually from the Irish branch of the family, seated at Mount Wolseley in Co Carlow, and was born in Golden Bridge House, Inchicore, Dublin. When his military career was recognised with a peerage in 1885, he paid tribute to his family’s roots in Staffordshire, taking the title of Viscount Wolseley, of Wolseley in the County of Stafford.

In a similar vein, the only heraldic emblem of the Wolseley family decorating the interior of the Wolseley Arms is Viscount Wolseley’s coat-of-arms from his ex libris bookplate.

A portrait of Dublin-born Field Marshal Garnet Joseph Wolseley (1833-1913), 1st Viscount Wolseley, in the Wolseley Arms (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Outside, the Wolseley Arms has managed to mistakenly present the Wolseley coat-of-arms that gives the pub its name. The original arms display a white shield with a red talbot or hunting dog (argent, a talbot passant gules), but on the pub sign the dog has turned in colour to black (argent, a talbot passant sable), the helmet is that of an untitled man rather than a baronet, black and white feathers – seen often in ‘bucket shop’ or AI generated cheap versions of heraldry – have replaced the wolf’s head that was a play on the family’s name and the legend of clearing wolves from this part of Staffordshire, and the displays are devoid of the motto echoing the family legend, Homo Homini Lupus.

I admit to being a heraldry nerd, but I also have a life-long familiarity with the Wolseley arms in heraldry: they are an inversion of the colours on the Comberford and Comerford coat-of-arms (gules, a talbot passant argent), and there were close links between the two families over many generations.

I remember an earlier sign with the correct colours, and hope that this mistake in presenting the Wolseley arms can be rectified by the Wolseley Arms, of all places.

The Wolseley arms at the Wolseley Arms … with the wrong colours and missing the wolf's head crest and the motto referring to the wolf legend (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Wolseley Arms is a charming country pub and one of the 180 country pubs in Vintage Inn group that includes the Hedgehog in Lichfield and the Fish and Eel at Dobb’s Weir, near Hoddesdon.

After an enjoyable lunch there, I walked along the banks of the River Trent and under Wolseley Bridge, and then across to the Wolseley Centre in the former gardens of Wolseley Hall. Sir Charles Wolseley took a brave step in 1987 when he returned to Wolseley with plans to open the 45-acre landscaped gardens, attracting 250,000 visitors a year.

Wolseley Garden Park cost £1.73 million and was opened by Lord Rothschild in 1990. But the place only took in between £26,000 and £30,000 on gate receipts in its first year. The bank withdrew funding before the garden park was completed, and so had little chance of succeeding. Charles was made bankrupt in 1996 with mounting debts of £2.5 to £3 million, which he blamed on the recession and high interest rates.

The sad failure of that promising venture ended with the Wolseley family losing the 1,490 acre estate and a home that had passed down through successive generations for 1,000 years or more – the latest generation had failed to keep the wolf from the door.

The Wolseley Visitor Centre and Nature Reserve opened in the ground of the former Wolseley estate in 2019 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Wolseley Visitor Centre and Nature Reserve has been a nature reserve and the headquarters of the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust since 2003.

Sir Charles Wolseley died at the age of 73 on 5 March 2018, and his funeral took place in Saint Joseph and Saint Etheldreda Catholic Church, Rugeley. The site at the Wolseley Centre was redeveloped later that year, and opened as the Wolseley Visitor Centre and Nature Reserve in 2019. The grounds extend to 11 ha (26 acres), including woodlands, lakes, pools and marshland with wildlife habitats, a boardwalk around the pools and marshland, wildflower meadows and display gardens, a sensory garden a café with views across the lake.

In the afternoon April sunshine, I hopped back on the Stafford to Lichfield bus outside the Wolseley Centre, and on a whim decided to stop off in Rugeley before continuing on to Lichfield and Evening Prayer in Lichfield Cathedral. But more about Rugeley, its churches, and some more memories from 55 years ago in the days to come, hopefully.


A walk in April sunshine by the lakes at the Wolseley Centre and nature reserve (Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching, celebrates its 70th anniversary in 2026, but dates back to 1851

Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching, is the cathedral of the Anglican Diocese of Kuching, which includes Sarawak and Brunei (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

During this visit to Kuching, I am attending the Cathedral Eucharist each Sunday in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral, Kuching, the cathedral of the Anglican Diocese of Kuching, which includes Sarawak and Brunei. We are staying beside the cathedral, which is a three-minute walk from where we stay, and I hear the cathedral bell ringing thtroughout the day, including ringing for the angelus at 6 am, 12 noon and 6 pm.

The present cathedral is celebrating its 70th anniversary. The cathedral grounds 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, the theological college for the Diocese of Kuching. Nearby are Saint Thomas’s, the diocesan boys’ school, Saint Mary’s, the diocesan girls’ school, and the Marian Hotel, once the Ong family home, then the boarding house of Saint Mary’s School, later became the diocesan guesthouse, and now a charming boutique hotel where we stayed for a week at the beginning of our visit in 2024.

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, 2026)

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 (1817-1886), who arrived in Sarawak 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. McDougall who led the group was both a doctor and a priest. The Rajah gave the missionaries a considerable area of jungle-covered hill. on which 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 metres 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, 2026)

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 based in Kuching came from SPG and SPG contributed £5,000 (about £875,00 today) towards the endowment of the 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, and was ruled as an autonomous state by the Brooke family with the title of rajah. McDougall was consecrated a bishop in 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, 2026)

Saint Thomas’s Church was wrecked in the Chinese insurrection in 1857, but was restored soon after, 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. Chambers had arrived in Sarawak in 1851, and he 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)

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 it was given the status of a cathedral in 1920.

Danson saw these enlargements as temporary measures, and by 1920 he was proposing a permanent cathedral 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, 2026)

Francis Hollis (1884-1955) first came to Sarawak in 1916, and was the 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 his time in 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 Calvary in the cathedral grounds, close to 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 in 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 coat of arms of the Diocese of Kuching beside the choir stalls and chapter stalls in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

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.

An image of the original Saint Thomas’s Pro-Cathedral in the cathedral office (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

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.

Inside the original Saint Thomas’s Pro-Cathedral, an image in the cathedral office (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

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.

A plaque above the lectern reads: ‘Borneo Mission Association, 1909-2015, For its memorial look around you.’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

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 Sabah, which covers Sabah and Labuan, was formed in 1962. 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)

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. The Church of the Province of South East Asia is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its formation this year (2026).

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, 2026)

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 has been a warm welcome in Saint Thomas’s Cathedral from the Dean of Kuching, the Very Revd Kho Thong Meng, the Revd Dato Bong Ah Loi who preached last Sunday and who presided this morning, from my friend the Revd Dr Jeffry Renos Nawie, who preached this morning, and from the priests of the cathedral each time I visit. Saint Thomas’s has become my home church and cathedral each time I visit Kuching.

• Saint Thomas’s Cathedral has six regular Sunday services: Holy Communion in English, 6:30 am; Sung Eucharistic in English, 8:30 am; Bahasa Malaysia Service with Holy Communion (McDougall Hall, Level 3, Parish Centre), 10:30 am; Mandarin Service with Holy Communion, 10:30 am; Iban Service with Holy Communion, 2 pm; Evensong with Holy Communion in English, 5:30 pm.

The eight bells in the cathedral tower were dedicated to eight priests who were ordained on the centenary of the diocese in 1955 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

A peacock in a ‘tondo’ by Fra Angelico links Christmas and Easter, the incarnation and the Resurrection

The ‘Adoration of the Magi’ (ca 1440/1460) by Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi

Patrick Comerford

As is so often at this stage in my life, I have sent out very few Christmas cards this year. Indeed, I have handed out very few cards either. In previous years, I always tried to send cards that had a real religious symbolism and designs. But I now feel a little guilty that I have not returned with the same verve or energy to sending out cards that I once had.

The small box of Oxfam cards I bought this year has not been fully used. It may be due to a number of moves in recent years, to the consequent loss of address books, and some reactions that are still delayed following a stroke almost four years ago. Or it may simply be down to bad planning and follow-through on my part.

By way of compensation, I am putting together a collection of images – stained-glass windows, icons, crib scenes and works of art – to post as online Christmas cards, posting one at noon each day on social media throughout the Twelve Days of Christmas. This follows the positive response to my daily ‘Advent Calendar’ postings throughout the month of December.

One image that caught my attention from similar postings in previous years is the Adoration of the Magi, a tondo or circular painting dating from ca 1440-1460 and ascribed to both Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi. It was recorded in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence in 1492, and is now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.

In this work, I am particularly struck by a large peacock perches on the roof of the stable, looking over his shoulder, and forming the shape of a cross in the eaves behind him.

A peacock among the heraldic symbols of the Comberford family in the Moat House on Lichfield Street in Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The peacock may have been given a prominent place in this work because Giovanni di Cosimo de Medici (1421-1463) had adopted a peacock as his heraldic symbol, along with the French motto Regarde-Moi (‘Watch me’).

This may help to explain how the peacock was popularised as a symbol in late mediaeval heraldry, as seen in the coats-of arms of the Comberford and Comerford families, as well as the Arbuthnot family and the Manners family who became the Dukes of Rutland.

The Comberford family may have first adopted the peacock and a ducal coronet as the crest in their coat of arms through a link with the Harcourt family and the two families’ shared connections with the Moat House on Lichfield Street in Tamworth. And, in turn, there may be a connection there that has links in some way with the Battle of Bosworth Field at the end of the Wars of the Roses, or provided a visual link with the swan that provided similar symbolism for the Stafford family, Dukes of Buckingham.

In time, peacocks came to decorate the crests in the coat-of-arms of both the Comerford and Comberford families: a peacock’s head in the case of two branches of the family, and a peacock in his pride in a third branch.

Three peacocks in ‘The Paradise’, a poster in a shopfront in Rethymnon inspired by a Byzantine fresco created by Theophanes of Crete in 1527 in Meteora (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

I have long been fascinated by peacocks. When I was living in Wexford in the mid-1970s, I went on a long walk in the sunshine one Sunday afternoon and came across a farm near Piercestown, 6 km south of Wexford town, with a large number of peafowl in the farmyard.

I turned into work at the Wexford People the next morning, enthusiastic about offering a feature on what appeared to be an exotic peacock colony. But everyone else seemed to know about it and was dismissive, and no-one shared my enthusiasm. The feature was never written – but then, it was in the days when newspapers were in black and white, and any photographs could never have done justice to the sight that delighted me that summer afternoon.

That fascination has continued. I have learned how to attract their attention and curiosity without disturbing them, and delighted in feeding them from my hand across Europe, from the gardens of the Royal Alcázar of Seville and vineyards near Perpignan in the south of France to the monastic gardens of Vlatadon on the slopes overlooking Thessaloniki in northern Greece.

A peacock in the gardens at the Royal Alcázar of Seville … happy to eat from a visitor’s hand (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In vineyards, peafowl – peacocks and peahens – walk around freely. Peafowl are forest birds that nest on the ground, but roost in trees. They are terrestrial feeders, and domesticated peafowl enjoy protein rich food, including larvae that infest granaries, different kinds of meat and fruit, as well as vegetables, including dark leafy greens, broccoli, carrots, beans, beets, and peas. This makes them appropriate birds to keep in an organic vineyard, acting as a natural protection for the vines.

They are curious birds too, always ready to respond to the presence of people. Despite their innate independence, they can appear to be both disdainful and socially curious at one and the same time.

With this natural curiosity, sociability and their feeding habits, it is easy to entice the peacocks and peahens with nuts and raisins and to have them eating from your hand, like cats seeking to make sense of the attention of visitors.

Peacocks above the doors of Alexandra Kaouki’s former workshop on Melissinou Street in the old town in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The English poet William Blake (1757-1827) wrote in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1793): ‘The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.’ But how did the peacock become such an interesting symbol in Christianity? Why is it that peacocks appear so often in Christian art as a symbol of the Resurrection and Eternal Life?

In ancient Persia and Babylon, the peacock was associated with Paradise and the Tree of Life and was seen as a guardian to royalty, and was often engraved upon royal thrones.

These birds were not known to Greeks before the conquests of Alexander the Great. Aristotle, who was Alexander’s tutor, refers to the peacock as ‘the Persian bird.’ In classical Greece, it was believed that the flesh of peafowl did not decay after death, and so the peacock became a symbol of immortality.

This symbolism was adopted in early Christianity, and many early Christian paintings and mosaics show the peacock. The peacock is still used in the Easter season, especially in the east. The ‘eyes’ in the peacock’s tail feathers symbolise the all-seeing God and – in some interpretations – the Church.

A peacock drinking from a vase is used as a symbol of a Christian believer drinking from the waters of eternal life. The peacock can also symbolise the cosmos if one interprets his tail with his many ‘eyes’ as the vault of heaven dotted by the sun, moon, and stars. The peacock is associated with immortality, and in iconography the peacock is often depicted next to the Tree of Life.

Peacocks and peacock feathers as symbols of the Resurrection in the Church of the Four Martyrs in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Some commentators have written that the reference in the Book of Revelation to four living creatures ‘full of eyes in front and behind’ before the throne is inspired by images of the tail of the peacock (see Revelation 4: 6). Other writers also say, ironically, that the peacock is a symbol of humility, since he has great beauty, yet hides it all behind himself.

The peacock has been a symbol of immortality from as early as the 3rd century CE on the walls of the catacombs of Rome. Later, peacocks appear in mediaeval paintings and manuscripts and in decorative motifs on churches and buildings, and even among the animals in the stable at Christ’s nativity.

The peacock in the Adoration of the Magi by Fra Angelico and Filippo Lipp is large and peacock perches on the top of the stable, looking over his shoulder. What is he looking back at, or forward to?

For me, he seems to provide a thematic link between the wooden stable and the wood of the cross, between the incarnation and the resurrection, between Christmas and Easter. There is more to look forward to than Christmas. But, for now, may you have a Happy and a Blessed and a Holy Christmas.

Peacocks on comfortable cushions at Esquires Coffee on West Street, Buckingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Maids of Moreton: were they generous benefactors of the church? Or are they merely a local legend?

Who were the Maids of Moreton? … a hidden memorial below the floor and near the north door in Saint Edmund’s Church, Maids Moreton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

In recent days, I have been describing my visits to the village of Maids Moreton, a mile or two outside Buckingham, and I have been looking at its traditional timber-framed and cruck houses, the thatched cottages and Saint Edmund’s Church, the oldest building in the village. The church dates back to the late 14th century, but, as I suggested on Sunday afternoon, it probably stansd on the site of an earlier, Anglo-Saxon church, and many of the pretty houses and cottages date back to the 16th and 17th century.

Local lore says Maids Moreton takes its name from two sisters, the Maids of Maids Moreton, who also co-founded or re-founded the parish church in the village. The legend is so popular and so widely accepted and believed that the sisters are commemorated in a number of ways in different parts of the church.

Tradition in Maids Moreton says the two sisters lived at Manor Farm, a 16th-century house in Maids Moreton.

But who were the Maids of Moreton?

What were their names?

Indeed, did they ever live?

Are they historical people? Or are they merely part of a popular story, albeit heart-warming and inspiring?

By tradition, the church is said to have been built by two pious maiden ladies of the Peyvre family. But this tradition is first recorded only in 1644 in the Civil War diary of the antiquarian Richard Symonds, 200 or 300 years after the sisters are said to have lived.

A stone slab now under a section of the nave floor near the north door that can be lifted, carries the outline of the commemorative brasses for two women with a hairstyle that is said to date the figures to a time between ca 1380 and 1420, and there are reproductions of the images of the two figures in the north-east corner of the chancel.

So, I returned to the church yesterday, and there the Rector, the Revd Hans Taling, and I lifted the covering in the floor to see the brass and stone memoorial with the two figures, its heraldic images and an inscription that dates from as recently as 1890.

The 17th century painted inscription above the north door of the church in Maids Moreton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Above the north door of thde church is a 17th century painted inscription with the coat of arms of the Pever or Peyvre family and commemorating the founding of the church with the words: ‘Sisters and Maids, Daughters Of The Lord Peovre. The Pious and Munificent Founders of this Church.’

Thomas Peyvre (1344-1429) may well have paid for rebuilding the church. He acted as a banker and would have had the kind of wealth needed to pay for the work. But we start encountering problems when we realise that the painted inscription is 300-350 years later than Thomas Peyvre’s lifetime.

In addition, this is the heraldic emblem of a man, not that of a woman or of two sisters, they are not named, and their father is not clearly identified.

Below this, a black-and-white image shows two women with interlocked arms and in 16th or 17th century dress. But this depiction does not match the images in the brass and stone monument set in the nave floor below, nor does it match the two brass rubbings in the chancel, and it has no label, caption or description, and no explanation of its provenance.

Who were the Maids of Moreton? … an image above the north door in Saint Edmund’s Church, Maids Moreton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Revd Hans Taling and I lifted the floor covering in the nave near the north door yesterday to see the stone slab and to inspect the commemorative brasses for two women with hairstyles that are said to date the figures to a 40-year time period between ca 1380 and 1420.

New brasses were inserted in 1890, and a tablet under the feet of the figures bears the inscription: ‘In pious Memory of two Maids, daughters of Thomas Pever, Patron of this Benefice. These figures are placed in the ancient Matrix by MT Andrewes, Lady of the Manor, in 1890. Tradition tells that they built this church and died about 1480.’

But Thomas Peyvre’s only daughter Mary was not what was once called a ‘maid’, nor was she one of two sisters. She died before her father, but by then she had married John Broughton. Their son, also John Broughton, inherited both the Peyvre and the Broughton estates.

Once again, this inscription was put in place about 500 years after the date it gives for the death of the two sisters, and that date, ca 1480, is perhaps a century after both the dating of the images and the probable date when the church itself was built.

Research in 2016 found documents recording two sisters, named Alice and Edith de Morton, who held part of a manor in Moreton from 1393 to 1421. Could they have been the true maids of Maids Moreton and, if so, was the stone slab theirs? But then, if this is the case, the two shields with Peyvre arms on the slab are later embellishments, if not forgeries.

The reproductions of the hidden floor memorials in the chancel in Saint Edmund’s Church, Maids Moreton, Buckinghamshire (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The story of the Maids of Moreton has developed different strands over time. One version says the sisters were conjoined or ‘Siamese’ twins, and pictures were produced showing them with their arms linked, suggesting that they were joined at the arm.

This version of the tradition says that when one sister died, the other refused to be separated from her and so died also.

The maiden sisters are commemorated not only in the church and in the name of the village, Maids Moreton, but also in a Victorian poem by the Revd Joseph Tarver, Rector of Tyringham with Filgrave, Buckinghamshire.

The story of the Maids of Moreton seems to have been enriched with details from the legends of Mary and Eliza Chulkhurst or Chalkhurst (1100-1134), conjoined twins commonly known as the ‘Biddenden Maids’, who were from Biddenden in Kent. But the story of the ‘Biddenden Maids’ is new known to be a legend, drawing in part on ancient Irish manuscripts, including the Chronicon Scotorum, the Annals of the Four Masters and the Annals of Clonmacnoise.

Perhaps we should stop trying to match the name of Maids Moreton with the legends associated with the ‘Maids of Moreton’ and the foundation of Saint Edmund’s Church, and simply allow a good story to remain a good story – and nothing more than that.

Saint Edmund’s Church in Maids Moreton, Buckinghamshire, dates from the late 14th century but probably stands on the site of an earlier Anglo-Saxon church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The former Belfast Bank in Rathmines has moved from a ‘Quid’ in the Psalms to making the best dough

The former Belfast Bank, now Reggie’s Pizzeria on Rathmines Road Lower, was designed by Vincent Craig (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

The former Belfast Bank at 221-223 Rathmines Road Lower is now Reggie’s Pizzeria and is one of the interesting buildings in Rathmines that I looked at last week, along with the former YMCA building on Lower Rathmines Road, close to Portobello Road, nearby Kensington Lodge on Grove Park, and the former Kodak building.

The former Belfast Bank in Rathmines is a small building in a Scottish Baronial style, with a sharp corner and a corner turret. Despite its size, it is very noticeable for the narrow façade that creates an optical illusion, for its individual features, and because of its prominent location on a busy corner where Rathmines Road Lower meets Rathgar Road and Rathmines Road Upper.

The side street is Wynnefield Road, and many people also know the building because of its location beside Slattery’s public house.

The narrow façade at the junction of Rathmines Road, Wynnefield Road and Rathgar Road creates an optical illusion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Belfast Bank was formed in 1827 by a merger of two private banks, Batt’s, also known as the Belfast Bank, and Tennant’s, also known as the Commercial Bank. The bank moved in 1846 to the former Assembly Buildings at the corner of North Street, Bridge Street, Waring Street and Donegall Street. Within decades, the bank was trading in branches throughout the northern half of Ireland.

The Belfast Bank had a New York branch by the 1860s, but it did not establish a branch in Dublin until 1892, when temporary premises were acquired in Dame Street. A purpose-built branch at 21-22 College Green was designed by William Henry Lynn and was built in 1893-1894.

The Belfast Bank in Rathmines was the second branch in Dublin, and a third branch in Dublin at 86 Talbot Street was designed by Frederick George Hicks and built in 1900. The branch building in Rathmines was designed by the Belfast architect Vincent Craig (1869-1925), whose work included clubhouses for yacht and golf clubs, Presbyterian churches, hospitals, banks for the Belfast Bank and the Ulster Bank, and masonic halls.

Craig was born at Craigavon, Strandtown, Belfast, in 1869, one of seven sons of James Craig, a wealthy whiskey distiller, and a younger brother of James Craig (1871-1940), later Lord Craigavon and first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland.

Vincent Criag was educated at Bath College and received his architectural training in the office of William Henry Lynn from 1885 to 1889. He then spent a year travelling in Europe before setting up in practice in Belfast in 1891.

He was a member of the Royal Institute of the Architects in Ireland, and was elected a fellow (FRIAI) in 29 May 1906. He was also a fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA, 1900). His pupils and assistants included John Charles Lepper, Arthur Norman McClinton and Jackson Graham Smyth. He exhibited drawings of three of his designs in the Irish International Exhibition in Dublin in 1907.

Craig was a keen yachtsman and motorist, and also a generous benefactor of hospitals. He represented Court Ward on Belfast City Council in 1903-1906, and he was president of the Belfast Art Society in 1903.

He worked from 5 Lombard Street, Belfast, and 22 Donegall Place, and lived at Eldon Green, Helen’s Bay, Co Down, which he designed for himself. He moved to England in 1910, retired from his architectural practice soon after, and lived in retirement at High Close, Wokingham, Berkshire.

The former bank is in a Scottish baronial style, with a sharp corner and a corner turret (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Craig’s bank in Rathmines was built between 1899 and 1900 for the Belfast Bank. Tenders were invited in September 1899 and the building was ‘nearly complete’ by mid-July 1900.

The site was once part of the Chains. A fading photograph in Slattery’s beside the former bank tells how the Chains were one of the worst slums in late Victorian Rathmines. According to Weston St John Joyce in The Neighbourhood of Dublin (1912), the Chains were a number of dilapidated shanties enclosed by chains hung from stone pillars. They had become ‘an unsightly and insanitary slum’ until they were cleared to make the site for a new bank.

The corner is marked by a tower, topped by a finial and cut into at the base to make the entrance. The curve to the castellation is picked up on the apex of the gable, and the little peaks on the slope look even more like cake decoration when you follow the line down into the fussy scrolled base.

The terracotta plaque with the coat of arms of Belfast and the motto ‘Pro tanto quid retribuamus’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

On the Wynnefield Road elevation, a terracotta plaque set into the wall displays the coat of arms of Belfast with the motto Pro tanto quid retribuamus (‘What return shall we make for so much?’). It is a paraphrase of Psalm 116: 12 in the Vulgate translation, which reads ‘Quid retribuam Domino pro omnibus quae retribuit mihi?’

My childish sense of humour could not resist being amused by a Latin motto on a bank building that includes the word Quid.

On this façade, the chimney’s descent stops nearly in line with the top of the door, and it is an additional tension, a feat of brinksmanship with the visual weight as well as a clear marker of the asymmetry of the two façades. The break happens within the entrance, too, with the columns holding nothing and the pointed brackets above hanging like stalactites.

Sitting on the string course are two stone figures that look like lions bearing shields with the initials BB for Belfast Bank. The doors have panels and panes of stained glass.

Two stone figures that look like lions bear holdshields with the initials BB for Belfast Bank (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

In the aftermath of the 1916 Rising, the Belfast Bank merged with the London City & Midland Bank in 1917, the first entry into the Irish market by an English bank. After partition, the Belfast Bank decided to operate only in what became Northern Ireland. Following secret negotiations, the business in what had become the Irish Free State was transferred to the Royal Bank of Ireland in 1923, along with 20 branches and their staff.

The bank in Rathmines was more recently the premises of the Trustee Savings Bank/TSB Bank, and then the offices of a recruitment agency. It is now Reggie’s Pizzeria, which was opened in December 2024 by Reggie White, his wife Amy and their daughter Florence, who live nearby.

He has been described by the The Irish Times as ‘Ireland’s pizzaiolo-in-chief.’ He has trained Ballymaloe, and had stints at Del Popolo and Flour+Water in San Francisco. He returned to Dublin, co-founded Pi on George’s Street, and then made his name consulting for some of Ireland’s best-known pizza spots, including Little Forest, Bambino and Otto. With ten of his friends, including James Lowe, quietly backing 20 per cent, he opened Reggie’s in Rathmines shortly before last Christmas.

Once again, my childish sense of humour could not resist being amused by the thought that a former bank that exalted the word Quid is now making some of the best dough in Dublin.

As for the Belfast Bank, its businesses in Northern Ireland eventually merged with the Northern Bank, which began trading in 1824. Both were acquired by the Midland Bank, the integration was completed in 1970, and Northern Bank continued to trade throughout the whole of Ireland. The Midland Bank eventually sold the Northern Bank to the National Australia Bank, which later transferred ownership to Danske Bank.

Many of the former Belfast Bank buildings in Northern Ireland have been sold on to other businesses. But the name of ‘Belfast Bank’ continues to adorn a few of the old buildings, including those in Portrush, Rathfriland and Warrenpoint, as well as the former bank building on that narrow corner on Lower Rathmines Road.

For the former National Bank and Bank of Ireland branch at Lower Rathmines Road, see here

Inside Reggie's Pizzeria in the former Belfast Bank on Rathmines Road Lower (Photograph © Bryan O’Brien, The Irish Times, 2025)

Borrowcop Gazebo and my search for the legends and legendary graves on the highest hill in Lichfield

Borrowcop Gazebo stands at the top of Borrowcop Hill, the highest point in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

After an afternoon walk along Cross Hand in Lane on the northern fringes of Lichfield a few days ago, I decided to cross to the other side of Lichfield and to search for Borrowcop Hill and the Borrowcop Gazebo. The hill at around 113 metres AOD (above sea level) is the highest point in Lichfield and is shrouded in myth and legend.

I have known Lichfield for 50 or 60 years, to the point that I have felt at home there almost all my life. But this was my first time ever to search for Borrowcop Hill, even though when I first stayed in Lichfield in my teens it was nearby on Birmingham Road.

I knew even then about the legends and the myths surrounding Borrowcop Hill and about its history too. But, somehow, I had never visited the hill or searched for the gazebo. I thought I knew where they were, so I was surprised how difficult it was to find Borrowcop Hill last Friday afternoon, hidden in behind the houses off King’s Hill Road and Borrowcop Lane, both reached from Upper Saint John Street.

Things would have been easier had I gone up King’s Hill Road and found the narrow lane behind King Edward VI School. Instead, I ended up walking aimlessly in the summer heat up and down along Borrowcop Lane and could find no signs pointing to the hill. I might never have found either the hill or the gazebo but for the Google Maps app on my ’phone. Eventually I found a narrow, almost secret, lane off Hillside, running between the back gardens of houses and the school grounds.

Is it any wonder that the gazebo has been described as ‘one of Lichfield’s little know gems’? Yet its hilltop location offers views on clear days across Lichfield and out towards the Black Country and Charnwood Forest.

Borrowcop Gazebo is hidden among the trees at the top of Borrowcop Hill (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Local legend in Lichfield has it that three British kings were slain on there by the Romans in the year 288 and that they were buried in a ‘barrow’ on the hilltop. Other variations of the story say it is the traditional site of the graves of three Christian kings who were killed in battle with King Penda in 288.

In its earliest written forms, the name Borrowcop appears as ‘Burwey’ or ‘Burwhay’, incorporating the Old English element burh, suggesting a fortified place or that there may have been an Anglo-Saxon fortification on the site, according to David Horovitz in his study of Staffordshire placenames.

A Historic Character Assessment or Extensive Urban Survey of Lichfield for Staffordshire County Council in 2011 said excavations carried out by antiquarians on Borrowcop Hill in earlier centuries allegedly recovered burnt bone from the mound. However, more recent archaeological investigations have so far failed to recover any evidence for human activity’.

Although most historians now accept the story is a myth without historical foundation, it inspired for the City Seal adopted by Lichfield in 1549. The city seal became part of a large relief on the façade of the Guildhall, but it was later moved first to the Museum Gardens and then to the herbaceous borders in Beacon Park.

The legend of slain kings buried on Borrowcop Hill was perpetuated in the Lichfield City Seal, still seen on the railway bridge on Saint John Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

A version of the seal is among the heraldic symbols decorating the railway bridge on Saint John Street, close to Lichfield City station, and the three golden crowns of the legendary kings were later incorporated into the emblems of Saxon Hill Academy.

The gazebo was built on the hill in 1804-1805, paid for by public subscription. Before that, buildings on the site included a late 17th century structure called the Temple, built in 1694, the ‘Temple’ of 1694, a summer-house, an arbour in the 1720s, an ‘observation turret’ and a gun store, probably built ca 1750.

There are accounts of Erasmus Darwin recovering bits of burnt bone on the hill in the 18th century. At times of celebrations and at times of threatened invasion, beacons were lit on top of the hill.

In a talk organised by Lichfield Discovered in 2014 on Philip Larkin’s connections with Lichfield, Peter Young, the former Town Clerk of Lichfield, said that Larkin wrote three poems when he was staying with relatives at Cherry Orchard in 1940-1941. Young suggested the arched field in ‘Christmas 1940’ refers to Borrowcop Hill.

When Larkin returned to Lichfield from Oxford for a Christmas holiday in 1940-1941, he regularly walked from Cherry Orchard into the centre of Lichfield to drink in the George and the Swan. During that time in Lichfield, he wrote three poems: ‘Christmas 1940’, ‘Out in the lane I pause’ and ‘Ghosts’.

Writing about ‘Christmas 1940’, Larkin told Jim Sutton: ‘I scribbled this in a coma at about 11.45 p.m. last night. The only thing is that its impulse is not purely negative – except for the last 2 lines, where I break off into mumblings of dotage.’

This poem was never published during Larkin’s own lifetime. It was first published in 1992 in Selected Letters of Philip Larkin, 1940-1985, edited by Anthony Thwaite (p 8). It was included in 2005 by AT Tolley in Philip Larkin: Early Poems and Juvenalia (p 135), and more recently it is included by Archie Burnett in Philip Larkin: The Complete Poems (p 171).

The Gazebo was in poor condition by 1963. John Sanders, then Principal of the School of Art and chair of a Lichfield Study Group for the preservation of buildings of interest, announced the group’s intention to enter a Civic Trust ‘improvement competition,’ hoping for a grant of £450.

Meanwhile, the grammar school, which dates from 1495, had moved to the area from Saint John Street in 1903, and it merged with the adjacent King’s Hill secondary modern school in 1971 to become King Edward VI School. Another school in the area, evocatively named Saxon Hill, opened in 1979.

Borrowcop Gazebo was restored in 1985 thanks to the persistence of Derrick Duval (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The gazebo is a square pavilion built of brick with two round arches no each side, a pyramidal tile roof and a ball finial on roof. The arches have square brick piers and pilasters, and narrow imposts on the proud brick arches. Inside, there is a spine wall with a on bench to each side and embossed-tile paving, and renewed roof timbers.

The condition of the gazebo was a cause of concern once again in 1981, when Derrick Duval, an architect who was then a newly elected city councillor (1980-1995), pushed for its restoration. He was the Mayor of Lichfield in 1982, I stayed in his home on Dam Street two or three times around 2009-2011, and he died on 16 December 2022.

Derrick’s dream for the gazebo was eventually achieved in 1985 through the Government’s Community Programme. Borrowcop Gazebo is now owned and maintained by Lichfield City Council.

Borrowcop Hill was once the venue for a Good Friday fair after the more sombre services in the cathedral. The hill was a place for walks and other entertainment, and until the late 20th century children enjoyed tobogganing and skiing down the slopes in the snow at winter.

The urban survey of Lichfield in 2011 pointed out the potential for archaeological deposits to survive at Borrowcop Hill and associated with the line of the Roman Road.

But, as I found on Friday afternoon, it is no longer possible to walk across fields from Cherry Orchard to Borrowcop, as Philip Larkin must have done 85 years ago. Now high railings have enclosed the school field and access to the Gazebo today is only possible along an enclosed, marrow footpath between King’s Hill Road and facing Minor’s Hill.

A hidden narrow pathway off King’s Hill Road leading to Borrowcop Hill (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Christmas 1940, by Philip Larkin

‘High on arched field I stand
Alone: the night is full of stars:
Enormous over tree and farm
The night extends,
And looks down equally to all on earth.

‘So I return their look; and laugh
To see as them my living stars
Flung from east to west across
A windless gulf?

– So much to say that I have never said,
Or ever could.’

‘High on arched field I stand / Alone’ (Philip Larkin) … a lone carved owl perched on books beneath the gazebo on Borrowcop Hill (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)