Fading memories of the Morris assembly works at the former Brittain motors site in Rathmines

The former Brittain Motors site on Lower Rathmines, included flanking ‘In’ and ‘Out’ wings designed by Arnold Francis Hendy (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

My childhood memories are patchy and are not connected in any sort of ‘joined-up writing’. What I think are memories from infancy may, in fact, be founded on the few photographs I have from those early years, with either the photographs providing the memories or the memories being based on the images in those old photographs.

These few black-and-out photographs are over 70 years old, and most of them show me in the small garden in front of my grandmother’s farmhouse at Moonwee, near Cappoquin in west Waterford, or an unknown beach. In all these photographs I am with my foster-mother Peggy Kerr, the dogs that were family pets but that also worked on the farm, and the family car, an old black Morris Minor ZL 5776, made in 1949.

I thought of that old Morris Minor and wondered about those photographs and memories during my visit to Dublin last week as I stood outside the former Brittain Motors assembly plant on Lower Rathmines Road, beside Portobello Bridge. I was in Dublin for the launch of Salvador Ryan’s new book, Childhood and the Irish in the Royal Irish Academy the previous night. My two chapters in this book are about the Portobello and ‘Little Jerusalem’ area, so I should have expected memories of the area would come rushing back into my my mind the next monrning.

The decorated stucco Victorian house at the centre of the former Brittain Motors site in Rathmines (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Brittain Motors or GA Brittain Ltd was a car assembly plant and not just a dealership. There, during my childhood, popular models from the UK were assembled, including the Morris Minor and the Mini. It was the first company outside Britain to assemble the Morris Minor, receiving the first ‘completely knocked down’ (CKD) export kits, and production continued until 1971.

The Irish-assembled cars sometimes used a different paint palette than their UK counterparts, and the locally popular colours included dark brown.

These cars were built at the Morris Minor and Mini plant in Oxford, and then taken to production locations across Europe, including Slovenia, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as the assembly site at Portobello in Dublin. In addition, there was a service facility in Ringsend, close to what is now the Aviva Stadium.

When the Mini was launched in 1959, it was an overnight success in Ireland. But before the car could be sold in the Republic, all the component parts had to be packed in wooden crates in the UK, shipped to the Port of Dublin, and then assembled by the Brittain Group in Dublin.

I remember watching the assembled cars being lined up on Rathmines Road as I walked to parent’s home in Harold’s Cross from school, enthralled not only by their appearance but by the Brittain Motors building, with its ‘In’ and ‘Out’ lettering over the entrance and exit gates, bookending a splendid decorated stucco house.

A faded sign is a reminder that the house was once known as Grand Canal House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

I was young and naïve and at the age of eight or nine, in 1960 or 1961, all I hoped and wished Santa would leave for me under the tree for Christmas was a model yellow Mini. That Christmas night, I crept downstairs in the middle of the night to find it and to play with it in the silence between Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. But from his bedroom above, my father could see the light I had switched on, casting its beams on the front garden. In his characteristic anger, he rushed down, promptly confiscated it, never to be seen again.

But the petty, almost vindictive, attitudes of an adult parent to a playful young boy failed to dull my fascination with the Morris assembly plant at Brittain’s premises on Lower Rathmines Road until I was sent away to boarding school in the mid-1960s.

Soon after, the Brittain Group and their rivals Lincoln and Nolan Ltd – who also assembled the Mini at New Wapping Street in East Wall – amalgamated in 1967 or 1968 and became the BLN Motor Company, moving to the Naas Road on the west side of Dublin. The company was then bought by the Smith Group which assembled Renault cars in Wexford. Following the BLN merger, the Mini assembly franchise went to Reg Armstrong Motors in Ringsend.

As I stood last week looking at the former Brittain works on Lower Rathmines Road, near Portobello Bridge, those memories from 60 years or more ago came back as though it had all been only last year.

The 1930 parts of the Brittain site was designed by the Dublin-based architect Arnold Francis Hendy (1894-1958) of Kaye-Parry & Ross and were built by H&J Martin, founded in 1840, whose great buildings include the Grand Opera House, Belfast (1895), he Slieve Donard Hotel (1898), and Belfast City Hall in 1898.

Hendy was born in Plymouth and after World War I in Palestine and France with the Devonshire Regiment, he moved to Dublin and trained as an architect with WH Byrne & Son. As a student of the RIAI, he won the Downes Bronze Medal in 1920-1921 and the Institute Prize in 1921-1922. He joined Kaye-Parry & Ross in 1924 and soon became a partner.

After George Murray Ross died in 1927 and William Kaye-Parry died in 1932, Hendy carried on the practice under the same name until he died in 1958. His works include the Church of Our Lady of the Wayside, Kilternan (1929), the Pembroke Library (1929), Ballsbridge, No 35-36 Westmoreland Street (1935), on the corner with Fleet Street, for the Pearl Assurance Co (1935), Archer’s Garage (1948) on Fenian Street, the Top Hat ballroom (1953) in Dun Laoghaire, and a number of housing estates in Dublin.

Hendy died in 1958 and his firm continued as Kaye-Parry, Ross & Hendy until ca 1965, and then as Kaye-Parry & Partners until the early 1970s.

Many stucco details remain on the original 19th century house (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The central, decorated stucco house between Hendy’s ‘In’ and ‘Out’ wings of the former Brittain premises retains its charm and Victorian details. But so far I have been unable to find out who was its original architect.

The building is a fine, late 19th century, two storey over basement, five-bay building, with many remaining architectural features, both externally and internally. It appears to have been originally built as office accommodation for the adjoining works, which were originally a building contractors before becoming Brittain Motors.

Faded lettering on a decorative shield above the door indicates the house was once known as Grand Canal House. In the post-Brittain years, it became the offices of Liam Carroll (1950-2021) Zoe Developments, one of the biggest builders of residential properties in the 1990s, and was known as La Touche House, an acknowledgement that the real, official name of Portobello Bridge nearby is La Touche Bridge, built in 1791.

Nearby Portobello Bridge was built as La Touche Bridge in 1791 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Before he went bankrupt, Carroll was described by Kathy Sherridan in The Irish Times as ‘a billionaire developer who flies Ryanair and writes his own cheques’. He was regarded as ‘a maverick, a reclusive puzzle wrapped in an enigma’.

There were proposals in 2017 to turn Grand Canal House into an eight-bedroom annexe for the nearby Portobello Hotel, on the other side of the bridge on Richmond Street. It now seems to be used for sheltered housing, while other parts of the Brittain site include a café, solicitor’s offices, apartments and what appears to be sheltered housing.

Sadly, the ‘Out’ lettering is now missing from Hendy’s paired ‘In’ and ‘Out’ windows.

The fall of Liam Carroll and the sale of his property portfolios by NAMA are among the many fading memories of the ‘Celtic Tiger’. My memories of the Brittain assembly site and that dinky Mini Minor or Austin 7 one of Christmas in the early 1960s could easily have become another offering for Salvador Ryain’s Childhood and the Irish. Meanwhile, I’d still like to find out more about the architect and the history of the former Grand Canal House, at the centre of the former Brittain site on Lower Rathmines Road.

With ZL 5776 outside my grandmother’s house in Cappoquin, Co Waterford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford collection)

How the Pro-Cathedral in Dublin became Saint Mary’s Cathedral 200 years after it was completed

Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Marlborough Street, Dublin, was the ‘pro-cathedral’ for 200 years until last month (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

During my visit to Dublin last week, I visited three churches in the north inner city: Saint Mary’s Cathedral, known for almost 200 years as the ‘Pro-Cathedral’, on Marlborough Street; Saint Francis Xavier Church, the Jesuit-run church popularly known as Gardiner Street Church, between Mountjoy Square and Dorset Street, which I wrote about on Wednesday (3 December 2025); and the former Welsh Church on Talbot Street, which I wrote about last night (6 December 2025).

Saint Mary’s Cathedral was known for 200 years as Saint Mary's Pro-Cathedral, until it was designated as the Roman Catholic cathedral for the Archdiocese of Dublin last month (November 2025).

Until 2025, Dublin had two cathedrals, both belonging to the Church of Ireland: Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, which is the National Cathedral of the Church of Ireland, and Christ Church Cathedral, which is the diocesan cathedral of Dublin and Glendalough. In contrast, the Roman Catholic Church had no cathedral in Dublin until last month (November 2025).

Last year, the Greek Orthodox church on Arbour Hill, the Church of the Annunciation, began serving as the cathedral of the new Holy Orthodox Metropolis of Ireland, established in 2024 under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and with the appointment of Metropolitan Iakovos. Then this year, the Romanian Orthodox Church upgraded the former Christ Church on Leeson Park as its cathedral in Dublin.

Inside Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Dublin, looking towards the liturgical east and the High Altar (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Pope Leo XIV granted cathedral status to Saint Mary’s last month (November 2025). Until then it was a ‘pro-cathedral’, meaning it was a provisional or acting cathedral. It had that title officially since 1886, although Saint Mary’s Church had used that designation unofficially since the 1820s.

Saint Mary’s Cathedral dates back to the repeal of the Penal Laws in the early 19th century. But for centuries, Roman Catholics in Dublin had been without a cathedral.

Many of the Penal Laws were cancelled by the late 18th century and early 19th century, and a number of early churches were built in the city centre, including Saint Francis Xavier Church, Gardiner Street (1829) and Saint Nicholas of Myra, Francis Street (1829-1834).

One of these ‘sprinkling pots’ or holy water fonts from Liffey Street Chapel can be seen in an outside wall of the cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Mary’s name is a reminder of Saint Mary’s Abbey, the great Benedictine and later Cistercian house in Dublin founded in the 12th century. Saint Mary’s was closed in 1539 at the Dissolution of the monastic houses during the Tudor Reformations. Marlborough Street, named after the 1st Duke of Marlborough, was the furthest eastern boundary of the abbey lands that were broken up and built on.

A new Church of Ireland parish of Saint Mary’s was formed in 1697, and Archbishop Edmund Byrne, who was in hiding, formed the Roman Catholic Parish of Saint Mary 10 years later in 1707. Father John Linegar (1671-1757), who had been ordained in Lisbon in 1694, became the first pastor of the new Saint Mary’s parish, a parish without church or chapel. He opened Saint Mary’s Chapel on Liffey Street in 1729.

Although it was listed officially as ‘Liffey Street mass-house’, it was a fine chapel with an altar, pulpit, paintings, confessionals, two galleries, several pews and two ‘sprinkling pots of black marble in chapel yard.’ One of these ‘sprinkling pots’ or holy water fonts is now inserted in the wall of the cathedral.

John Linegar became Archbishop of Dublin in 1734, and died in office on 21 June 1757.

Peter Turnerelli’s recumbent figure of Archbishop Troy is modelled on Isaia da Pisa's tomb of Pope Eugene IV in San Salvatore in Lauro, Rome (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

When John Thomas Troy, a Dominican friar and Bishop of Ossory, was appointed Archbishop of Dublin in 1786, he petitioned Pope Pius VI to make Saint Mary’s his mensal parish, and he began to plan for a ‘dignified spacious church’ in a central location. Troy formed a committee that bought Annesley House, Lord Annesley’s Dublin townhouse on the corner of Marlborough Street and Elephant Lane (later Tyrone Place and now Cathedral Street), close to Sackville Street (now O’Connell Street) in 1803. The site was chosen as the location for a new cathedral, pending the erection, when funds and the law allowed.

Troy announced a public competition in 1814, inviting designs for the new church. Lord Annesley’s townhouse was demolished in June 1814. The new church, built between 1815 and 1825, combines a number of styles: the exterior is in Greek revival style, while the interior is more Renaissance in style, based on the Church of Saint-Philippe du Roule of Paris.

Some believe the architect, known on the plans only by the initial ‘P’, was John Sweetman from Dublin, who had been living in exile in Paris since the 1798 Rising. A more likely opinion is that, although Sweetman sent the plans to Dublin, the architect was the French architect Louis Hippolyte le Bas, whose Church of Notre Dame de Lorette in Paris closely resembles Sain Mary’s, and that his identiry was kept secret as le Bas was Napoleon’s architect and Britain was at war with France.

The portico of Saint Mary’s is a copy of the Temple of Theseus or Theseion in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The design of Saint Mary’s combines a variety of styles: the exterior is Greek revival at its best, the front portico is a copy of the Temple of Theseus or Theseion in Athens, and the fluted Doric columns rise without bases from the podium or floor of the church; the interior is more Roman in style than Grecian.

A major alteration was the addition of a dome. One objector declared that ‘artistically and practically the dome was a mistake; it is no help to the preacher and constitutes a serious and unhappy departure from the graceful lines and principles of Grecian art.’ Another critic described it as ‘a beautiful deformity’.

A flag was flown from the dome in August 1821 to show that the shell of the building was completed. But money was scare, morale was low and in a renewed fundraising drive, Archbishop Troy, at the age of 83, went collecting from house to house.

Archbishop Daniel Murray celebrated the completion of the ‘Metropolitan Chapel’ 200 years ago on 14 November 1825 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The committee passed a resolution that this ‘splendid edifice be considered a National or Metropolitan rather that a Parish Chapel’ and in March 1823 Pope Pius VII sent a gold chalice, commissioned ‘for the new Cathedral being built in Dublin’. Dr Troy died two months later, on 11 May 1823. He had been the driving force behind the project, and his funeral Mass was the first Mass in the unfinished building.

Archbishop Daniel Murray of Dublin celebrated the completion of the Roman Catholic Metropolitan Chapel, as it was then called, 200 years ago on 14 November 1825, the feast of Saint Laurence O’Toole, patron saint of Dublin. The choir was directed by Haydn Corri and sang Mozart’s Grand Mass in C Minor, Ave Verum and Graun’s Te Deum. Most of the Irish hierarchy were present, and the preacher was James ‘JKL’ Doyle, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin. Daniel O’Connell (1775-1847) spoke at the reception afterwards.

To mark the end of the Penal Laws and the legislation for Catholic Emancipation, a special thanksgiving High Mass was celebrated in the cathedral in 1829. It was attended by Daniel O’Connell, who had taken took his seat as MP for Clare, having been elected the previous year.

As the first Catholic Lord Mayor of Dublin in centuries, O’Connell celebrated his election in 1841 by travelling in state to ‘the Pro-Cathedral’ for High Mass. When he died in Genoa on 15 May 1847, his heart was buried in Rome while his body was brought back to Dublin and laid in state in Saint Mary’s for four days before he was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.

State funerals of major political figures there include Michael Collins, former presidents Seán T O’Kelly, Éamon de Valera and Patrick Hillery, and a former Lord Mayor of Dublin, Kathleen Clarke.

Cardinal Cullen’s marble monumenent is one the finest works by Sir Thomas Farrell (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Architects who worked on the cathedral over the past 200 years include Sir Richard Morrison and William Virtuvius Morrison, John B Keane, John Bourke, George Papworth and Ralph Byrne. The sculptures on the pediment by Thomas Kirk were completed in 1845 and depict the Virgin Mary flanked by Saint Laurence O’Toole and Saint Kevin of Glendalough.

Archbishop Murray and Cardinal Cullen are commemorated with two monuments in marble, among the finest work of the sculptor by Sir Thomas Farrell (1827-1900). Murray is seen in a kneeling pose. Around the base of the standing figure of Cullen are scenes depicting his life and work as archbishop, including his concern for the sick and poor, for training priests and for Catholic education.

John Hogan and other leading sculptors of the day carved memorials to the benefactors of the diocese. Among the gifts of altar plate is a silver-gilt chalice, paten and cruet set presented in 1856 in honour of Saint Laurence O’Toole by Mary Teresa Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury, a descendant of the O’Toole family.

Inside Saint Mary’s Cathedral, lookingtowards the liturgical west from the apse behind the sanctuary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Mary’s was never intended to be anything other than a temporary acting cathedral, until funds were found to build a full cathedral, and a number of locations for a new cathedral were proposed. WT Cosgrave, President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State (the equivalent of taoiseach or prime minister) from 1922 to 1932, once suggested the General Post Office on O’Connell, which had remained a burnt-out shell since the 1916 Rising. But the idea was not acted on and the GPO was restored as a post office.

John Charles McQuaid (1895-1973), who was Archbishop of Dublin in 1940-1972, bought the gardens in Merrion Square with plans to build a cathedral. But his proposals were never acted on and the gardens were eventually handed over to Dublin Corporation and opened to the public. At times, there were suggestions that one of the two Church of Ireland cathedrals in the city might be transferred to the Roman Catholic Church, but this never happened either.

In the meantime, most of the funds collected for building a new cathedral were spent on building new churches in the 1970s and 1980s in a fast-growing diocese.

Pope John Paul visited Saint Mary’s in 1992 and Pope Francis visited in 2018.

The front panel of Turnerelli’s original altar was incorprated in the new altar when it was moved after Vatican II (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Architecturally, the cathedral’s dramatic mixture of Greek and Roman styles has been controversial in the past, with different critics describing it as either an artistic gem or an eyesore.

The main aisle leads up to the High Altar, and behind it is a stained glass window of the Blessed Virgin Mary or Saint Mary. The stucco alto-rilievo of the Ascension is the work of John Smyth, while the High Altar was carved by Peter Turnerelli, a Belfast-born, Dublin-based sculptor with Italian parents.

In preparation for the Centenary of Catholic Emancipation in 1928 and the Eucharistic Congress in 1932, the floor space the church was extended on both sides in another unhappy alteration of John Sweetman’s original design. The elegant portico on the Cathedral Street side was walled up between the Doric columns, and what had once been Saint Kevin’s chapel in the north flank became simply open space within the church.

For most of its time, Saint Mary’s had a massive Victorian altar and reredos by Peter Turnerelli. They were removed in the late 1970s during reordering following the liturgical changes introduced at the second Vatican Council. The architect for these changes was Cathal O’Neill, Professor of Architecture in University College Dublin.

The reredos was removed, leaving just the tabernacle, although the front panel of the original altar was reinstated in the new altar, which was moved to the centre of a new paved area in an expanded sanctuary. The altar rails were also removed. The pulpit was moved too, to a position in a corner of the building.

The cathedral went on fire in the early 1990s, and although the fire was brought under control, there was considerable smoke damage in one corner of the building.

Looking towards the liturgical west end of Saint Mary’s Cathedral and the organ from the High Altar (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The original organ was built by the Dublin organ builder John White in the late 19th century. The present organ has some of White’s original pipework. The present façade of the organ dates from William Hill’s work around 1900. Later work was carried out by Henry Willis & Co in the 1930s, before JW Walker’s major rebuild in 1971 and a more recent refurbishment in 1995. The newly refurbished organ was inaugurated in a gala concert by Olivier Latry on 20 March 1996.

The organ is one of the finest examples in Ireland of the late 19th century grand Romantic organ, and many great organists have played it: Daniel Chorzempa, Xavier Darasse, Sir David Lumsden, Daniel Roth, Dame Gillian Weir, Arthur Wills, Olivier Latry and others.

The Titular Organist of Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Gerard Gillen, was appointed in 1976; David Grealy was appointed Associate Organist in 2017. A chancel organ built by John White is on on the epistle (right) side of the High Altar.

The stucco alto-rilievo of the Ascension is by John Smyth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Mary’s is known for the resident choir, the Palestrina Choir, which had its origins in a boys’ choir formed in the 1890s by Vincent O’Brien, and Edward Martyn was the founding sponsor. Pope Pius X promoted the music of Palestrina as the standard to which liturgical music should aspire.

The Palestrina Choir was installed in the cathedral in 1903 and Vincent O’Brien was the director until 1946. The Palestrina Choir has attracted notable singers over the years, including Count John McCormack who was a member in 1904-1905. The present director of the choir is Blánaid Murphy.

During the school term, the Palestrina Choir sings at Sunday morning Solemn Latin Mass (Novus Ordo), Friday Vespers and Benediction (5:15 pm) and Mass (5:45 pm). A girls’ choir was formed in 2009.

Inside the dome of Saint Mary’s Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

More recently, there were proposals to name Saint Andrew’s Church, Westland Row, as the cathedral, but with last month’s decision, Saint Andrew’s has been declared a basilica and Saint Mary’s is now officially the cathedral of the city, the diocese and the archbishop – although it is likely to be known to generations to come in Dublin simply as ‘the Pro’.

As the architectural historian Christine Casey says, it ‘still ranks among the most powerful Greek Revival Church interiors in these islands.’

‘The Dublin Martyrs’, Margaret Ball (1584) and Francis Taylor (1621), bronze figures (2001) by Conall MacCabe (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Further reading:

Christine Casey, Dublin (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2005, Pevsner Architectural Guides, Buildings of Ireland series).

Peter Costello, Dublin Churches (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1989).

Dermod McCarthy, Saint Mary’s Pro-Cathedral Dublin (Dublin: Eason, 1988, the Irish Heritage series).

Saint Mary’s Cathedral seen from the grounds of the Department of Education, the former Model School and Scoil Chaoimhínon Marlborough Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Rising Sun’s stucco Gothic work in Fitzrovia has been rescued from a disaster in the 1980s

Ihe Rising Sun is Victorian stucco pub in the Elaborate Art Nouveau Gothic style at corner of Tottenham Court Road and Windmill Street in Fitzrovia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

Perhaps the work of my great-grandfather on buildings in Dublin such as the Irish House on Winetavern Street and the Oarsman in Ringsend has left me with an abiding interest in Victorian stucco pubs, and I find myself looking out for them when I am walking through a city or town.

In London in recent days, I have stopped to look at the Rising Sun is an ornate, 19th-century pub at 46 Tottenham Court Road in Fitzrovia. I returned again yesterday to look at its elaborate façades and to see what happened in the 1980s and the 1990s to its interiors.

The Rising Sun dates back to 1730, and was rebuilt in the Elaborate Art Nouveau Gothic style in 1897 to designs by the Victorian architects Treadwell and Martin. It has survived a drastic rebuilding in the 1980s, and is now a Grade II listed building.

Because of its associations with good weather and good fortune, the Rising Sun seems to be a natural name for a pub. But it also forms a large part of the coat of arms of the Distillers’ Company, which makes it even more popular as a pub name.

The Rising Sun was rebuilt in 1897 to designs by the Victorian architects Treadwell and Martin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Tottenham Court Road runs a distance of about three-quarters of a mile (1.2 km) from Euston Road in the north to Saint Giles Circus and the junction of Oxford Street and Charing Cross Road in the south, with Tottenham Court Road tube station just beyond the south end of the road. Tottenham Court Road is sometimes used to distinguish Fitzrovia to the west from Bloomsbury to the east.

The street takes its name from the former Manor of Tottenham Court, whose lands lay to the north and west of the road, in the parish of Saint Pancras. Tottenham Court had no direct connection with the district of Tottenham, now part of the London Borough of Haringey. The manor house of the former Manor of Tottenham Court lay just to the north of the road’s junction with Euston Road.

The Rising Sun dates back to a pub that was first licensed as the Sun in 1730. It is one of the pubs Karl Marx is said to have requented in the 1850s, at a time when there were 18 pubs along the length of the Tottenham Court Road.

The Windmill Street frontage of the Rising Sun (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The pub was rebuilt in the Elaborate Art Nouveau Gothic style by FA Rhodes in 1897 to designs by the Victorian architects Treadwell and Martin. The partnership was formed by Henry John Treadwell (1861-1910) and Leonard Martin (1869-1935), and was in practice for 20 years from 1890 to 1910.

Henry John Treadwell was born in Lambeth in 1862. He was articled to Franklin and Andrews of Ludgate Hill, and was then an assistant to the Giles Gough and Trollope in London. He practised with Leonard Martin in London from 1890 to 1910, specialising in developing small, narrow-fronted sites in London’s West End. He died in London on 24 October 1910.

Leonard Martin was born in London on 12 July 1869 and he too was articled to Giles Gough and Trollope. He attended the National Art Training School in South Kensington, London, and Lambeth School of Art. He met Henry John Treadwell at Giles Gough and Trollope and they formed a partnership in 1890.

The Treadwell and Martin partnership was dissolved after Treadwell died in 1910. From 1929 on, Martin was in partnership with EC Davis. Later, Martin exhibited at the Royal Academy in London between 1912 and 1929. He died in Surrey in 1936.

A plaque on the Tottenham Court Road frontage reads ‘Built by FA Rhodes 1897, Treadwell & Martin’(Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Stylistically, Treadwell and Martin worked in an eclectic mix of Art Nouveau, Baroque, late-Continental Gothic, and dashes of other styles, used in a very free way. They designed several public houses and breweries, and left a ‘trail of remarkable little buildings across London’s West End,’ according to the architectural historian A Stuart Gray.

The firm designed Scott’s restaurant, 18-19 Coventry Street (1892-1894), the Old Shades, a Grade II listed pub at 37-39 Whitehall, and 80 Fetter Lane, built for Buchanan’s Distillery, as well as the Rising Sun on Tottenham Court Road. Among their best buildings are 23 Woodstock Street, 7 Dering Street, 7 Hanover Street, 74 New Bond Street, 20 Conduit Street, 78 Wigmore Street, 106 Jermyn Street and 61 Saint James’s Street, all in the early 1900s.

Other works by the firm include the rebuilding and later addition of Saint John’s School, Leatherhead, Surrey (1890s); Sandroyd School, Cobham (1905-1906), hospitals in Carshalton and Cobham, Surrey, and Dartford, Kent, and Saint John’s Hospital, Lisle Street, Leicester Square, London (1904).

Their churches include the Presbyterian Church in West Norwood, the Holy Trinity Mission Church at Tulse Hill, London, and Saint John’s Church (1910), Herne Hill, Surrey. Their design for the Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum was shortlisted but unsuccessful.

Rising from the first to the third floor on a splayed corner is a bartizan with a corbel including a male figure (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Rising Sun is a late Victorian stucco pub designed by Treadwell and Martin in an Elaborate Art Nouveau Gothic style. The pub has four storeys and a basement; one bay has a three-bay return and there is a one-bay extension to Windmill Street.

It has a ground floor pilastered frontage and an entrance in a splayed corner. There are three-light transom and mullion windows with leaded panes on the first floor, and two-light windows on the second and third floors.

Each bay is separated by tourelles with pinnacles. The gables over the window bays are surmounted by segmental pediments. There is lavish use of vertical strips, scrollwork, heraldic beasts, cupids heads, and similar features in relief.

Rising from the first to the third floor on a splayed corner is a bartizan with a corbel including a male figure. To the right of this, a plaque reads ‘Built by FA Rhodes 1897, Treadwell & Martin’.

The brick extension has three-light transom and mullion windows and a stone-capped Dutch gable.

The interior of the Rising Sun was entirely remodelled in an historicist style after the Victorian interior was destroyed in the 1980s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Their pub was the victim of one of the worst excesses of brewery greed in the early 1980s when the pub was renamed ‘The Presley’ and decorated with images of Elvis Presley. The owners lowered the ceiling and destroyed the Victorian interior, including the Grade II listed high ceilinged interior.

The litigation the followed led to the forced restoration of many of the original features in 1993, when the interior was entirely remodelled in an historicist style.

The pub was renamed the Rising Sun by the next owners, the intricate stucco exterior remains, and the current decor is much more welcoming. The Rising Sun is one of the pubs on the many Karl Marx-themed pub crawls based on the pubs Karl Marx was known to have frequented or, more speculatively, may have visited when he lived with his family in abject poverty nearby at 21 Dean Street from 1848 to 1856.

The Rising Sun is one of the pubs Karl Marx is said to have frequented in the 1850s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Libeň Synagogue in Prague has survived floods, the Holocaust and being a warehouse and theatre

The Libeň Synagogue in Prague … the Jewish quarter in Libeň was once the second most significant Jewish area in Prague (Photograph: Fe’our/Wikipedia, CCL)

Patrick Comerford

I have been to Prague a number of times and, like every visitor with an interest in Jewish history, I have walked through the streets the Josefov and visited seven of the city’s synagogues, the Jewish Museum, the Ceremonial Hall for funerals, the Old Jewish Cemetery and the grave of Rabbi Löw, the Maharal. I have listened to the stories of the Golem and I have searched out the many sites associated with Franz Kafka.

The synagogues I have visited in Prague include the Old-New Synagogue, the High Synagogue, the Maisel Synagogue, the Klausen Synagogue, the Spanish Synagogue, the Pinkas Synagogue and the Jerusalem Synagogue.

But in recent weeks, as I was researching the genealogy and story of Lyela Julia Edelman Brandeis Comerford (1880-1946), I came across the stories of the Jewish quarter in Libeň, and a forgotten Jewish community and synagogue in Prague that are almost totally unknown to the millions of tourists who visit the Czech capital each year. They all visit the Charles Bridge, but how many of them know of the Libeň Bridge?

Lyela Brandeis Comerford was the second wife of Judge Frank D Comerford (1879-1929), a son of Isaac Comerford from Co Galway, and he was her third husband. She was a granddaughter of Rabbi Abraham Wolf Edelman (1832-1907), the first resident rabbi in Los Angeles, a niece of both the architect and a president of the best-known synagogue in Los Angeles, Wilshire Boulevard Temple, and she was a sister-in-law of one of the passengers who died on the Titanic in 1912.

But Lyela’s links with the Jewish community and synagogue in Libeň come through her first husband, H Hugo Brandeis (1868-1912). He was the son of Jonas Leopold Brandeis (1836-1903), a dry goods merchant, and Francesca Teweles (1845-1905), both Jewish emigrants from Prague to the US.

Inside the Libeň Synagogue in Prague … Jonas Leopold Brandeis was born in Libeň in Prague in 1836

The Brandeis family was once a prominent rabbinic family in Prague. The extended family included the Dante scholar Irma Brandeis (1905-1999); and Louis Dembitz Brandeis (1856-1941), an associate justice on the US Supreme Court (1916-1939), who gave his name to Brandeis University.

Judge Louis Brandeis was the first Jew to be named to the Supreme Court. During his career, he fought railroad monopolies, defended workplace and labour laws, challenged antisemitism and helped create the Federal Reserve System. He was a courageous and militant advocate of social justice. He was seen as being incorruptible, was known as the ‘People’s Lawyer’, and The Economist called him ‘A Robin Hood of the law.’

Jonas Leopold Brandeis was from Libeň in Prague, then in the Austrian empire and now the capital of the Czech Republic. Franciska ‘Fannie’ Teweles was born in Prague. They emigrated to the US around 1856 and were married in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, around 1862.

The Jewish quarter in Libeň was the second most significant Jewish settlement in Prague and was second only to the Old Town of Josefov. It stretched between today’s streets of Voctářova, Kozelužská, Vojenova and the now lost streets of Jirchářská and Kožní.

Jews probably began to settle in that area in the early 16th century after Jews were expelled from king’s towns in 1541 and 1557. The old synagogue in Koželužská Street stood at the very centre of this Jewish settlement and it dated from 1592. The Jewish community had its own cemetery near the Libeň Bridge and its own self-government building.

The Jewish district in Libeň was greatly extended in the first half of the 18th century, when the Jews expelled from inner Prague by Maria Theresa moved there.

The Aron haKodesh or holy ark in the Libeň Synagogue in Prague

The original small synagogue was in use for two centuries before it was rebuilt in 1770. But Libeň was frequently hit by floods, and the synagogue, which stood in an area that was hardest hit, became unfit for use. After a particularly severe flood in 1845 the authorities proposed demolishing the synagogue.

The Jewish community bought a new site, and the foundation stone of a new synagogue was laid on 23 November 1846 in a ceremony attended by the Archduke Stephen of Habsburg, the last Palatine of Hungary.

The new synagogue was consecrated and officially opened 12 years later, in 1858. It was built in the neo-Romanesque style with Moorish elements. It was a two-storey, three-aisle building with a rectangular ground floor and saddle roof. The original façade had distinctive decorative stucco with a core design lining the crown ledge and both gables.

The west front has a three-section high entrance with three portals beneath a large rounded top window that once had rich stucco decorations, including the Ten Commandments and the Star of David at the top. The east façade has a round window a six-pointed stucco star filled with coloured stained glass. The façade was simplified in the 1930s.

Inside, the foyer leads into the main worship area and two solid newel staircases facing each other lead to the upper, women’s balcony that runs along three sides.

The main interior area is arranged in three aisle styles with the two side upper balcony arcades placed atop five huge pillars, and a four-section dome. The walls and pillars were decorated with a painted marble imitation, and parts of the stucco décors have a festive polychrome colour dominated by blue and green.

The elevated Bimah shows traces of the place for a Shulchan or table for reading from the Torah, and a decorated railing at the edge.

The wooden Aron haKodesh or holy ark for holding the Torah has slim side columns and a semicircular extension with a gold Hebrew sign and the Star of David at the centre. Underneath, a series of embossed symbols are reminders of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. A gold-plated carved Crown of David is at the top.

The galleries in the Libeň Synagogue in Prague, rebuilt in 1846-1858

During World War II, the Jews in Libeň were gradually deported to concentration camps. The synagogue was forcibly closed in 1941 and, like many synagogues in the Czech Republic, was converted into a warehouse storing confiscated Jewish property.

The decimated Jewish community was never revived in Libeň after the war, and there was a new wave of antisemitism in the post-war years. The synagogue fell into further dilapidation and was used first as a produce warehouse and later to store the props of the nearby SK Neumann Theatre, later the Pod Palmovkou Theatre.

The old Jewish cemetery was destroyed, as was the building with the rabbi’s residence and administrative offices. Several blocks in the area were taken down in the immediate vicinity of the synagogue in the 1980s to make way for building the B line metro stop Palmovka. The synagogue itself was removed from the demolition plans only at the last minute.

The synagogue was returned to the Jewish Community in Prague after the political upheavals in 1989, and once again is known as the Synagogue in Palmovka or Libeň Synagogue. Since 1995, the building has been used regularly by the Serpens Association for cultural and social events, including artistic, theatrical and musical events.

Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום‎

Lyela Julia Edelman Brandeis Comerford (1880-1946) … genealogical research led me to the stories of the Jewish quarter in Libeň, and a forgotten Jewish community and synagogue in Prague

Edward Swinfen Harris in Stony Stratford and further afield

Patrick Comerford

Swinfen Harris in Stony Stratford and further afield,

an illustrated presentation,

7 pm, Tuesday 25 February 2025,

Stony Stratford Library

The Friends of Stony Stratford Library (FOSSL)

Personal Introduction:

Good evening, thank you for your introduction and your welcome here this evening.

I have been living in Stony Stratford for the past three years, and my wife Charlotte is from Galley Hill.

As Richard [Deveson] has said, I am an Anglican priest, before moving here I spent five years in parish ministry as a country vicar in the west of Ireland. Before that, I spent 15 years in academic theology, where my specialist areas were liturgy and church history – these came together in my interests in sacred space, how we use church buildings and church architecture in the public worship of the church, and how ecclesiastical architecture has been part of local and church history over the centuries.

Before that, I spent 30 years working as a journalist.

But my interests have also been shaped by family background too: my grandfather and my great-grandfather worked as architects and stuccodores in the Gothic Revival and the Arts and Crafts movement, two movements in architecture that strongly influenced Edward Swinfen Harris.

Repton House, Wolverton Road … part of the architectural legacy of Edward Swinfen Harris in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Introducing Swinfen Harris

The two major architectural influences in Stony Stratford before the development of Milton Keynes are the two fires in the 18th century, and the extensive works in the late 19th and early 20th century of Edward Swinfen Harris (1841-1924), the Stony Stratford-born architect who died 100 years ago last year, on 30 May 2024.

Stony Stratford suffered two great fires. The sundial on the house at No 40 Church Street bears a Latin inscription from 1739 that translates, ‘Time and Fire Destroy All Things.’ The bigger fire in 1742 destroyed 146 buildings, and even crossed the River Great Ouse, burning houses in Old Stratford. The fires destroyed most of the town’s mediaeval buildings. But the coaching era also ushered in a new prosperity that enabled much of the building work now standing on High Street today.

The other great influence on the architectural legacy of Stony Stratford was the locally-born architect Edward Swinfen Harris, whose works, mainly in the Arts and Crafts style, can be seen throughout the town. He died in 1924. His works in Stony Stratford and the neighbouring towns in Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire include vicarages, houses, schools, church alterations and additions, church halls, almshouses, lynch gates and the memorial cross in the London Road cemetery. He seems to have been particularly adept at receiving commissions from local GPs, and his work can be seen in Stony Stratford and neighbouring towns and villages, including Bletchley, Buckingham, Calverton, Great Linford, Maids Morton, Newport Pagnell, Roade and Wolverton.

His architectural legacy in North Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire, particularly in his home town of Stony Stratford, is immense and might have been celebrated with more panache last year, the centenary of his death.

Biographical summary:

Edward Swinfen Harris was born on 30 July 1841 at 36 High Street, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Swinfen Harris was a distinguished architect with a national reputation. The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, describes him as ‘the only outstanding local architect working in’ north Buckinghamshire.

Swinfen Harris worked in London as well as Stony Stratford, and many of the fine houses he designed in North Buckinghamshire are still standing today, with surviving buildings also in Dorset and Northamptonshire.

He was born on 30 July 1841 at 36 High Street, Stony Stratford. His father was the clerk to the town magistrates, the Board of Guardians and other bodies, and Edward was the eldest son. The family later moved to Back Lane. He began his formal education when he was 11 at the Belvedere Academy at Old Stratford, and then went to Ullesthorpe House School in Leicestershire as a boarder.

He was apprenticed to the book trade around 1858, and was then articled to an architect in London. On completing his apprenticeship, he shared an office in London with two friends, but he returned to Stony Stratford in 1868 to make additions to the vicarage of Wolverton Saint Mary on London Road, Stony Stratford, and also to Calverton Limes.

Swinfen Harris returned to Stony Stratford in 1868 to make additions to the vicarage of Wolverton Saint Mary on London Road (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Wolverton Saint Mary Vicarage, London Road:

The Church of Saint Mary the Virgin on London Road was designed in 1863-1865 in the Gothic style by Sir George Gilbert Scott and at the time was in Wolverton Parish.

When Swinfen Harris completed his architectural apprenticeship, he shared an office in London with two friends, but then returned to Stony Stratford in 1868 to make additions to the vicarage of Wolverton Saint Mary on London Road, Stony Stratford, and also to Calverton Limes.

After his marriage in 1870, Edward Swinfen Harris lived at 15 Wolverton Road, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

After his marriage in 1870, Swinfen Harris and his wife Emily Harriet settled in Stony Stratford at a new house at 15 Wolverton Road. In this period, he designed the house at 19 Wolverton Road for Dr McGuire.

In the following years, Swinfen Harris was involved in ecclesiastical architecture, restoring many churches. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA) and travelled extensively in Europe to study architecture.

In his professional life, he was the county surveyor of North Buckinghamshire. After the Education Act was passed, he built a number of local schools.

Calverton Limes, London Road:

Calverton Limes on London Road, Stony Stratford, was designed by Edward Swinfen Harris (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Calverton Limes is one of the many major houses in Stony Stratford he designed. Until recently, this landmark building at 18 and 20 London Road was known to many as the Working Men’s Social Club, but it also has interesting links with the Trevelyan family, who lived for a time in the house.

The story of the Trevelyan family has links with the Irish Famine, colonialism in India, and social and educational reforms in Stony Stratford and Wolverton.

Calverton Limes is dated 1870, and was designed in an ornate and mannered Victorian ‘vernacular’ style. It was built in two and three storeys in three irregular blocks, faced in cobbled, herringbone and upright-laid limestones divided by rubble lacing courses.

Calverton Limes and the Trevelyan family offer interesting links between church life in Stony Stratford and global changes over the last two centuries (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The brick dressings and quoins are offset by a low plinth, there are scallop tiles laid in horizontal colour bands, and a crested ridge, with a ridged chimney on No 18.

The left-hand block, No 20, has a gable end to the street. The architectural features include a bargeboard, a bay window with sash windows.

The recessed central block has raised top-lighting. There are two high windows with terracotta shafts and slightly pointed heads. The ground floor projects with a lean-to roof. The central ornamental entrance has a pointed arch, roof shafts, buttresses and raised gable, and there are panelled double doors.

No 18, the right hand block, breaks forward again. This part of the building is of two storeys, with two attic windows with pointed relieving arches.

There are light sashes on the first floor, with a brick mullion on the left. The ground floor has a five-light rectangular bay to the right. There are three light sashes in the attic with half-timbered gables.

The return on the north-west side has much decorative brick work and a half-timbered gable with a moulded wood bargeboard.

The Revd William Pitt Trevelyan (1812-1905) lived for a time at Calverton Limes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Calverton Limes was built for William Cole Daniell, a local surgeon. Later, the Revd William Pitt Trevelyan (1812-1905) lived there. Subsequently, it became the home of Colonel LC Hawkins, a local magistrate. In more recent decades, this was the Working Men’s Club. It has since been converted into separate dwelling houses.

For many years it was the home of the Revd William Pitt Trevelyan, who was the Vicar of Wolverton (1856-1872) and of Calverton (1859-1881), both in Buckinghamshire and in the Diocese of Oxford.

When Trevelyan came to Calverton, it covered the west side of Stony Stratford and was known as one of the first Tractarian parishes in this part of Buckinghamshire. Many of the Tracts for the Times were planned in the old vicarage, where the regular visitors included Cardinal Henry Manning; both Newman and Pusey preached from the pulpit and Pusey celebrated at the altar in All Saints’ Church.

The neighbouring Parish of Wolverton covered much of the east and south sides of Stony Stratford, and in 1868 the parish established Saint Mary the Virgin on London Road as a daughter church. The church was designed by the architect Sir George Gilbert Scott, and a vicarage, two curate’s houses, now known as Jesuan House, and a Parish Hall were built also.

Saint Mary’s became a parish in its own right, and its priests were supporters of the Tractarian and Anglo-Catholic movements in the Church of England. Some of the priests were persecuted for what were regarded as ‘ritual offences’ and one was deprived of his living for these practices.

In Stony Stratford, Trevelyan began to develop the lower end of London Road, part of the new parish of Wolverton Saint Mary, and contributed to building Saint Mary’s Church and the church schools. With Lady Mary Russell and the Radcliffe Trust, he was one of the principal benefactors in building Saint Mary’s Church on London Road in 1864.

Trevelyan was instrumental, alongside John Worley and others, in inaugurating the Stony Stratford Dispensary and the Cottage Hospital, although the cottage hospital later closed and was replaced by a hospital fund.

Calverton Limes was built in 1870 and designed by Swinfen Harris (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

William Pitt Trevelyan’s third son, the Revd George Philipp Trevelyan (1858-1937), was born in Wolverton. He was also Vicar of Wolverton Saint Mary’s in Stony Stratford from 1885. Later, he was Vicar of Saint Alban’s, Hindhead, in Surrey, and Saint Stephen’s, an Anglo-Catholic parish in the centre of Bournemouth (1911-1928).

His son, Humphrey Trevelyan (1905-1985), Baron Trevelyan, was a leading colonial administrator, diplomat and writer. He was ambassador in Beijing after the Revolution, Egypt during the Suez crisis, Iraq during the attempt to annex Kuwait in 1961, and the Soviet Union, and the last high commissioner of Aden.

Saint Mary’s School (the Old School House), Wolverton Road, Stony Stratford:

Saint Mary’s School, now the Old School House, remains one of the most visible designs by Edward Swinfen Harris in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The schools designed by Swinfen Harris include Saint Mary’s School, on the corner of Wolverton Road and London Road. The Radcliffe Trust donated the site to build Wolverton End School and School House in 1867, and the church school for the poor, designed by Swinfen Harris, was built in 1871-1873. The school was financed by Mrs Russell of Beachampton, and over 280 pupils attended in the early 1890s.

Swinfen Harris designed both the school and the School House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The school became the Plough Inn in 1937, and in recent years was refurbished and renamed The Old School House. It remains one of the most visible of Swinfen Harris’s designs in Stony Stratford.

London Road Cemetery (Galley Hill Cemetery):

Swinfen Harris designed the London Road Cemetery, including the lychgate (above) and the ecclesiastical cross (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The John Radcliffe Trust bought a parcel of land on London Road for use as a cemetery for the new-built church in 1870. Swinfen Harris was commissioned to design and build the London Road Cemetery, also known as Galley Hill Cemetery, and the first burial was recorded in 1871.

The Lychgate and Ecclesiastical Cross designed by Swinfen Harris have been restored in recent years.

All Saints’ Church, Calverton:

The reredos installed by Swinfen Harris in All Saints’ Church, Calverton in 1871-1872 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Swinfen Harris restored and decorated All Saints’ Church in Calverton 1871-1872. His work there included laying Minton tiles on the chancel floor, the application of sgraffito patterns to the chancel walls and the installation of a mosaic reredos of the Epiphany, which is unusual in depicting Christ not as a babe in swaddling clothes but as a toddler standing on his mother’s knee. This depiction is said to reflect the Christ Child at the age when Herod commanded the slaughter of all male children up to the age of two.

Figures were also painted on the stone pulpit by the artist Daniel Bell at about this time. The stone cross at the south-west corner of the church, about four metres high and with the symbols of the four evangelists at the four corners of its base, dates from ca 1873.

Post Office, Newport Pagnell:

The Post Office in Newport Pagnell was built in 1872 for Bassett’s Bank

The Post Office in Newport Pagnell was built in 1872 for Bassett’s Bank, the oldest banking institution in Buckinghamshire. This building was designed by Swinfen Harris, and later became Barclays Bank.

Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford:

Swinfen Harris added the north vestries in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Swinfen Harris restored Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, then known as Saint Giles Church, in Stony Stratford, in 1876-1878, when he put new tracery in the windows and added the north and south galleries.

Later, Swinfen Harris also added the north vestries in 1891. A year later, in 1892, he commissioned stained-glass windows in the church by Nathaniel Westlake, one of the best stained-glass artists of the time, to commemorate his parents. I shall return to those windows later this evening.

Swinfen Harris Church Hall, London Road, Stony Stratford:

The Swinfen Harris Church Hall on London Road was built by Swinfen Harris in 1892 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Swinfen Harris Church Hall on London Road was built in 1892 by Swinfen Harris as the Parish Hall for Saint Mary the Virgin Church.

The church and hall are now owned by the Greek Orthodox Community of Milton Keynes and have undergone extensive restoration.

The Retreat almshouses, Stony Stratford:

The Retreat almshouses in Stony Stratford were designed by Swinfen Harris in the Queen Anne revival style in 1892 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Retreat almshouses in Stony Stratford form a group of three cottages off High Street designed by Swinfen Harris in the Queen Anne revival style in 1892. They are built in limestone and brick and are listed Grade II buildings.

Nos 14-16 High Street, in their style and features, show evidence of being the work of Swinfen Harris (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The premises at the front of the Retreat, Nos 14-16 High Street, are not listed buildings, but in their style and features show evidence of being designed by Swinfen Harris.

Rothenburg House, 107 High Street, Stony Stratford:

The inscription over the door of Rothenburg House, ‘Nisi Dominus’, quotes the opening words of Psalm 127 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Swinfen Harris built Rothenburg House at 107 High Street as his family home in 1892. Now a Grade II listed building, it was designed in his highly individual style.

The inscription over the door, Nisi Dominus, quotes the opening words of Psalm 127: ‘Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labour in vain.’

Swinfen Harris built Rothenburg House at 107 High Street, Stony Stratford, as his family home in 1892 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Repton House, 19 Wolverton Road:

Repton House at 19 Wolverton Road is an interesting house in the Victorian architectural history and heritage of Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Repton House at 19 Wolverton Road is an interesting house in the Victorian architectural history and heritage of Stony Stratford, with its romantic turret, jettied gable, bargeboard, half-timbered gables, arched entrance that once led into stables, and its sash windows.

Repton House today provides supported housing for people who require assistance in all aspects of daily living skills, as a result of long-term and enduring mental health problems.

Repton House is part of Richmond Fellowship’s Supported Housing Service, which is tailored for each individual using the service with the ultimate goal of helping them to manage their accommodation and assist them with reintegration back into independent living and the wider community.

Richmond Fellowship is a national mental health charity that has been ‘Making Recovery Reality’ for over 60 years. It is part of Recovery Focus, a group of charities with the shared aim to ‘Inspire Recovery Together.’ Since 1959, its services have pioneered work with individuals, communities, and families to overcome mental ill-health and support people on their recovery journeys.

The architectural details of Repton House include a romantic turret and an arched entrance (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Repton House, on the west side of Wolverton Road is a Grade II listed building dating from 1883, when it was designed by Swinfen Harris in the Arts and Crafts style.

Swinfen Harris designed the house at No 19 Wolverton Road for a medical practitioner, Dr TS Maguire, who was also a local magistrate.

The arched entrance leading into a rear courtyard is a reminder by Edward Swinfen Harris that Stony Stratford was once a coaching town (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Repton House is a two-storey, seven-bay house built in a Victorian vernacular style. It is a long, low, red-brick building with extensive rear quarters.

The left-hand bay of the house breaks forward and has a jettied gable with a bargeboard, blind tracery on studs and the date of the building of the house on the bressumer or supporting beam on the first floor of the jetty. This gable is partly hung, and it has a two-storey, four-light bay below.

There are sash windows with glazing bars in the top sash, and a continuous moulded string at sill level. The five-panel door to the left has a depressed arch over it. The central glazed door is flanked by pairs of windows.

There are stone heads on the windows on the ground floor and half-timbered gables on the first floor.

The date A.1883.D on the bressumer or supporting beam on the first floor of the jetty marks the date Repton House was built (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

To the right, a wide, arched entrance leads into a rear courtyard that once had stables, a reminder by Swinfen Harris that his home town had once been a coaching town.

Further to the right again is a tiled, roofed turret and a single storey extension with a foiled gablet in the roof. There is a wrought iron finial over the square bay on the south-west front of the house.

Repton House has a variety of dormers over the main part of building. The tiled roof has a crested ridge and brick chimneys.

The front of the house is covered with wisteria, and the growth at the front of the house means many people probably walk by Repton House on Wolverton Road without fully appreciating its place in the architectural heritage of Stony Stratford.

Stony Stratford lychgates:

The lychgate on London Road Cemetery, or Galley Hill Cemetery in Stony Stratford was designed by Edward Swinfen Harris (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Stony Stratford has not just one but three lychgates at its churchyards and cemeteries. The oldest lychgate is at Stony Stratford Cemetery on Calverton Road. This small, one-acre burial board cemetery dates from 1856-1857. The site was designed by the Northampton architect Edmund Francis Law (1810-1882), with a typical collection of cemetery structures, including two separate chapels and a stone boundary wall with a lychgate.

The cemetery on Calverton Road is now in a residential area but was originally in a partly rural setting. In the early 19th century, the site was in agricultural use, lying in a rural area to the south of the town near the River Great Ouse.

With the introduction of the Burial Acts in the mid-1850s, the Burial Board of the United Parishes of Saint Giles and Saint Mary Magdalene, Stony Stratford, was formed and directed a cemetery to be laid out. Law’s design for the cemetery included two chapels in Gothic style, an Anglican chapel and a Dissenters’ chapel, but the two chapels have since been demolished, although their sites can be seen.

The lychgate at the London Road Cemetery, or Galley Hill Cemetery, was designed by Swinfen Harris (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The second lychgate in Stony Stratford is at the London Road Cemetery, also known as Galley Hill Cemetery, and was designed by Swinfen Harris.

The John Radcliffe Trust bought a parcel of land measuring two roods and four perches on London Road in 1870 for use as a cemetery for the new-built Church of Saint Mary the Virgin – now the Greek Orthodox Church.

Swinfen Harris was commissioned to design and lay out the cemetery. The first burial there was in 1871. A second area of the cemetery was bought by Milton Keynes Council in the 1980s.

In recent times, the lychgate and memorial cross designed by Swinfen Harris fell into disrepair and the cross was considered unsafe. Following a concerted effort from members of Stony in Bloom, local tradesmen, finance from the Stony Stratford Futures Group and money from Milton Keynes Council Heritage Projects, the lychgate and cross were restored to their former glory in 2011.

Stony Stratford has a third and more recent lychgate at the north-east side of Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church. The lychgate and calvary facing on to the High Street were erected in 1931 in memory of Arnold Steer by his wife Clara and children, Eric, Gwen and Wilfrid. Canon Eric Steer had been a curate in Slough before becoming a naval chaplain during World War I. In all, three Steer brothers were priests in the Church of England, and Arnold Steer came to Stony Stratford to live in the vicarage in his old age and died in 1930.

The lychgate was made from an old oak tree that once stood on the same site, and remains an attractive feature on the High Street, next to where I am living.

Lovat Bank, Newport Pagnell:

Lovat Bank, designed by Swinfen Harris for the Taylor family, on the banks of the Ousel or Lovat River in Newport Pagnell (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Lovat Bank on Silver Street, Newport Pagnell (1876-1877), was designed for FJ Taylor, of Taylor’s Prepared Mustard fame. William Taylor came to Newport Pagnell in 1825. His first business was manufacturing soda and then later mustard. The instructions to Swinfen Harris were to build a grand house overlooking the river in the style of Queen Anne, including Gothic features.

Here too, sunflowers appear as a feature all over the house.

Lovat Bank on Silver Street in Newport Pagnell is regarded as the ‘chef d’oeuvre’ of Swinfen Harris (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The lawns were terraced down to the river. A wooden bridge crossed the river to the daffodil meadows that were all part of the property. A water wheel was used to pump water to the house from the river.

Lovat Bank served as local council offices in 1969-1974. Wendy and David Loughlan bought the house in 2018 and renovated it over the following months. Today, this grand building with a vibrant history is now home to unique and creative businesses along with a picturesque Yoga space.

Lovat Lodge, beside Lovat Bank in Newport Pagnell (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Lovat Lodge, beside Lovat Bank in Newport Pagnell, also has the appearance of being the work of Swinfen Harris.

The Old Rectory, Great Linford:

The Old Rectory in Great Linford dates from the late 16th or early 17th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Old Rectory in Great Linford is close to the gates of Great Linford Park, near the old manor house and to the south-east of Saint Andrew’s Church. The house was extensively and sympathetically renovated, extended and rebuilt in the Arts and Crafts style in 1876-1878 by Edward Swinfen Harris. Further extensions were carried out in the Edwardian era.

This is a stone building, built mainly at the close of the 16th century and in the early 17th century, although there seems to be work from a century earlier in the south-east wing and much of the building was altered by Swinfen Harris in the late 19th century. His work includes the south wing, rebuilt in the 19th century in the Tudor manner.

The house now has four reception rooms and six bedrooms and stands on two acres of mature grounds, including a former orchard. It has been on the market twice in recent years, with asking prices of £1.6 million and £1.75 million.

London House, 5 High Street, Stony Stratford:

London House, 5 High Street, Stony Stratford, designed by Swinfen Harris in the 1880s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

London House, at 5 High Street, Stony Stratford, now the Nationwide Bank, is Grade II listed building designed by Swinfen Harris in the 1880s.

This is a two-storey house with a gabled attic employing a variety of decorative surface treatments. It is brick built, with a tiled roof with a crested ridge and end stacks, a gabled dormer to the left and a large jettied timber framed gable to right.

The features include brick nogging and plaster panels below both windows, blind tracery on the corner posts of main gable, a moulded jetty beam and bargeboards, and casement windows.

The decorative stuccowork, including sunflowers, on the façade of London House, 5 High Street, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

No 5 has a double shop front with a recessed entrance and small passageway that leads through to the rear on the left.

There is a five-light wooden rectangular oriel window on the left of the first floor, that is mullioned and transomed with small panes in the upper lights.

The ornate wrought iron weathervane has panel with ‘W.51.W’ in the openwork. The next time you are passing by, look up at the decorative stuccowork, especially the sunflowers, a theme in the Aesthetic Movement in architecture this area.

Saint George’s Rectory, Wolverton:

The former Saint George’s Rectory in Wolverton was extended by Swinfen Harris in 1889-1890 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The former Saint George’s Rectory, at Saint George’s Way, Wolverton, was extended by Swinfen Harris in 1889-1890.

The house was originally built in the 1844 for the Rector of Wolverton by Wyatt and Brandon in 1844. It was a two-storey picturesque detached house with a drive and large garden.

It was vacated as Wolverton Rectory in the 1980s, and since then has lost much of its setting.

The Elms, Green Lane, Wolverton:

The Elms, Green Lane, Wolverton, is a picturesque Arts and Crafts house with a domed stair tower (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The Elms, Green Lane, Wolverton, is a picturesque Arts and Crafts house with a domed stair tower. It was designed by Swinfen Harris for the London and North-Western Railway Company as a house, surgery and coach house for the railway works and town doctor and surgeon, Dr John Harvey, in 1903.

The domed stair tower at The Elms in Wolverton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The house was extended in 1906. The Elms is now a grade II listed building although it has since been converted into two houses.

Four other churches, Milton Keynes:

Four other churches in the Milton Keynes area have features by Edward Swinfen Harris: Saint John the Evangelist, Wicken, altered and enlarged, including reredos (1874-1890); Saint Lawrence, Old Bradwell, restoration (1903); All Saints’ Church, Bow Brickhill, south porch (1907); and Saint Lawrence, Chicheley, new vestry (1909).

Work in Buckingham:

Edward Swinfen Harris designed the Carriage House (left) and extended the Coach House (right) at the top of Castle Street, Buckingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Swinfen Harris was a leading member of the Aesthetic Movement in arts and architecture and he worked mainly in the Arts and Crafts style. He was commissioned in 1875 to extend the Coach House, an 18th century painted brick cottage at the top of Castle Street in Buckingham, just before the gates of Saint Peter and Saint Paul Parish Church.

Swinfen Harris extended the Coach House in 1875, designing a half-timbered bay with a timber gallery or rare ‘Juliet’ balcony (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The overall design chosen by Swinfen Harris for the extension to the Coach House included a half-timbered bay with a timber gallery or rare ‘Juliet’ balcony at the first-floor level, flamboyantly articulated with four bays of pointed arches, pierced spandrels and a balustrade with a turned baluster.

The Coach House in Buckingham is an 18th century painted brick cottage (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The prominent features of his design include a substantial brick chimney and ornamenting the street façade are sgraffito decoration panels and ironwork depicting sunflowers and vases. The 19th century revival of Sgraffito, which was revived the Arts and Crafts movement, was an ancient form of incised plaster decoration used to adorn buildings. Sgraffito is an Italian word for decorating by scratching through surface layers to reveal a lower layer and the sunflower was the symbol of the Aesthetic Movement.

Swinfen Harris also designed the adjacent Carriage House to the south-west of the Coach House, and built in 1875. It is designed with a rustic character, and is positioned with its gable facing onto the street. It is an unusual building, a quirky brick and timber house, and it compliments No 11 in its design. It was restored in 1987.

The sunflower was the symbol of the Aesthetic Movement (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Aesthetic Movement was a late 19th century movement that championed pure beauty and ‘art for art’s sake,’ emphasising the visual and sensual qualities of art and design over practical, moral or narrative considerations.

Aestheticism originated in England in the 1860s with a radical group of artists and designers, including William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It flourished in the 1870s and 1880s, gaining prominence and the support of notable writers such as Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde, as well as local prominence in the work of architects such as Edward Swinfen Harris in Stony Stratford, Buckingham and neighbouring towns.

Tylecote House, Roade, Northamptonshire:

Swinfen Harris designed Tylecote House in Roade, Northamptonshire, for the local GP in 1894

Swinfen Harris designed Tylecote House at 33 Hartwell Road, Roade, half-way between Old Stratford and Northampton, in 1894 for the local GP, Dr O’Ryan, who used the outbuilding to the east of the main house as his surgery. This picturesque, listed house It was sold recently through Michael Graham estate agents, who quoted an asking price of £1.25 million.

One other work in Stony Stratford:

1 Calverton Road, Stony Stratford … Swinfen Harris designed the extension (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

One other work by Swinfen Harris that might be missed is the extension he designed for No 1 Calverton Road, Stony Stratford.

Swinfen Harris windows, Stony Stratford:

The first window at the east end of the south wall in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, is one of a series of windows by NHJ Westlake commissioned by Swinfen Harris in memory of his parents (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Swinfen Harris inserted the north and south galleries in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. The windows in the church six windows below the galleries by NHJ Westlake of Lavers & Westlake.

Their insertion was overseen by Swinfen Harris, and the three windows below the south gallery were commissioned by Swinfen Harris and serve to illustrate both his filial and his religious piety.

The first window at the east end of the south wall depicts two angels worshipping the Lamb on the Throne, Agnus Dei, an image from the Book of Revelation; the Crucifixion, with the Virgin Mary and Saint John keeping watch with the Crucified Christ as the stand at the foot of the cross; and Moses with Aaron and Hur holding up his arms.

In each of these three panels, the central figure – the Lamb on the Throne, the Crucified Christ and the ageing Moses – have two supporting figures: two angels, the Virgin Mary nd Saint John, and Aaron and Hur.

This window by Westlake is dated 1889 and was commissioned by Swinfen Harris in memory of his parents.

The second window in the south wall in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, commissioned by Swinfen Harris and dated 1888 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The second window commissioned by Swinfen Harris is in memory of his father, also Edward Swinfen Harris, who was the clerk to the town bench of magistrates, the Board of Guardians and other bodies in the town.

This second window is of three eyelets and depicts: Joseph before Pharoah’s throne, interpreting his dreams; Jesus as an apprentice in Joseph the carpenter’s shop; and Joseph’s brothers before him with the silver cup found in Benjamin’s sack.

In each of these panels, Westlake is suggesting to the viewer that Swinfen Harris was a loyal and faithful son to his father, the late Edward Swinfen Harris, and that he had learned from him.

The third window by NHJ Westlake is in memory of Catherine Swinfen Harris (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The third Westlake window on the south wall is dated 1896 and was commissioned by Swinfen Harris in memory of his mother, Catharine Swinfen Harris, who died on 23 June 1896, at the age of 85.

This third window depicts: Jacob blessing Joseph’s sons Manasseh and Ephraim; Christ greeting two disciples at night; and Jacob’s dream at Bethel.

Asenath, the mother of Ephraim and Manasseh was an Egyptian, and so her family was outside the community of faith. Yet, they are not disqualified from God’s blessings because of their parents’ unconventional marriage. In the panels in this window, Swinfen Harris may be saying that his mother was seen as an outsider but that in life through his parents he found blessings beyond any expectations in his dreams.

Other works by Swinfen Harris:

Swinfen Harris converted designed the stables at Bletchley Park and later converted part of the north range to a cottage (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Some other works by Edward Swinfen Harris include: the Old Rectory, Maids Moreton (1878-1879); Emmanuel Church, Upper Holloway, London (1883) – most of the church was rebuilt to a modern design in 1988; the stables at Bletchley Park (1883); Nos 1 and 3 Stacey Avenue, Wolverton, a pair of model estate workers’ houses (1886), designed by Swinfen Harris; three cottages in the stable yard at Bletchley Park, involving an alteration and extension of an earlier north range undertaken, with a cottage for Sir Herbert Leon’s head groom (ca 1890); the Poplars, Newport Pagnell; and the church cottage, Newport Pagnell (early 20th century).

Nos 1 and 3 Stacey Avenue, Wolverton, a pair of model estate workers’ houses designed by Swinfen Harris Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Conclusions:

Swinfen Harris retired in 1914 and died over 100 years ago, on 30 May 1924.

He is part of the architectural and aesthetic heritage of Stony Stratford. Swinfen’s Yard, in the middle of Stony Stratford, includes individual, specialist shops under a covered courtyard, with offices on the upper floors. It is named in honour of Edward Swinfen Harris.

Last year was the centenary of his death, marked during Heritage Week by a walking tour of some of his work … in a summer downpour.

More work needs to be done on cataloguing his work in Stony Stratford and the neighbouring towns. More research is needed on his life and his work, and if his papers can be located he is worthy of a full biographical appraisal and study.

I hope to continue this research, and to talk about him again during the Heritage Week programme in September. But more about those plans in the weeks and months ahead.

(Revd Canon Professor) Patrick Comerford lives in retirement in Stony Stratford. This lecture was given in Stony Stratford Library on 25 February 2025 at the invitation of the Friends of Stony Stratford Library (FOSSL).