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

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

Patrick Comerford

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr Williams’s Library leaves Bloomsbury after serving theologians and church historians for 300 years

Dr Williams’s Library first opened in 1730 and was on Gordon Square from 1890 until it closed in 2025 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

It is always sad to see a library – particularly a library with a large collection related to theology, church history and religious studies – to close or to move away and to find it is no longer be accessible.

For over a century, Dr Williams’s Library was in Bloomsbury, where it was housed in the former University Hall on the west side of Gordon Square, beside the former Catholic Apostolic Church, now the Church of Christ the King. But the library closed within the past two years, and the collection has been moved to Manchester.

From 1890 until it closed in 2025, Dr Williams’s Library was housed in University Hall, built in 1848 to designs by the architect Thomas Leverton Donaldson (1795-1885), a pioneer in architectural education, a co-founder and President of the Royal Institute of British Architects and a winner of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal.

Donaldson was born nearby at 8 Bloomsbury Square, the eldest son of the architect James Donaldson (c 1756-1843). His maternal uncle, the architect Thomas Leverton (1743-1824), is said to have designed the south range of Bedford Square.

After attending King Edward Grammar School, St Albans, Donaldson trained as an architect and travelled widely. He found a clerical job at the Cape of Good Hope before joining an expedition to attack the French-owned island of Mauritius. He visited Italy and Greece in 1818-1823 with John Lewis Wolfe and WW Jenkins. Back in London, he joined his father’s practice and designed 4 Hamilton Place for Richard Bingham (1764-1839), 2nd Earl of Lucan, who had extensive estates in Co Mayo.

Donaldson’s first significant work was Holy Trinity Church, Brompton (1826-1829), in South Kensington. With Jacques Ignace Hittorff and Charles Robert Cockerell, he was a member of the committee formed in 1836 to determine whether the Parthenon or Elgin Marbles and other Greek statuary in the British Museum had originally been coloured.

Donaldson reworked substantial sections of the Wilkins building at University College London (UCL) and designed the Flaxman Gallery and library buildings. He also designed All Saints’ Church, Gordon Street (1842, closed 1909, destroyed by bombing 1940) and was involved in the Great Exhibition in 1851.

Donaldson pioneered the academic study of architecture and in 1841 he became the first Professor of Architecture at University College London, a post he held until 1865. He was a co-founder of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1834, was its honorary secretary until 1839, then its foreign secretary for another 20 years.

He designed the institute’s Mycenaean lions medal with the motto Usui civium, decori urbium. He was awarded the institute’s royal gold medal in 1851 and was its president in 1863-1864. He was described by the Prince of Wales in 1879 as ‘the father of the Institute and of the profession’.

Thomas Leverton Donaldson designed the former library on Gordon Square as University Hall in 1848 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Donaldson designed the one-time library on Gordon Square as a Hall of Residence for students of University College London, following an architectural competition. It was built in stone and brick in the late Gothic style in 1848-1849. It was built as University Hall to mark the passing of the Dissenters’ Chapels Act in 1844.

From 1853, University Hall was shared with Manchester New College. Henry Morley, professor of literature at University College and editor of Morley’s Universal Library was the principal of University Hall in 1882-1890.

Manchester New College acquired the lease in 1882 but moved to Oxford in 1890, the building was bought by the trustees of Dr Williams’s Charity to house their library.

The Revd Dr Daniel Williams (1643-1716), a leading nonconformist minister in Dublin and London, endowed the library in his will

The founder of the library, the Revd Dr Daniel Williams (1643-1716), was a leading nonconformist minister in both Dublin and London in the late 17th and early 18th century.

Williams was born into a Welsh family, probably in Wrexham, and his early plans to enter ministry were interrupted by the Restoration of Charles II and the Act of Uniformity (1662). After a few years preaching in England he moved to Ireland, where he was a domestic chaplain to Mary (Chambré) Brabazon, Countess of Meath in 1664-1667.

Williams was then one of the ministers of the Wood Street Chapel, near Whitefriar Street in Dublin, for 20 years, from 1667 to 1687. The chapel had its roots in early Puritans and Presbyterians and became one of the Dublin congregations that lead to the formation of the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church in Ireland and the Unitarian Church in Dublin.

As religious tensions heightened in Dublin during the reign of James II, Williams believed his life was in danger. He fled to London in 1687, and soon found an influential place amongst London Presbyterians, particularly after the death of Richard Baxter (1615-1691).

He was appointed minister to the Presbyterian congregation in Hand Alley, Bishopsgate, and despite repeated requests to return to Dublin, he remained at Hand Alley for the rest of his life. He received the degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1709 from the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow in recognition of his outstanding services to nonconformity.

Williams died at the age of 72 in January 1716 and was buried in Bunhill Fields. His congregation eventually moved towards Unitarianism, but has long since disappeared.

In his will, he left instructions for his trustees to house his collection as a public library for nonconformist ministers, tutors and students in the City of London. He also left bequests to Saint Thomas’s Hospital, the University of Harvard, and to support missionaries in Scotland, Ireland, and New England.

His trustees built and equipped a library that first opened in Red Cross Street, Cripplegate, almost 300 years ago in 1730. Over the years, the collections were enlarged with gifts of books, manuscripts and portraits. His original benefaction of about 7,600 books became a small part of a library that eventually extended beyond Puritanism to include Biblical subjects, church history, Byzantine studies, philosophy, literature and more.

The library’s original home was bought by the Metropolitan Railway Company and demolished in 1865. The library moved to Bloomsbury and was housed at No 8 Queen Square from 1865 to 1873. It then moved into premises designed by the architect Thomas Chatfeild Clarke (1829-1895) in Grafton Street, now Grafton Way, off Tottenham Court Road.

Dr Daniel Williams remembered in a plaque at the entrance to the former library (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

When Manchester New College moved to Oxford, the library’s trustees acquired University Hall, Gordon Square, in 1889 and the library moved there in 1890. The library had close ties with Unitarians and several of its first directors were ministers associated with Newington Green Unitarian Church, London's oldest Nonconformist place of worship still in use.

The Revd Robert Travers Herford (1860-1950), librarian of Dr Williams’s Library from 1914 to 1925, was a scholar of rabbinical literature, and he was one of the first Christian scholars of the Pharisees to take a neutral view between Talmud and New Testament. He is commemorated by a blue plaque on the façade of the building. His brother, the Revd Ulric Vernon Herford (1866-1938), was one of the most colourful and eccentric Unitarian ministers in Oxford. He was a Unitarian minister in Oxford in the 1890s before seeking consecration by the Nestorian Church in India as Metropolitan Mar Jacobus I in 1902, and then formed the Evangelical Catholic Church.

After a V-1 flying bomb destroyed Essex Hall, the headquarters of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, the library offered rooms to displaced workers, and they stayed there for 14 years, until 1958. In 1976, the library acquired the library of New College London, which until then had trained Congregationalist ministers.

Dr Williams’s Library closed in 2025 and its copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio was sold by Sotheby’s at auction in 2006 for £2.8 million. After a prolonged discussion, the trust agreed to house its collection in the John Rylands Library at the University of Manchester, and the Library moved to Manchester in 2024-2025.

Meanwhile, Manchester New College, which moved from Gordon Square to Oxford in 1889, later became Harris Manchester College and became a constituent college of the University of Oxford in 1996.

The Revd Robert Travers Herford was the librarian of Dr Williams’s Library in 1914-1925 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

As for the Wood Street congregation where Williams ministered in Dublin for 20 years, it was joined in 1762 by the Dissenters of Mary’s Abbey and together they moved to Great Strand Street where a new meeting house opened in 1764. They were joined there in 1787 by the Cook Street congregation.

In the 1850s, the Strand Street congregation decided that it needed a new church on a more prominent street. The Unitarian Church on Saint Stephen’s Green, Dublin, opened in June 1863, and it was joined by the Eustace Street congregation in 1867.

The Saint Stephen’s Green congregation in Dublin is part of Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland and also maintains links with Unitarians in England, Scotland and Wales through the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches.

The Unitarian Church on Saint Stephen’s Green … the spiritual heir to the ministry of Daniel Williams in Dublin in the late 17th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Victoria Library near Victoria Station is a gem of Victorian architecture first built as a parish library

The Victoria Library at the corner of Buckingham Palace Road and Elizabeth Street was designed by the architect Abert J Bolton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

In my walk around Belgravia and Pimlico earlier this month, the impressive works of architecture I wanted to see include the streets and squares designed and laid out by Thomas Cubitt for the Grosvenor estate, with their elegant Victorian and Edwardian terraces, Saint Peter’s Church on Eaton Square, Gothic churches such as Saint Saviour’s, Saint Gabriel’s and Saint Michael’s, and Victoria Station with its Imperial Baroque Revival version of the French Renaissance style.

But as I watched the daily rush, I wondered how many commuters notice the Victoria Library at 160 Buckingham Palace Road, an architecturally attractive building on the corner with Elizabeth Street and close to both Victoria Station and Victoria Coach Station?

The Victoria Library is a Grade II building designed in 1892-1894 by the architect Abert J Bolton as the public lending library for the parish of Saint George’s, Hanover Square. It was built on land given by Hugh Lupus Grosvenor (1825-1899), first Duke of Westminster, and was designed by Bolton after a design competition.

Bolton is best known for his work for the Grosvenor estate in 1889-1895 at 87-102 Mount Street with a return into South Audley Street, purpose-built shops and flats that form what is regarded as one of the finest listed terraces in central London.

The reconstruction of Mount Street began when Bolton won a limited competition in 1884-1885 for a Vestry Hall for Saint George’s Parish on the site of No 103 after Saint George’s Vestry bought the freehold. He then built the adjacent Nos 87-102 to the west, together with the deep return plot to South Audley Street and the library in Chapel Place North. The Duke of Westminster had hoped but failed to get Bolton to follow the designs of Ernest George and Harold Peto at 104-111 Mount Street, on the other side of the vestry hall.

The Victoria Library on Buckingham Palace Road, designed by AJ Bolton, is of special architectural interest because of the quality of its exuberant Queen Anne exterior with its stone dressings on the façade, terracotta dressings to the rear and its substantially complete interior, with a surviving book hoist and galleries and ornamental ironwork.

The library is also a relatively early example of an institution like this in London. Public libraries from the late 19th and early 20th century survive in good numbers in England and a number of them are of special architectural interest as reflections of the civic or philanthropic pride that created them.

Libraries dating from 1850 to 1914, such as Bolton’s Victoria Library, often show a good degree of articulate architectural expression, and some retain interior details and even may remain substantially unaltered and without extension.

The Victoria Library on Buckingham Palace Road was built of red brick laid in a Flemish bond with Portland Stone dressings, and some terracotta to the rear, and it has a slate roof behind a lowered parapet.

Bolton’s plan is of a three-part composition with two double-height halls to the rear, an entrance foyer, a stair hall and two-storey-and-attic accommodation to the front.

The Buckingham Palace Road façade is a three-bay composition with a central porch carrying a four-light mullion and transom window breaking forward with a narrow single lights to either side.

The lettering carved in the stonework between the ground and first floors reads ‘SG HS Public Library’, the initials meaning Saint George’s Hanover Square. There are four-light mullion and transom casement windows at either side. The windows on the first floor have Corinthian pilasters and a frieze, while those on the second floor have a greater profusion of pilasters, set over the cornice.

The rear elevation has two brick gables with double-height windows, and the one furthest south has an oculus window above. Before and set between the gables is a projecting porch that leads to the ‘Reading Room’ that is signposted in terracotta along with the date 1892. The inscription forms part of an imposing pedimented terracotta door case topped by finials.

The highly decorative wrought iron railings at the front are consistent with the similar railings seen along the adjacent terrace.

Inside, the Victoria Library has a coffered ceiling above the vestibule, leading to a foyer from which rises a straight single-flight stair with cast-iron balustrade, and there is some panelling to reading area in the inner foyer. There is a geometric ribbed moulded decorative plaster ceiling in the first floor rooms of the front block.

The lending library, which is the former reading room, has a first floor gallery on three sides supported on columns with a cast-iron balustrade under an open timber clerestoried roof comprised of three queen post trusses, with the posts formed of small classical columns.

The former lending library has a gallery with a more elaborate ironwork balustrade and its original fixed shelving. This hall also retains the original book hoist: there books for lending that were not openly accessible to the public had to be ordered from the catalogues once located in the hall - this is now an extremely rare feature for a library.

I can hardly imagine members of the royal family taking a stroll from Buckingham Palace along Buckingham Palace to borrow books from the Victoria Library or to browse the shelves of their local library. But the Victoria Library remains an architecturally attractive building and a centre for reading, research and community interaction. As well as its core book collection, it has a flexible cultural space that hosts diverse local activities, including community workshops and readings.

Around the corner and close-by on Elizabeth Street, the Thomas Cubitt is a Georgian pub whose name is a reminder of Thomas Cubitt, the master builder who was instrumental in developing the streets and squares of Belgravia and Pimlico.

Almost beside the Victoria Library, on the facing corner site of Buckingham Palace Road and Elizabeth Street, Victoria Coach Station at 164 Buckingham Palace Road is one of London’s most prominent Art Deco works . But more about that landmark building, hopefully, tomorrow.

The name of the Thomas Cubitt is a reminder of the master builder who developed the streets and squares of Belgravia and Pimlico (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Reading ‘Peace’ by Aristophanes and a classical reminder of the traps of waging wars and the need for peace

The Theatre of Dionysus … the site of the great drama competitions in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

After a few weeks break, the Stony Stratford playreaders resume our readings and rehearsals this evening, and we have gathered in the Library in Stony Stratford, where the play we are reading is Peace (Εἰρήνη Eirḗnē), an Athenian ‘Old Comedy’ written and produced by the Greek playwright Aristophanes.

The play won second prize at the City Dionysia when it was staged just a few days before the validation of the Peace of Nicias, which promised to end the 10-year-old Peloponnesian War in the year 421 BCE.

With the current wars the US is waging in the Gulf against Iran, including Trump’s latest threats this week against Oman, the current war Russia is waging against Ukraine, the continuing and relentless Israeli military actions in Gaza, on the West Bank and in southern Lebanon, Peace seems deeply appropriate as a choice for our reading this evening.

The play is written in joyous anticipation of peace and it is a celebration of a return to an idyllic life in the countryside. However, it also sounds a note of caution, there is a bitter acknowledgment of lost opportunities, and the ending is not happy for everyone.

As in all plays by Aristophanes, the jokes are many, the action is wild and absurd and the satire is savage. Cleon, the pro-war populist leader of Athens, is once again a target of the author's wit, even though he had died in the Battle of Amphipolis just a few months earlier.

The playwright Aristophanes (Ἀριστοφάνης) was known as ‘the Father of Comedy’ and ‘the Prince of Ancient Comedy’ and lived between ca 446 and ca 386 BCE. He wrote 40 plays, although only 11 survive virtually complete. His plays were performed at the religious festivals of Athens, mostly the City Dionysia and the Lenaia, and several of his plays won the first prize in their respective competitions. The majority of his surviving plays belong to the genre known as ‘Old Comedy’ and are among its most valuable examples.

The porch of the Erechtheion … the last of the buildings dating from the time of Pericles … building work finished around 410 BCE (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In his plays, Aristophanes wrote about real-life figures, including Pericles, Euripides and Alcibiades, and contemporary events, such as the Peloponnesian War. He is said to have recreated life in ancient Athens more convincingly than any other author.

His plays are characterised by preposterous premises, explicit language, wordplays, and political satire. His powers of ridicule were feared and acknowledged by influential contemporaries. Plato singled out the play The Clouds as slander that contributed to the trial and subsequent condemning to death of Socrates.

His now lost second, now lost play, The Babylonians, was denounced by Cleon as a slander against the Athenian polis. Aristophanes caricatured Cleon mercilessly in his subsequent plays, especially The Knights.

In Peace, Trygaeus, whose part I have been asked to read, is a middle-aged Athenian who miraculously brings about a peaceful end to the Peloponnesian War. He earns the gratitude of farmers while bankrupting various tradesmen who had profited from the hostilities.

Trygaeus boldly summons Greeks everywhere to come and help him set Peace free while there is still time. A Chorus of excited Greeks from various city-states arrives as prompted but they are so excited they cannot stop dancing at first. Eventually they get to work, pulling boulders from the cave’s mouth under the supervision of Trygaeus.

Real progress is only made by the farmers and at last Peace and her companions, Festival and Harvest, are brought to light, appearing as visions of ineffable beauty. Hermes then tells the gathering why Peace had left them many years earlier – she had been driven away by politicians who were profiting from the war.

She had tried to come back several times, but each time the Athenians had voted against her in their Assembly. Trygaeus apologises to Peace on behalf of his fellow Athenians, then he leaves her to enjoy her freedom while he sets off again for Athens, taking Harvest and Festival back with him.

Trygaeus celebrates his triumph by marrying Harvest, a companion of Festival and Peace, all of whom he has liberated from a celestial prison.

All the early plays by Aristophanes were written and acted against a background of war. The war between Athens and Sparta began in 431 BCE. Under Archidamus II in Sparta and Pericles in Athens, it developed into a war of slow attrition in which Athens was unchallenged at sea and Sparta was undisputed master of the Greek mainland.

The Monument of the Unknown Soldier outside Parliament in Athens … the quotations are from the Funeral Oration by Pericles, recounted by Thucydides in ‘The History of the Peloponnesian War’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Every year, the Spartans and their allies invaded Attica and wreaked havoc on Athenian farms. As soon as they retreated, the Athenians marched out from their city walls to avenge themselves on the farms of their neighbours, the Megarians and Boeotians, allies of Sparta. Till then, most Athenians had lived in rural settlements but now they congregated within the safety of the city walls.

A plague in 430 BCE, decimated the over-crowded population of Athens and also claimed the life of Pericles, leaving Athens in the control of a more radical leadership, epitomised by Cleon.

Cleon was determined to gain absolute victory in the war with Sparta and his aggressive policies seemed to be vindicated in 425 at the Battle of Sphacteria, with the capture of Spartan hostages and the establishment of a permanent garrison at Pylos, from where the Athenians and their allies could harass Spartan territory.

The Spartans then made repeated appeals for peace but these were dismissed by the Athenian Assembly under guidance by Cleon, who wished instead to broaden the war with ambitious campaigns against Megara and Boeotia. The Athenians suffered a major defeat in Boeotia at the Battle of Delion and this was followed by an armistice in 423 BCE.

When the armistice ended, Cleon led a force of Athenians to Chalcidice to repress the revolts. But he and his men were surprised and defeated by a Spartan force. Both Cleon and Brasidas died in the battle and their removal opened the way for new peace talks in the winter of 422-421. The Peace of Nicias was ratified soon after in the City Dionysia, where Peace was performed, early in the spring of 421 BCE.

Cleon, the populist leader of the pro-war faction in Athens, is mentioned by name only once in this play, and he receives several indirect mentions. At one point, the Chorus describe Cleon as a disgusting gorgon-like phenomenon in language that matches sound and sense:

ἑκατὸν δὲ κύκλῳ κεφαλαὶ κολάκων οἰμωξομένων ἑλιχμῶντο :περὶ τὴν κεφαλήν

a hundred heads of doomed stooges circled and licked around his head

The sound of something revolting is captured in the original Greek by the repetition of the harsh k sound, including a repetition of the word for ‘head’.

Euripides is a tragic poet renowned for his innovative plays and pathetic heroes. He is ridiculed for his reliance on legalistic quibbling for dialogue and his plays are parodied and deliberately misquoted.

The tragic poet Sophocles is mentioned too because his verses are evocative of the good times that will come with peace.

Homer, the bard of all bards and the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, is mentioned by name twice in this play, there are frequent references to his poetry, and he is fancifully misquoted by Trygaeus.

Places that are named in the play include Mount Etna, the island of Naxos, the Erechtheion, the iconic building on the Acropolis, where work began in 420 BCE during the Peace of Nicias, not long after the performance of Peace at the City Dionysia, and the Pnyx, the hill where the citizens of Athens convened as a democratic assembly.

Masks inspired by classical drama in a shop in Athens … Thalia was the Muse of comedy, the laughing face, while Melpomene was the Muse of tragedy, the weeping face (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In his plays, Aristophanes shows a tender love of rural life and a nostalgia for simpler times, and he develops a vision of peace involving a return to the countryside and its routines.

The association of peace with rural revival is expressed in this play in terms of religious imagery: Peace, imprisoned in a cave guarded by a Cerberus figure, resembles a chthonic fertility goddess in captivity in the underworld, a motif especially familiar to Athenians in the cult of Demeter and her daughter Kore in the Eleusinian Mysteries.

In spite of the play’s mythical and religious contexts, political action emerges as the decisive factor in human affairs. The gods are seen as distant figures, and so mortals must rely on their own initiative, as seen when the Chorus of Greeks work together to release Peace from captivity.

The god Hermes delivers a speech blaming the Peloponnesian War on Pericles and Cleon, an argument that Aristophanes had put forward in earlier plays.

The Chorus has a joyful celebration of peace but also shares bitter reflections on the mistakes of past leaders and Trygaeus expresses anxious fears for the future of the peace since events are remain subject to bad leadership. The bankrupted tradesmen at the end of the play are a reminder that there is still support for war.

The militaristic verses borrowed from Homer are a dramatic reminder that war is deeply rooted in culture and that it still commands the imagination of a new generation. Peace in such circumstances requires not only a miracle but also a combination of good luck and good will on the part of a significant group within the community.

Does any this find parallels with today’s cycle of war and how many world leaders have forgotten Peace, leaving Peace trapped in a dark cave?

Actors promoting a theatrical performance of classical drama in the square at Monastiraki in Athens (Photograph; Patrick Comerford)

Comerford Library opens at University of Virginia and honours the memory of leading lawyer James D Comerford

The Comerford Library opened last week at the Center for Politics in the University of Virginia, Charlottesville

Patrick Comerford

The Comerford Library opened last week at the Center for Politics in the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and honours the memory of a leading lawyer James D (Jim) Comerford of Atlanta, Georgia, who died two years ago (21 April 2024) at the age of 64.

Jim Comerford was vice-chair of the Board of Advisors of the Center for Politics, actively engaging with the development of teaching resources for students at the University of Virginia and working tirelessly to strengthen its programmes and operations.

Because of his philanthropic support of the centre and its building expansion, the centre has named the Comerford Library in his honour and memory. He often described his support of the centre as ‘an act of patriotism,’ supporting it as a means of strengthening democracy and civic institutions.

Jim loved politics and the history of politics, and his recollection of campaign and political history was second to none. He donated his large collections of political and campaign memorabilia, including pamphlets, buttons, stickers and posters, to the centre’s archives.

Inside the Comerford Library at the Center for Politics in the University of Virginia

Jim was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on 6 June 1959, the only son of Neil Dexter Comerford Jr and Margaret (née Dower) Comerford (1920-2016), a former navy nurse. He was seven when his father died suddenly. Margaret soon moved them to Atlanta, where Jim grew up. She later married physician Dr Mark Lindsey, who considered Jim a son.

Jim attended Marist High School, Atlanta, where he was President of the Student Council and developed a lifelong Catholic faith. He then attended the University of Virginia. There he was a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity; a Student Council representative; and a guest pundit for student weekly The Declaration, where he predicted the 1980 Reagan landslide state-by-state.

He majored in history and government and graduated with the class of 1981. He counted Professor Boots Mead and Professor Irby Cauthen as his mentors and he remained a life-long friend of the political analyst Professor Larry Sabato.

After earning his law degree at the University of Georgia in 1984, Jim began a legal career with a small law firm in Marietta, Georgia, and went on to practice in some of the south-east’s leading firms, specialising in government affairs. Eventually he went out on his own, creating a group of successful investment partnerships and business ventures.

When we met, he was a practicing lawyer or attorney in Atlanta, Georgia, and a counsel with Hunton and Williams LLP, a law firm with offices in 19 cities across the US, including Atlanta, and in Europe and Asia.

Jim remained close to the University of Virginia throughout his life. He was an early supporter and long-serving board member of Professor Sabato’s nationally renowned Center for Politics. He was also a member of the Atlanta selection board for the Jefferson Scholars Foundation, the most prestigious scholarship at the University of Virginia.

Jim was also involved in the economic development of Sandy Springs, Georgia, and was engaged in the efforts leading to the incorporation of Sandy Springs as a city.

Jim loved being the father of three children and encouraging their successes at Blessed Trinity, Marist, Oglethorpe University, Mercer University Atlanta, Auburn University and Georgia Institute of Technology. He had a love of story-telling and had a passion for his family, his home state of Georgia and his Irish heritage.

On the battlements of Ballybur Castle, Co Kilkenny, with Jim and Camilla Comerford, Jimmy Comerford and Frank Gray

When Camilla and Jim Comerford visited Ireland with their son Jimmy 14 years ago (May 2012), I hosted them on a genealogical tour that brought them to Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin and the Comerford ancestral home at Ballybur Castle at Cuffesgrange, near Callan, Co Kilkenny.

They had been in London and Oxford the previous week. On a warm sunny, early summer afternoon in Dublin, after a thorough tour of the cathedral and the crypt, we sat for an hour or more outside the Bull and Castle on Christchurch Place and had lengthy conversations that ranged from Handel to Pugin, liturgy to architecture, and through politics and music to travel and politics.

We were guests the next day of the late Frank Gray, who bought Ballybur Castle from the Marnell family for £20,000 in 1979 and spent over three decades lovingly restoring the 16th century tower house, bringing it back to its Tudor glory.

In Cuffesgrange, I showed them the remains of a Comerford memorial from the early 17th century, rescued in the 19th century by Bishop Michael Comerford and placed in the corner wall of the parish church. Back in Kilkenny, we visited Kilkenny Castle, had lunch in the Kilkenny Design Centre, and met members of Camilla’s extended family.

Jim Comerford died on 21 April 2024 after a six-year battle with cancer. He is survived by his wife of 36 years, Camilla (Corrigan), their sons James ‘Jimmy’ Dower Comerford Jr and Joseph ‘Joey’ Corrigan Comerford of Atlanta, their daughter Margaret ‘Margeaux’ Eileen Comerford of Seattle, and their granddaughter Abigail Genevieve. His funeral Mass took place in the Cathedral of Christ the King, Atlanta, on 24 April 2024, and he was buried at Arlington Memorial Park.

Jim and Jimmy Comerford visiting the baptistery in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, in 2012 (Photograph: Patick Comerford)

How Methodists and Baptists had a variety of chapels and churches in Leighton Buzzard

Three Methodist churches or chapels in Leighton Buzzard came together to form Trinity Methodist Church on North Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I have been catching up in recent days on memories of visiting churches and chapels in Leighton Buzzard in recent months. Leighton Buzzard has a long tradition of ‘independent’ and ‘nonconformist’ churches and chapels, and once had a strong Quaker presence, which continues in the Quaker Meeting House in North Street. But the other ‘nonconformist’ traditions in the town on the borders of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire include Methodists and Baptists, and there is interesting connection between these traditions.

Leighton Buzzard once had three Methodist churches or chapels, and so it seems theologically appropriate that when they came together the new church they built should be called Trinity Methodist Church.

The Bedford Circuit Book records the first society in the town in 1801 led by Samuel Copleston. His father had been the curate in Luton when John Wesley preached there.

Although Methodists in Leighton Buzzard first met in private homes, they grew rapidly and a chapel was built on Hockliffe Street in 1804, and was dedicated in 1805. At first, Leighton Buzzard was in the Bedford Circuit, but a separate Leighton Buzzard Circuit was formed in 1812.

The chapel on Hockliffe Street was said to be an unattractive building but it was extended twice. However, each time it quickly became insufficient for the needs congregation, and it was replaced by a much larger new chapel in 1865, and the old chapel was then bought by one the Baptist groups.

The former Wesleyan Church on Hockliffe Street, Leighton Buzzard was demolished in 1969

The new Methodist chapel was further along Hockliffe Street, it was capable of seating 1,500 people. This number was exceeded on special occasions, and there was a large Sunday School too. The basement was used for classrooms and a library, and two houses or manses were built on either side of the chapel for the ministers.

The Wesleyan and Primitive Methodists united in 1932 as the Methodist Church of Great Britain and in 1960 the Wesleyans at Hockliffe Street and the Atterbury Mission Hall gave up their premises and moved into the old Primitive Methodist chapel in North Street, which was renamed as Trinity Methodist Church.

The former Wesleyan church at Hockliffe Street was subsequently sold to the council and was finally demolished in 1969. All that remained was the former right-hand manse, at the entrance to the Hockliffe Street car park. A modern office building stands where the chapel used to be, and the left-hand manse disappeared to make way for the ring road.

Meanwhile, the Primitive Methodists made several attempts to consolidate their presence in the town with regular preaching from 1837 into the early 1840s. A local society was recorded later in the 1840s. A chapel was built in Mill Road in 1851 and a new Primitive Methodist circuit based on Leighton Buzzard was formed from Aylesbury Mission in 1862.

The original chapel was replaced in 1870 with a much larger one seating 400 people. This building was plagued with problems and eventually burnt down in 1889. This was a huge set-back for the ‘Prims’, but they secured land for a new chapel on North Street, and this was in 1890, on the site of the present Trinity Methodist Church.

This new chapel cost £2,340 to build and had seating for 500 people. A residence for the minister was also built, on the north side of the chapel. The chapel later had many changes, and was enlarged in 1967, when the adjoining residence was demolished to make room for the work.

There was also a Primitive Methodist Chapel in Linslade. The Primitive Methodist Jubilee Chapel was built in 1861 at the corner of Old Road and Station Road. During World War II, the chapel was converted to an engineering works. When it was demolished housing was built on the site.

In addition to the Wesleyan and Primitive Methodists, there was also an Atterbury Mission in Leighton Buzzard. This was at a small Methodist Mission House, built in 1885, at 83 Vandyke Road. The three Methodist congregations in the town – the Wesleyans, the Primitive Methodists and the Atterbury Mission – came together in 1960 to form the present Trinity Methodist Church.

Lake Street Baptist Chapel was built in an Italianate style in 1864, closed in 1972 and was demolished in 1983

The earliest references to Baptists in Leighton Buzzard are in returns by the Vicar of All Saints. ‘Anabaptists’ are mentioned in the returns for 1706, 1709, 1717 and 1720. Forty Anabaptists were recorded in 1706, with their own meeting house. An Anabaptist meeting was being once a fortnight In 1709 with about 40 people present. By 1717, about 15 families were meeting in the home of William Fenner, in 1720 they were meeting in two houses.

The General Baptist Church in Leighton Buzzard was founded at Lake Street by seven people ca 1772-1775. When the first pastor Joseph James arrived he reported that the ‘moral state of the town was deplorable, with bull-baiting and cock-fighting abounding’. A chapel and house were soon given to the church, and baptisms took place in the River Ouzel. By 1812 The Baptists had also opened a Sunday School by 1812.

A split divided the Baptists in Leighton Buzzard in 1832 when some members were dissatisfied with the pastor and with his open communion policy, left and formed the Strict Baptist Church. The original chapel was extended in 1834, and a new chapel was built on the site of the old one in Lake Street by 1864. This new chapel was built in an Italianate style, could swet 500 people and cost £900 to build.

As for the group that split from the original church, they moved into the former Wesleyan Methodist chapel in Hockliffe Street in 1865. The Baptist Church on Hockiliffe Street was rebuilt in 1892 at a cost of £4,000 and with seating for 670 people.

The Revd John Forrest Neilson became pastor of both Lake Street and Hockliffe Street Baptist church in 1961. The Lake Street Chapel closed in 1972 and the building was demolished in 1983. The site was later developed as a residential housing estate, named Chapel Mews.

Hockliffe Street Baptist Church in Leighton Buzzard (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Lecton House, beside Chapel Mews in Leighton Buzzard, is a Grade II building with many associations in the past with the town’s ‘nonconformist’ communities. It was built in 1845 as the Leighton Institute, a temperance hall. It has a Neoclassical stucco pedimented front with a tetrastyle Greek Ionic ‘pseudo portia’ and the date 1845 in Roman numerals, sash windows, panelled doors and a Welsh slate roof.

The building was financed by two local Quakers, John Dolin Bassett of Bassett’s Bank, and Hannah Grant. It served as an adult education centre and could accommodate 400 people.

The building was later transferred to a committee of 12 members of Lake Street Baptist Church, and by 1927, the Temperance Hall was owned by the trustees of Lake Street Baptist Chapel. Concerts were held there occasionally for the up-keep of the chapel, but as a Baptist building there were no whist drives or dances.

After World War II, the Temperance Hall on Lake Street was leased to the county authorities by the Baptist church trustees and in 1949 it became a branch library, with accommodation for the librarian. The library closed in 1979, when a new purpose-built library and arts centre opened on the opposite side of Lake Street. By 2009, the building was a gym or fitness centre known as Colloseum (sic). Today it is private housing.

Lecton House, beside Chapel Mews, was founded by Quakers and was later owned by the trustees of Lake Street Baptist Chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

• The Revd Seung-Wook Jung, the minister in Trinity Methodist Church, is on sabbatical, and the Revd Patrick Kandeh is providing cover; Sunday services are at 10:30, Morning Worship; 4 pm, Messy Church; and 6 pm, Evening Worship. Hockiliffe Street Baptist Church is in the early stages of a process to appoint a new senior minister; Sunday services are at 10:30 and 5:30.

Sunday services in Trinity Methodist Church are at 10:30, 4 pm and 6 pm (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Two buildings side-by-side on Bird Street are part of the history of Lichfield’s libraries and museums

Lichfield Registration Office was built as the Free Library and Museum in 1856-1859 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

A good measure of a literary city and a cathedral city is whether it has a good library, a good museum and good bookshops.

Since my teens, I have valued the research and reading facilities at the library in Lichfield in its varied locations, first at the former Public Library and Art Gallery on Bird Street, later at the Friary, and more recently, since 2019, in the former Saint Mary’s Church, though with the sad and controversial loss of the Lichfield Record Office, established in 1959.

The original Library and Museum, bedside the Museum Gardens and Beacon Park on Bird Street in Lichfield, was built in 1857-1859 and designed in an Italianate style by the Wolverhampton architectural practice of Bidlake and Lovatt. It forms an interesting pair with the former Probate Court next door, and both face the Remembrance Garden on the other side of Bird Street and the causeway over Minster Pool.

Lichfield Cathedral has an important library that has been housed in the upper room of the Chapter House since 1758. But, until the mid-19th century, towns in England and Ireland did not have public libraries as we know them today.

Most libraries were attached to colleges or cathedrals or were in private stately homes. Commercial libraries were a response to the popularity of the rise of the novel in the 18th and 19th centuries, but libraries were still unknown to the working class, many of whom were uneducated and illiterate.

The Chartists, who demanded social and electoral reform and building land colonies, also set up reading rooms. By the mid-19th century, many clubs societies and institutes for working people provided lectures, libraries and book borrowing facilities, charging a nominal annual membership fee.

A Reading and Mutual Instruction Society was formed in Lichfield in 1850, and soon had over 100 members. That year, the Public Libraries Act was passed, allowing local councils to levy a halfpenny rate to fund local libraries and museums. One of the first of these was in Lichfield, where the Free Library and Museum opened in an elegant Italianate building on Bird Street in 1859.

The Reading and Mutual Instruction Society in Lichfield wound itself up and donated its books to the new library, giving everyone access to books. That year too saw the Museum Grounds open as a public park.

The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner describes the library as ‘small, of yellow brick and funny.’ The library was built in 1857-1859 and was designed by the architectural practice of George Bidlake and Henry Lovatt, based in Wolverhampton.

Robert Bridgeman’s lone sailor on the former Free Library and Museum faces the gardens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The two-storey-over basement building was designed in the renaissance style with a right-angle plan with an inset octagonal entrance tower with a cupola. It is built in brick with buff brick façades, ashlar dressings, a parapeted roof, three-window and six-window ranges, blind arcading. The plinth has a square ashlar plaque inscribed: ‘Free Library and Museum’.

Other features include flanking roundels, lotus capitals, tympana with archivolts and keys, blind arcading, ashlar colonnettes, 20th century buttresses, and ashlar balustrading. Inside there is a geometrical stair with slender iron balusters and a wreathed handrail.

A stone statue of a lone sailor is a familiar site on the side of the building, with the name ‘HMS Powerful’ on his hat band. HMS Powerful was a Royal Navy cruiser launched in 1895, and it played an important role in delivering troops and guns for the relief of Ladysmith during the Boer War.

The lone sailor was originally intended for a Boer War memorial in York, but was later given to the City of Lichfield by Robert Bridgeman in 1901 and placed on the Free Library and Museum, Bird Street, now the Registry Office.

The architects Lovatt and Bidlake designed an impressive list of works, from railway buildings, docks and reservoirs, to churches, hotels and theatres, and landmark buildings in London. The include the Carlton Hotel, Nos 16 and 17 St James’s Place, later the Stafford Hotel, and His Majesty’s Theatre in the Haymarket, the New Gaiety Theatre in the Strand, and the King’s Theatre, Hammersmith, as well as the New Theatre Royal in Birmingham, Bilston Town Hall and the Congregational Church Sedgley. The firm also built the American Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Paris for GE Street.

Henry Lovatt (1831-1913) was born in Wolverhampton and trained as an architect. He formed a partnership with another local architect, George Bidlake, in Darlington Street in 1853. Then in 1858 he bought the small firm of builders and contractors, John Ellis, also in Darlington Street, and turned it into an important firm in the Victorian building industry.

Lovatt lived a full and varied life. On his estate at Low Hill in Wolverhampton, he bred pedigree shorthorn cattle and sheep, grew equally celebrated orchids and collected art, including a collection of watercolours that he sold at Christie’s in 1907 when he retired and left Low Hill.

Lovatt’s partner George Bidlake (1830-1892) was a Wolverhampton architect who lived at No 54 Waterloo Road, next to the Subscription Library. His offices were in Darlington Street until his partnership with Lovatt in 1853.

Bidlake also designed Queen Street Congregational Chapel (demolished), Saint Jude’s Church (1867-1869), Tettenhall Road, Saint Mary’s Church, Coseley, Tettenhall Towers, now part of Tettenhall College, Trinity Methodist Church, Compton Road (demolished), the workhouse at Trysull, and the Congregational Chapel, Stone.

Bidlake wrote on architectural matters and in 1865 published Sketches of Churches Designed for the Use of Nonconformists. He later moved to Leamington.

His son, William Henry Bidlake (1861-1938), was the leading Birmingham architect in the Arts and Crafts movement and was the Director of the School of Architecture at Birmingham School of Art in 1919-1924. He had been a pupil of George Frederick Bodley (1827-1907), a leading Gothic Revival architect, and was known in his own time as ‘the man who rebuilt Birmingham’.

The museum moved in 1958 into the former probate court to the north of the library building. The museum closed in 1970 and the collections went into storage. The library moved out of its original building to the Friary in 1989-1990. The building was listed Grade II in 1993 and in 2003 became the Lichfield Registry Office, now the Lichfield Registration Office. The location beside Beacon Park and the views of Lichfield Cathedral from the Remembrance Gardens and Minister Pool provide romantic backdrops for wedding photographs.

The former Probate Court stands on the site of the childhood home of David Garrick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The former Probate Court next door is also a Grade II listed building. It stands on the site of the house where the actor David Garrick (1716-1779) spent his early life. Hs mother, Arabella Clough, was the daughter of a Vicar Choral of Lichfield Cathedral, Anthony Clough, and he was educated at Lichfield Grammar School before becoming one of the first and last students at the school Samuel Johnson set up in Edial.

Garrick’s early family home was demolished in 1856, and the former probate court was built in 1856-1858. It is a single-storey building with a basement. An interesting feature is the elliptical-headed entrance has moulded arch and hood, the recessed six-panel door and the frieze above inscribed ‘Probate Court.’

In many dioceses, each archdeaconry had its own probate court. In Lichfield, this did not happen and the Consistory Court was the main court for the whole diocese. Until 1858, wills were generally proved in the diocesan courts, so the building in Lichfield is a rare example of a purpose-built probate court.

A plaque on the former Probate Court recalls the actor David Garrick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)