A return visit to Tickford Abbey in search of the Comberford family’s lost links with Newport Pagnell

Tickford Abbey was built with the ruins of Tickford Priory … a reminder of Comberford family links with Newport Pagnell and Tickford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

Since moving to Stony Stratford over three years ago, I have been fascinated to find how the Comberford family had so many links with these parts of north Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries.

These links have included a share in the Manor of Watford, and a manor and properties in the neighbouring villages of Stoke Bruerne, as well as some high-profile engagement with Church life in this area.

As a judge and the Bishop of Lincoln’s commissary, John Comberford held the courts of the Archdeacon of Buckingham, probably from 1497 until at least 1507, and he died in 1508. At the time, the Bishop of Lincoln was William Smith, previously Bishop of Lichfield, where he had re-founded Saint John’s Hospital in Lichfield.

The connections between Smith and the Comberford family were far-reaching, for in 1507 John Comberford, as patron, presented the bishop’s nephew, also William Smith, as Rector of Yelvertoft. Later, John Comberford’s grandson, Canon Henry Comberford (1499-1586), Precentor of Lichfield Cathedral, was appointed Rector of Yelvertoft by his brother Humphrey Comberford in 1546.

John Comberford had acquired extensive interests in Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire through his marriage to his father’s ward, Johanna or Joan Parles, the only daughter and heir of John Parles of Watford Manor and of Shutlanger Manor, near Stoke Bruerne, five miles south of Northampton.

Quite separately, John Comberford’s father, Judge William Comberford, had bought properties in Newport Pagnell and Tickford in 1470-1471. I was reminded of these connections on a recent afternoon when I was in Newport Pagnell and Tickford. When I first visited Tickford three years ago, it was a dull and dreary afternoon. So, I decided to revisit Tickford Abbey last Friday and to recall once again the Comberford family links with Newport Pagnell that go back almost six centuries, to 1442 or earlier.

A sign for Newport Pagnell close to Tickford Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Newport Pagnell is one of the towns in north Buckinghamshire that have been absorbed into Milton Keynes. Newport Pagnell is separated from the rest of Milton Keynes by the M1, and the Newport Pagnell Services was Britain’s second motorway service station.

Newport Pagnell is first mentioned in the Domesday Book in 1086 as ‘Neuport,’ an Anglo-Saxon name meaning the ‘New Market Town.’ The suffix ‘Pagnell’ was added later when the manor passed into the hands of the Pagnell or Paynel family.

This was the principal town of the ‘Three Hundreds of Newport,’ and at one time Newport Pagnell was one of the largest towns in Buckinghamshire, with the assizes of the county held there occasionally.

William Comberford (ca 1403/1410-1472), along with Humphry Starky and Thomas Stokley, was granted lands and other properties in Newport Pagnell and Tykford (Tickford), Buckinghamshire, by Geoffrey Seyntgerman (St Germain), in 1471-1472. By then, William Comberford was in his 60s, but already he had substantial property and political interests in the area.

From 1442 or earlier, William was a key political ally of Henry Stafford (1402-1460), Earl of Stafford and later 1st Duke of Buckingham. Stafford was the key political figure in Buckinghamshire at the time, and they shared a political ally in John Talbot, 2nd Earl of Shrewsbury.

William was an important landowner in south Staffordshire in the mid-15th century, with land in Comberford, Wigginton and Tamworth, and he was also a trustee of the manors of Whichnor, Sirescote and other estates. He built Comberford Hall, a new house at Comberford, between Tamworth and Lichfield, in 1439. He may also have been one of the early members of the Comberford family to own the Moat House on Lichfield Street, Tamworth.

Three years after he built Comberford Hall, William Comberford became one of the two MPs for Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, on 27 March 1442, on the nomination of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He was a judge and one of the Duke of Buckingham’s retainers, and h e remained an MP until 3 March 1447.

William was first appointed to the Staffordshire bench in 1442, and was a Justice of the Peace (JP) until 1471. He became an attorney for the Duchy of Lancaster in the Court of Common Pleas in 1446. Soon afterwards, through the patronage of the Duke of Buckinghamm he became the second protonotary or chief clerk in the Court of Common Pleas.

The Duke of Buckingham was killed at the Battle of Northampton on 10 July 1460. Nevertheless, Comberford continued to play an important role in the political, civil and judicial life of Staffordshire. In addition, as ‘Will’s Combford,’ he was admitted to membership of the Guild of Saint Mary and Saint John in Lichfield in 1469, along with Ralph FitzHerbert, father-in-law of William’s grandson, Thomas Comberford.

From 1452, William Comberford’s ward was Joan Parles, the daughter of John Parles (1419-1452) of Watford and of Shutlanger, near Stoke Bruerne, five miles south of Northampton and about 13 miles north-west of Newport Pagnell, Stony Stratford and Milton Keynes.

Roses seen on Tickford Street, Priory Street and Priory Close … John Comberford bought out the lands, tenements and rents in Newport Pagnell and Tickford in 1487 (Photographa: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Joan Parles came of age in 1461 and she later married William’s son and heir, John Comberford (ca 1440-1508). The marriage was so important for the Comberford family, both politically and financially, that the Parles coat-of-arms, with its cross and five red roses, was quartered with the Comberford arms, and sometimes even substituted for the arms of the Comberford family.

Meanwhile, Henry Stafford (1455-1483), 2nd Duke of Buckingham, and Richard Plantagenet, Duke of Gloucester and later King Richard III, met the uncrowned 12-year-old ‘Boy King’, Edward V, at the Rose and Crown Inn in Stony Stratford on the night of 29 April 1483.

From Stony Stratford, the young King Edward was taken by the two dukes to the Tower of London, and it is there, it is believed, he and his younger brother, ten-year-old Prince Richard, Duke of York, were murdered. Their disappearance has given rise to many of the stories and legends about the ‘Princes in the Tower.’

In 1487, John Comberford bought out Thomas Stokley’s interest in the lands, tenements and rents in Newport Pagnell and Tickford that had been acquired by Stokley and John Comberford’s father in 1470-1471. In 1504, after his wife had died, John Comberford, along with his son Thomas and daughter-in-law Dorothy (Beaumont), sold the former Parles estates in Stoke Bruerne, Shutlanger, Alderton (about 10 miles north of Milton Keynes), and Wappenham to Richard Empson of Easton Neston. The estate then consisted of eight messuages, six tofts, one mill, 200 acres of land, 24 acres of meadow, 100 acres of pasture, 40 acres of wood and 14 shillings rent.

John Comberford died in 1508, but the Comberford family’s interest in lands in the Watford area continued for some decades later, as told by Murray Johnson in his book, Give a Manor, Take a Manor: the rise and decline of a medieval manor.

The Priory of Tickford owned some property in Aston, outside Birmingham that seems to have constituted a rectorial manor. It seems more than coincidental that at the same time John Comberford’s sister Margaret was married to William Holte (ca 1430-post 1498) of Aston Hall. The tomb of their son, William Holte (ca 1460-1514), in Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church, Aston, displays one of the earliest known heraldic depictions of the Comberford use of the Parles family’s arms, with its cross and five roses, as their own coat of arms.

After the suppression of the priory in 1525, its possessions were said to have included ‘the manor of Tickford in the parish of Aston’, and this manor in Asston was granted to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1532. The estate included the advowson of the vicarage and a pension of 40 shillings from Aston church. The rectorial estate seems to have passed into the possession of the Holte family between 1535 and 1552, and was united with the manor of Aston.

Humphrey Comberford (1496 -1555) of Comberford owned significant estates, including Watford Manor. He left most of his manors to Thomas Comberford (1530-1597), and he specified in his will that his Manor in Watford was to be held by his second son, Humphrey Comberford, from the elder son, Thomas, at an annual rent of one red rose for 60 years. In the event, Humphrey had died unmarried in 1545, before his father’s death. Thomas Comberford the probably sold the manor and lands of Watford shortly after 1555.

Looking from Tickford Abbey across Castle Meadow towards Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church in Newport Pagness (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The name of Tykford or Tickford, which was part of the Comberford property interests in the Newport Pagnell area in the 15th century, is found in Tickford Priory, a mediaeval monastic house in Newport Pagnell.

Tickford Priory was established in 1140 by Fulconius Paganel, the lord of the Manor of Newport Pagnell. The priory belonged to the Cluniac Order, with their French headquarters at Marmoutier Abbey in Tours.

Cardinal Wolsey annexed ‘the superfluous house of Tickford’ and its wealth to Christ Church College, Oxford, in 1524. Later, King James I sold the abbey to his physician, Dr Henry Atkins, in 1621.

Some of the former buildings of Tickford Priory were still standing in the early 18th century, but they were in poor condition. Tickford Abbey was built on the site of the prory ca 1757 for John Hooton, a lace merchant, and much of its fabric is believed to have come from Tickford Priory. It is said members of the Hooton family are buried in a a private vault with the grounds of Tickford Abbey.

The house was altered and added to in the early-mid 19th century and again in 1881-1889 by the Stony Stratford rchitect Edward Swinfen Harris for Philip Butler, JP. Futher internal alterations were made in the late 20th for its use as residential home. Tickford Abbey is now a residential and dementia care home and a Grade II listed building.

Tickford Bridge, built in 1810, is one of the last 21 cast iron bridges in Britain that continue to carry modern road traffic, and is the oldest bridge in Milton Keynes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

As I walked through the grounds of Tickford Abbey that late sunny afternoon, I found myself on Castle Meadow, looking across the River Great Ouse and the Ouzel or Lovat River towards the tower and pinnacles of the parish church, Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

Despite the name of Castle Meadow, historians today debate whether there the evidence for a castle at Newport Pagnell is meagre. Although there are references to Castle Meadow dating back to the 12th century, there is no specific documentary reference to a castle, and there was no castle in Tickford or Newport Pagnell by 1272.

The main house, with whatever remains of Tickford Priory, it is the nearest I can find to any remains of the Comberford properties in late mediaeval Newport Pagnell and Tickford. My great-grandfather, James Comerford (1817-1902), continued to use the Comberford coat-of-arms quartered with the arms of the Parles family on his bookplate.

From Tickford Abbey, I returned along Priory Street to Tickford Street, close to the home of Aston Martin and by the Bull Inn, and continued my afternoon stroll along to Tickford Bridge. It was built over the River Ouzel in 1810, is one of the last 21 cast iron bridges in Britain that continue to carry modern road traffic, and it is the oldest bridge in Milton Keynes. A plaque near the bridge recalls its history and construction, and it is Grade I listed by Historic England.

From there, I continued to walk on into the centre of Newport Pagnell, where I wanted to photograph another building by Edward Swinfen Harris and where we had dinner in Apollonia, the Greek restaurant on High Street.

My great-grandfather James Comerford (1817-1902) continued to use the Comberford coat-of-arms quartered with the arms of the Parles family on his bookplate (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Towcester has Roman origins and it claims to be the oldest town in Northamptonshire

Towcester in Northamptonshire, like many towns along Watling Street, has Roman origins (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

Many people know Towcester in Northamptonshire because it is close to Silverstone or because of the racecourse. Towcester is only 14 km from Stony Stratford, further north along the A5, but – despite an hourly bus link – I only visited the market town for the first time earlier this week.

Like many towns along the route of Watling Street, Towcester too has Roman origins: think of St Albans (Verulamium) in Hertfordshire, Fenny Stratford (Magiovinium) in Buckinghamshire, Mancetter (Manduessedum) near Atherstone, or Wall (Letocetum) outside Lichfield.

Towcester is a growing market town with a population of 11,500 that is growing to 20,000 with new housing. It claims to be the oldest town in Northamptonshire and one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in England.

As a former coaching town along Watling Street, Towcester has many similarities with Stony Stratford. But I was interested too in seeing the remains of the motte and bailey or ancient castle known as Bury Mount, visiting Saint Lawrence’s Church, which has Norman, Saxon and possibly even Roman roots, and learning a little more about the town’s associations with Charles Dickens.

Bury Mount is the site of the motte-and-bailey castle built by the Normans (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Towcester was the Roman garrison town of Lactodurum on Watling Street, and it was enclosed by a wall and a ditch. The name Towcester indicates the town’s Roman origins, referring to a Roman camp or settlement by the River Tove.

Saint Lawrence’s Church is said to stand on the site of a large Roman civic building, possibly a temple, and there was a bath house in the area too. There are two possible sites for the Battle of Watling Street, fought in 61 CE, close to the town: Church Stowe 7 km (4.3 miles) to the north, and Paulerspury, 4.8 km (3 miles) to the south.

When the Romans left in the fifth century, the area was settled by Saxons. In the ninth century, Watling Street became the frontier between the kingdom of Wessex and the Danelaw, and Towcester became a frontier town. Edward the Elder fortified Towcester in 917.

The Normans built a motte-and-bailey castle on the site in the 11th century. Bury Mount is the remains of the fortification and was renovated in 2008.

The Saracen’s Head, the best-known coaching inn in Towcester, was known to Charles Dickens as the Pomfret Arms (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Sir Richard Empson (1450-1510), who owned the Manors of Towcester and Easton Neston, was a powerful political figure in Tudor Northamptonshire. He was MP for Northamptonshire, Speaker of the House of Commons, High Steward of Cambridge University and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

After John Comberford’s wife Joan Parles had died, John, his son Thomas Comberford and his daughter-in-law Dorothy (Beaumont), sold the former Parles and Comberford family estates near Towcester, including Stoke Bruerne, Shutlanger, Alderton and Wappenham, totalling about 400 acres, to Sir Richard Empson in 1504.

Empson and Edmund Dudley made Henry VII very rich when they raised taxes using extortion, harassment, and other dubious though legal means. When Henry VIII became king, he had the two arrested; they were tried in Northampton for treason in 1509 and were beheaded on Tower Hill on 17 August 1510.

Empson’s estates were later bought by Richard Fermor, and they remained with the Fermor family – later the Fermor-Hesketh family and Earls of Pomfret – until 2005. William Fermor, who inherited the estates, married Jane, a cousin of Sir Christopher Wren, in 1671, and rebuilt Easton Neston to designs by Wren’s assistant Nicholas Hawksmoor. Work started in the 1690s, and the work was completed in the late 1720s.

Meanwhile, the Monastery, once the manor house of the Comberford estate in Shutlanger, outside Towcester, had become a farmhouse on the Fermor estate. It was included in an exchange between the trustees of the 5th Earl of Pomfret and the 5th Duke of Grafton at the time of inclosure in 1844.

Figures of Venus (left) and Apollo (right) on the façade of the Saracen’s Head in Towcester, said to have come from Easton Neston (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

When the stagecoach and the mail coach were in their heyday in the 18th and early 19th centuries, Watling Street became a major coaching road between London and Holyhead and the main route to Ireland, and Towcester flourished as a major stopping point. Many coaching inns were established in Towcester, and they provided stabling facilities for travellers. The coaching inns that remain include the Saracen’s Head, alongside older pubs in Towcester such as the Brave Old Oak and the Plough.

Charles Dickens refers to Towcester in The Pickwick Papers (1837). The Saracen’s Head, which was renamed the Pomfret Arms in the 1830s, dates from the18th century but has older origins. The central carriage arch typifies these coaching inns. The round-arched window above the arch is flanked by niches holding fine lead statuettes of Venus (left) and Apollo with a harp (right). They are said to have come from Easton Neston.

Sam Weller in The Pickwick Papers recommends it as a place where a ‘very good little dinner’ could be got ready in half an hour. It returned to the name of the Saracen’s Head in 1944.

A year after Dickens published The Pickwick Papers, the coaching trade came to an abrupt halt in 1838 when the London and Birmingham Railway was opened. It by-passed Towcester and passed through Blisworth, which is four miles away but near enough to result in Towcester quickly returning to being a quiet market town.

The Town Hall was designed by the Towcester-born architect Thomas Heygate Vernon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Town Hall and Corn Exchange was designed by the Towcester-born architect Thomas Heygate Vernon (1837-1888) and built in 1865. Leading figures in Towcester formed a company, issued shares and raised the capital to build the town hall, and its Italianate frontage is a reminder of their confidence and enterprise.

Towcester was linked to the national rail network in 1866 with the first of several rail routes. In time, Towcester had rail links with Blisworth (1866), Banbury (1872), Stratford-upon-Avon (1873) and Olney and Bedford (1892). But these links closed one-by-one, and goods traffic finally closed in 1964 with the Beeching cuts.

The nearest station today is in Northampton, 16 km (10 miles) away, and the site of the old railway station is now a Tesco supermarket.

The Chain Gate was built by the Fermor family in 1824 as part of the Easton Neston estate (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Towcester Racecourse on the east side of the town is a venue for both horse races and greyhound racing. It was originally part of the Easton Neston estate. The Chain Gate, today the main entrance to the racecourse, was built in 1824 and was designed in the classical style as the entrance to Easton Neston House and Park. The Roman archway which is supported by Corinthian columns and flanked with colonnades and gatehouses.

When the Empress Elizabeth of Austria (‘Sisi’), who built the the Achilleion Palace in Corfu in 1888-1891, visited England in 1876, she rented Easton Neston House, with its fine stabling for her horses. During that visit she established a race meeting of her own, when a course was laid out in Easton Neston Park and a stand erected for guests. It was the first horse race at Towcester.

After Sisi left Towcester, a meeting at the Pomfret Arms decided to repeat the steeplechase meeting and Sir Thomas Fermor-Hesketh gave a 51-year lease to hold Easter Monday races at Easton Neston Park.

Three years later, while she was hunting in Co Kildare in 1879, Sisi strayed on her horse into the grounds of Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth. There she encountered the Acting President of Maynooth, William Walsh, a future Archbishop of Dublin. On her return to Ireland a year later, Sisi presented the college with a statue of Saint George and she later donated a set of vestments of gold cloth, decorated with gold and green shamrocks and the coats of arms of Austria, Hungary and Bavaria. While she was visiting Geneva, Sisi was assassinated at the Beau Rivage Hotel on 10 September 1898 by an Italian anarchist Luigi Luccheni. She was 61.

The Easton Neston estate was sold by the Hesketh family in 2005 to the Russian oligarch Leon Max, who was born Leonid Maksovich Rodovinsky.

Towcester is bypassed by the A43, but traffic on the A5 still passes through the town centre (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Although Towcester is now by-passed by the A43, traffic along the A5 still passes directly through the town centre. Towcester is twinned with Zhydachiv in the Lviv region in west Ukraine.

Towcester has sent five ambulance, filled with medical supplies and other aid, to Ukraine, and I heard this week about how the town is sending a sixth ambulance to charity workers in Lviv. The ambulances are filled with essential items, including warm clothing, blankets and disability aids.

The initiative is led by Saint Lawrence Church in Towcester and the Tove Benefice, which have been working to acquire and fill ambulances with supplies for Ukrainian paramedics. The Tove Benefice and the local Rotary Club continue to work to raise money through various events, including a Vicarage Fete and Open Gardens, selling ribbons and sunflowers, a concert and hosting families.

In Saint Lawrence’s Church on Monday, I saw yet another ambulance being filled with medical equipment. The ambulance is due to leave Towcester next Sunday (23 March), when Steve Challen from the Tove Benefice and Alex Donaldson begin a 1,350-mile drive to Lviv.

But more about Saint Lawrence’s Church in Towcester on another day, hopefully.

Signs of hope for Ukraine … Bansky-style street art in Whitton’s Lane in Towcester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Daily prayer in Christmas 2024-2025: 38, Friday 31 January 2025

‘The earth produces of itself’ (Mark 4: 28) … fields at Shutlanger Road in Stoke Bruerne, Northamptonshire (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

This is the last week in the 40-day season of Christmas, which continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation on Sunday (2 February 2025). This week began with the Third Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany III, 26 January 2025).

The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship remembers John Bosco (1888), priest and founder of the Salesian teaching order. I hope to find somewhere appropriate this evening to watch the opening match of the Six Nations between France and Wales. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

‘The seed would sprout and grow’ (Mark 4: 27) … a mulberry tree in Stoke Bruerne, Northamptonshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Mark 4: 26-34 (NRSVA):

26 He also said, ‘The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, 27 and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. 28 The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.’
30 He also said, ‘With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? 31 It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; 32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.’

Willow trees by the Monastery Lakes in Shutlanger, Northamptonshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Reflection:

Chapter 4 in Saint Mark’s Gospel is the ‘parables chapter,’ recalling parables that make this chapter the central teaching section of this Gospel. Christ is in a boat beside the sea teaching a very large crowd who are listening on the shore (see Mark 4: 1-2). In this morning’s reading (Mark 4: 26-34), Christ describe the ‘kingdom of God’ by explaining the parable of sower scattering seed on the ground, which we read earlier this week, in the hope and expectation of the harvest (verses 26-29) and of the mustard seed that grows into a great tree (verses 30-32).

We may ask why Christ decides to talk about a mustard seed, or in Saint Luke’s Gospel about a mustard seed and a mulberry tree (Luke 17: 5-6), rather than, say, an olive tree. After all, as he was talking in the incident in today’s Gospel reading, he must have been surrounded by grove after grove of olive trees.

But, I can imagine, he is also watching to see if those who are listening have switched off their humour mode, if they have withdrawn their sense of humour. He is talking here with a great sense of humour, using hyperbole to underline his point.

We all know a tiny grain of mustard is incapable of growing to a big tree. So, what is Christ talking about here? Because, he not only caught the disciples off-guard with his hyperbole and sense of humour … he even wrong-footed some of the Reformers and many Bible translators who make mistakes about what sort of trees he is talking about in the Gospels.

Why did Christ refer to a mustard seed and a mulberry or sycamine tree, and not, say, an olive tree or an oak tree?

Christ first uses the example of a tiny, miniscule kernel or seed (κόκκος, kokkos), from which the small mustard plant (σίναπι, sinapi) grows. But mustard is an herb, not a tree. Not much of a miracle, you might say: tiny seed, tiny plant.

In Saint Luke’s Gospel, he then mixes his metaphors and refers to another plant. Martin Luther, in his translation of the Bible, turned the tree into a mulberry tree. The mulberry tree – both the black mulberry and the white mulberry – is from the same family as the fig tree.

As children, some of us sang or played to the nursery rhyme or song, Here we go round the mulberry bush. Another version is Here we go gathering nuts in May. The same tune is used for the American rhyme Pop goes the weasel and for the Epiphany carol, I saw three ships.

Of course, mulberries do not grow on bushes, and they do not grow nuts that are gathered in May. Nor is the mulberry a very tall tree – it grows from tiny seeds but only reaches the height of an adult person.

It is not a very big tree at all. It is more like a bush than a tree – and it is easy to uproot too.

However, the tree Christ names in Saint Luke’s Gospel (Greek συκάμινος, sikámeenos) is the sycamine tree, which has the shape and leaves of a mulberry tree but fruit that tastes like the fig, or the sycamore fig (συκόμορος, Ficus Sycomorus).

Others think the tree being referred to there is the sycamore fig (συκόμορος, Ficus Sycomorus), the big tree that little Zacchaeus climbs in Jericho to see Jesus (Luke 19: 1-10).

The sycamine tree is not naturally pollinated. The pollination process is initiated only when a wasp sticks its stinger right into the heart of the fruit. In other words, the tree and its fruit have to be stung in order to reproduce. There is a direct connection between suffering and growth, but also a lesson that everything in creation, including the wasp, has its place in the intricate balance of nature.

Whether it is a small seed like the mustard seed, a small, seemingly useless and annoying creature like the wasp, or a small and despised figure of fun like Zacchaeus, each has value in God’s eyes, and each has a role in the great harvest of gathering in for God’s Kingdom.

Put more simply, it is quality and not quantity that matters when it comes faith and love.

The Sower and the Seed … an image in the East Window by Mayer & Co in Saint Michael’s Church, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 31 January 2025):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Reflection on 2 Timothy’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by the Revd Canon Dr Nicky Chater, Chair of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Friendly Churches and Chaplain for these communities in the Diocese of Durham.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 31 January 2025) invites us to pray:

Holy God, we pray for people who cannot make use of many good things a society can offer because of our systems. We think of people who cannot prove their identity, or understand the necessary language, or fill in forms.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
whose Son revealed in signs and miracles
the wonder of your saving presence:
renew your people with your heavenly grace,
and in all our weakness
sustain us by your mighty power;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Almighty Father,
whose Son our Saviour Jesus Christ is the light of the world:
may your people,
illumined by your word and sacraments,
shine with the radiance of his glory,
that he may be known, worshipped, and obeyed
to the ends of the earth;
for he is alive and reigns, now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

God of all mercy,
your Son proclaimed good news to the poor,
release to the captives,
and freedom to the oppressed:
anoint us with your Holy Spirit
and set all your people free
to praise you in Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

‘World’s Smallest Seed,’ 40”x30” oil/canvas, by James B Janknegt

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Daily prayer in Christmas 2024-2025: 28, Tuesday 21 January 2025

‘As they made their way [through the cornfields] his disciples began to pluck heads of grain’ (Mark 2: 23) … walking through the fields in Farewell, near Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The 40-day season of Christmas continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February). This week began with the Second Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany II), with readings that focussed on the Wedding at Cana, the third great Epiphany theme, alongside the Visit of the Magi and the Baptism of Christ.

Today is the Fourth Day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Agnes (304), Child Martyr at Rome.

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

‘He entered the house of God … and ate the bread of the Presence’ (Mark 2: 26) … 12 loaves of bread in two rows of six (see Leviticus 24: 5-9) in a fresco in the 17th century Kupa Synagogue in Kazimierz in Kraków (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 2: 23-28 (NRSVA):

23 One sabbath he was going through the cornfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. 24 The Pharisees said to him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?’ 25 And he said to them, ‘Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? 26 He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions.’ 27 Then he said to them, ‘The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; 28 so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.’

‘As they made their way [through the cornfields] his disciples began to pluck heads of grain’ (Mark 2: 23) … grainfields near Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

In the Gospel reading at the Eucharist yesterday (Mark 2: 18-22), we heard a wedding feast being used to illustrate a debate about feasting and fasting. That debate about the detailed interpretation and application of faith and practice continues in today’s reading (Mark 2: 23-28) about eating and the Sabbath.

We saw yesterday how feasting and fasting, food and ascetism, are important themes in the three Abrahamic faith – Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Today’s reading (Mark 2: 23-28) begins when Christ is bypassing the grainfields and the disciples make their way through the fields. The religious law of the day accepted that as long as they are plucking the heads of grain and not harvesting it, they are allowed to do this, and there is no question of any theft (see Deuteronomy 23: 24-25).

We have all done something like this in a field: picked fruit growing on hedges or on trees; or we have done something like this in the kitchen, pouring cereal into a bowl and snatching a few lumps before even sitting down to eat breakfast.

So, what concerns the Pharisees in this story is not theft. They are worried that the disciples are gleaning on the Sabbath, and they challenge Christ about this. They claim this behaviour ignores the command to observe the Sabbath and keep it holy (see Exodus 20: 8; Deuteronomy 5: 12). Perhaps they thought the disciples could have prepared food the previous day to take with them.

Jesus disagrees, not because he is trivialising the laws about the Sabbath, but because he sees the Sabbath in a different light. He turns to a story about David when he is fleeing Saul who is plotting to kill him (see I Samuel 21: 1-6). David takes consecrated bread that was supposed to be part of the 12 loaves reserved for the priests (see Leviticus 24: 5-9) and feeds it to his followers who are on the journey with him.

By meeting the needs of David’s hunger, the priest sustains the life of a weary traveller and contributes to David’s quest to fulfil his calling to be the king anointed to replace Saul (see I Samuel 16: 1-13).

Why, in this story, does Jesus identify the priest who assists David as Abiathar? The Old Testament account (I Samuel 16) names the priest as Ahimelech. Who is mistaken in this passage … Jesus? Saint Mark? An unknown and unidentifiable redactor?

There are details here that are not in the original story: David was not explicitly acting from hunger, and he does not enter the house of God to eat the bread of the presence.

I have read many attempts to reconcile this Gospel account and the story of David, most of them setting out with the premise that the ‘inerrancy’ and ‘infallibility’ of Scripture must be defended at all costs, without seeking to debate the literary genre found in this passage.

Instead, I understand in this reading that Christ is displaying a sense of irony and a sense of humour. In a perfect example of what lawyers know as he loaded question, he asks his protagonists: ‘Have you never read what David did … when Abiathar was high priest?’ (verses 25-26).

If they say no, they show they have not read this story; if they say yes, they show are not truly familiar with the details of the story.

Christ then offers a legal opinion derived from scripture itself. He argues that sometimes certain demands of the law are rightly set aside in favour of greater values or needs, especially when those needs involve someone else’s well-being, and this can bring God’s blessings.

With his subtle sense of humour, Jesus challenges us when we are too straight-faced and humourless, and puts our minor interpretations of petty values before the real needs of others, and their sense of fun and enjoyment of life.

‘As they made their way [through the cornfields] his disciples began to pluck heads of grain’ (Mark 2: 23) … walking through cornfields in Stoke Bruerne, Northamptonshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 21 January 2025):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Whom Shall I Send?’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by Rachael Anderson, Senior Communications and Engagement Manager, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 21 January 2025) invites us to pray:

Lord, we pray for the young people who participated in the ‘Whom Shall I Send?’ training. Fill their hearts with your peace and wisdom as they strive to become peacemakers in times of conflict. Like Abraham and Sarah, may they welcome strangers and work for justice, guided by your love and grace.

The Collect:

Eternal God, shepherd of your sheep,
whose child Agnes was strengthened to bear witness
in her living and her dying
to the true love of her redeemer:
grant us the power to understand, with all your saints,
what is the breadth and length and height and depth
and to know the love that surpasses knowledge,
even Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Eternal God,
who gave us this holy meal
in which we have celebrated the glory of the cross
and the victory of your martyr Agnes:
by our communion with Christ
in his saving death and resurrection,
give us with all your saints the courage to conquer evil
and so to share the fruit of the tree of life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

‘As they made their way [through the cornfields] his disciples began to pluck heads of grain’ (Mark 2: 23) … summer fields in Chicheley, near Newport Pagnell (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Daily prayer in the Kingdom Season: 11, Monday 11 November 2024

‘If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea”, and it would obey you’ (Luke 17: 6) … a mulberry tree in Stoke Bruerne, Northamptonshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

We are in the Kingdom Season, the time between All Saints and Advent, and yesterday was both the Third Sunday before Advent and Remembrance Sunday. Today, the Church Calendar remembers Saint Martin (ca 397), Bishop of Tours.

Before today begins, before having breakfast, I am taking some quiet time early this morning to give thanks, and for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

‘World’s Smallest Seed,’ 40”x30” oil/canvas, by James B Janknegt

Luke 17: 1-6 (NRSVA):

1 Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come! 2 It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble. 3 Be on your guard! If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive. 4 And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, “I repent”, you must forgive.’

5 The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’ 6 The Lord replied, ‘If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea”, and it would obey you.’

Olive groves on the slopes beneath Piskopianó in Crete … why did Jesus talk about mustard plants and mulberry trees and not about olive trees? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Today’s reflection:

It is safe to say, I do not have green fingers.

For most of my life, I have no interest in gardening. I like sitting in a garden, reading in the sunshine, listening to the sound of the birds or a small fountain, enjoying the shade of the trees, and in summertime, eating out in the open.

So, it is not that I do not enjoy the garden. It is just that I have always felt I am no good at it.

It is an attitude that may have been nurtured and cultured from heavy hay-fever in my early childhood, hay-fever that comes back to haunt me perennially at the beginning of each summer.

I once bought a willow tree, in the early 1980s, sat with it in the back of a small car all the way back across Dublin, holding on to the tree as it stuck out the side window. By the time I got home, I was covered in rashes, and my eyes, ears and nose were in a deep state of irritation. It must have been related to the willow trees in the Psalms, because afterwards I sat down and wept.

For that reason alone, you could not call me a ‘tree hugger.’ But do not get me wrong … I really do like trees.

I relish spending time in the vast, expansive olive groves that stretch for miles and miles along the mountainsides in Crete, or in vineyards where the olive groves protect the vines.

But I cannot be trusted with trees. I was once given a present of a miniature orange tree … and it died within weeks. I have been given presents of not one, but two olive trees. One, sadly, died, the grew but remained a tiny little thing.

Perhaps if I had just a little faith in my ability to help trees to grow, they would survive and mature.

You may wonder why Christ decides to talk about a mustard seed and a mulberry tree, rather than, say, an olive tree. After all, as he was talking in the incident in this morning’s Gospel reading, he must have been surrounded by grove after grove of olive trees.

But, I can imagine, he is also watching to see if those who are listening have switched off their humour mode, if they have withdrawn their sense of humour. He is talking here with a great sense of humour, using hyperbole to underline his point.

We all know a tiny grain of mustard is incapable of growing to a big tree. So, what is Christ talking about here? Because, he not only caught the disciples off-guard with his hyperbole and sense of humour … he even wrong-footed some of the Reformers and many Bible translators who make mistakes about what sort of trees he is talking about this morning.

Why did Christ refer to a mustard seed and a mulberry or sycamine tree, and not, say, an olive tree or an oak tree?

Christ first uses the example of a tiny, miniscule kernel or seed (κόκκος, kokkos), from which the small mustard plant (σίναπι, sinapi) grows. But mustard is an herb, not a tree. Not much of a miracle, you might say: tiny seed, tiny plant.

But he then mixes his metaphors and refers to another plant. Martin Luther, in his translation of the Bible, turned the tree (verse 6) into a mulberry tree. The mulberry tree – both the black mulberry and the white mulberry – is from the same family as the fig tree.

As children, some of us sang or played to the nursery rhyme or song, Here we go round the mulberry bush. Another version is Here we go gathering nuts in May. The same tune is used for the American rhyme Pop goes the weasel and for the Epiphany carol, I saw three ships. TS Eliot used the nursery rhyme in his poem The Hollow Men, replacing the mulberry bush with a prickly pear and ‘on a cold and frosty morning’ with ‘at five o’clock in the morning.’

Of course, mulberries do not grow on bushes, and they do not grow nuts that are gathered in May. Nor is the mulberry a very tall tree – it grows from tiny seeds but only reaches the height of an adult person. It is not a very big tree at all. It is more like a bush than a tree – and it is easy to uproot too.

However, the tree Christ names (Greek συκάμινος, sikámeenos) is the sycamine tree, which has the shape and leaves of a mulberry tree but fruit that tastes like the fig, or the sycamore fig (συκόμορος, Ficus Sycomorus). Others think the tree being referred to here is the sycamore fig (συκόμορος, Ficus Sycomorus), a tree we come across later in this Gospel as the big tree that little Zacchaeus climbs in Jericho to see Jesus (Luke 19: 1-10).

The sycamine tree is not naturally pollinated. The pollination process is initiated only when a wasp sticks its stinger right into the heart of the fruit. In other words, the tree and its fruit have to be stung in order to reproduce. There is a direct connection between suffering and growth, but also a lesson that everything in creation, including the wasp, has its place in the intricate balance of nature.

Whether it is a small seed like the mustard seed, a small, seemingly useless and annoying creature like the wasp, or a small and despised figure of fun like Zacchaeus, each has value in God’s eyes, and each has a role in the great harvest of gathering in for God’s Kingdom.

Put more simply, it is quality and not quantity that matters.

Here are six little vignettes about faith that I came across recently:

1, Once all the villagers decided to pray for rain. On the day of prayer, all the people gathered, but only one little boy came with an umbrella. That is faith.

2, When you throw babies in the air, they laugh because they know you will catch them. That is trust.

3, Every night we go to bed without any assurance of being alive the next morning, but still we set the alarm to wake up. That is hope.

4, We plan big things for tomorrow in spite of zero knowledge of the future. That is confidence.

5, We see the world suffering, but still people get married and have children. That is love.

6, There is an old man who wears a T-shirt with the slogan: ‘I am not 80 years old; I am sweet 16 with 64 years of experience.’ That is attitude.

This morning’s Gospel reading challenges us to pay attention to our attitude to, to the quality of, our faith, trust, hope, confidence, love and positivity. And if we do so, we will be surprised by the results.

Perhaps I should have paid more attention to that small olive tree I once had on the patio back in Dublin.

Faith is powerful enough to face all our fears and all impossibilities. Even if our germ of faith is tiny, if it is genuine there can be real growth beyond what we can see in ourselves, beyond what others can see in us.

Mulberry Hall at 17-19 Stonegate, York, dates from 1434 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 11 November 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Look at Education in the Church of the Province of Myanmar’. This theme was introduced yesterday with a Programme Update by Nadia Sanchez, Regional Programme Coordinator, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 11 November 2024) invites us to pray:

Father God, We pray for teachers and educationists across the world. May they be able to reach all who are in need.

The Collect:

God all powerful,
who called Martin from the armies of this world
to be a faithful soldier of Christ:
give us grace to follow him
in his love and compassion for the needy,
and enable your Church to claim for all people
their inheritance as children of God;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

God, shepherd of your people,
whose servant Martin revealed the loving service of Christ
in his ministry as a pastor of your people:
by this eucharist in which we share
awaken within us the love of Christ
and keep us faithful to our Christian calling;
through him who laid down his life for us,
but is alive and reigns with you, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

Saint Martin’s Chapel at Nyiru Grait near Siburan, south of Kuching in Sarawak … Saint Martin of Tours is commemorated in the Church Calendar on 11 November (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Visiting two former Methodist chapels in Stoke Bruerne and Shutlanger in Northamptonshire

The former Methodist Chapel on Chapel Lane in Stoke Bruerne, Northamptonshire, close to the Canal Museum (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

During my walks through the villages of Stoke Bruerne and Shutlanger and through the Northamptonshire countryside last week and the week before, I also visited the former Wesleyan Methodist in both Stoke Bruerne and Shutlanger.

A Wesleyan Methodist chapel was built at Shutlanger in 1844 and a chapel was built in Stoke Bruerne two years later in 1846. Both chapels were registered in 1854.

The chapel in Shutlanger had seating for 130 people in 1873, but the chapel in Stoke Bruerne could only accommodate 80 people.

The smaller chapel in Stoke Bruerne was replaced in 1879 by a new chapel, built at a cost of £250 on land given by George Savage, whose nearby brickyard supplied the bricks. It was built by local labour, mainly by men who worked on the land during the daytime.

The foundation stone for the chapel in Chapel Lane was laid on 13 August 1879, and it opened for worship on New Year's Day 1880. The new chapel in Stoke Bruerne which could hold 150 people. The façade displays the date 1879 carved in stone, although any other words that might have been around it have been obscured. The earlier chapel, built in 1846, was later used as a schoolroom.

The trustees of the Stoke Bruerne chapel in 1922 were drawn from Stoke Bruerne and Shutlanger, and from neighbouring communities, including Blakesley, Greens Norton, Bradden, Hartwell, Silverstone, Alderton, Caldecote and Towcester.

Major repairs were carried out on the chapel and the schoolrooms in 1947-1952, including the installation of electricity. However, it was agreed in 1961 to sell the schoolroom and use the proceeds to improve the chapel.

The Methodist Chapel in Stoke Bruerne opened for worship in 1880 and closed in 1975 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The closure of the chapel in Stoke Bruerne and the transfer of members to Roade or Shutlanger was first suggested by the circuit quarterly meeting in May 1974. This was opposed by people who wished to keep a free church presence in what was an expanding village. But the decision to sell the building was carried by a majority of one, with two abstentions, at a meeting of seven trustees in November 1974.

The chapel closed as a place of worship in 1975 and was sold for £4,550 early in 1976. By then, the remaining members had moved to Shutlanger.

The former chapel was converted to a Farm Museum, displaying old farm equipment and live demonstrations of its uses. The Farm Museum was closed in 1993 and was converted into tea rooms and a café, expanding later into the fully licensed restaurant.

It is now called ‘The Old Chapel’ and offers boutique bed and breakfast accommodation. The property has been restored by the owners Elaine and Nadia Pieris and offers three individual suites. It boasts a garden and is next to the Canal Museum, and the Grand Union Canal provides a backdrop for exploring the local countryside and the local pubs and restaurants.

‘The Old Chapel’ in Stoke Bruerne offers boutique bed and breakfast accommodation (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The chapel in Shutlanger was enlarged in 1889, with seating for 160 people.

The trustees of the Shutlanger chapel in 1917 included trustees were from Shutlanger and Stoke Bruerne, as well trustees from Ashton, Roade, Silverstone, Towcester, Wood Burcote and Greens Norton.

The congregation moved for a time in 1922 to the school-chapel belonging to the Church of England while the chapel was closed for major repairs, costing nearly £100.

Further work on the chapel ceiling began in 1933 and was completed five years later. By 1938, all the trustees were from Shutlanger and none from neighbouring communities.

The roof continued to cause problems and in 1948 the congregation agreed to take down the 1889 extension, then used as a schoolroom, and to restore the chapel to its original size and shape. The interior was redecorated and electricity was installed. During these works, the congregation once again worshipped in the Anglican church room. The chapel reopened in June 1949, with seating for 100 people.

The chapel in Shutlanger continued in use over the following 30 years. It was joined by members of the former Stoke Bruerne chapel when it closed in 1975. A decade later, however, Shutlanger also closed. The carved communion table was presented to the Methodist Church in Roade.

The former Methodist chapel in Shutlanger was later used as a book repository, and is now a private house.

The former Wesleyan Methodist chapel in Shutlanger (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Saint John the Baptist Church in Blisworth and the absentee rector who fled his debtors to Paris

The Church of Saint John the Baptist in Blisworth was built in the late 13th century but dates mainly from the 14th and 15th centuries (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

During my stroll through the Northamptonshire countryside earlier this week, I visited a number of pretty villages and small towns, including Blisworth, Shutlanger, Stoke Bruerne and Roade.

My journey began by taking the bus from Northampton to Blisworth, a picturesque village on the Grand Union Canal, about half-way between Northampton (8 km, 5 miles) and Stony Stratford (11 km, 7 miles).

Blisworth is known for the Blisworth Tunnel, one of the longest tunnels on the English canal system, for the annual Canal Festival every August, and for the Blisworth Arch, a railway bridge built by Robert Stephenson in 1837-1838 for the London and Birmingham Railway.

Blisworth has many traditional local stone cottages, often thatched and some dating back to the 18th or even the 17th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Blisworth has a population of 1,800 to 2,000 people, with a few small businesses. There are many traditional local stone cottages, often thatched and some dating back to the 18th or even the 17th century.

The Walnut Tree Inn was once the Blisworth Station Hotel. The Royal Oak is the village pub; a second pub, the Sun, Moon and Stars, closed over 50 years ago, and a third pub, the Grafton Arms, is now a private house. The only shop is a small supermarket, post office and newsagent.

Iron ore and limestone were quarried at Blisworth in the 19th and 20th centuries. The iron ore was sent by canal or railway to ironworks in Staffordshire. The limestone quarry near Rectory Farm is now a nature reserve.

Inside the Church of Saint John the Baptist, facing east (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The main building of note in Blisworth is, of course, the parish church, the Church of Saint John the Baptist. It was built in the late 13th century but dates mainly from the 14th and 15th centuries, although there may have been an earlier church on the site.

The 13th century church consisted of the chancel, with the nave extending to only three bays, with both north and south aisles. Between 1320 and 1340, the nave was extended to the present length of 61 ft 6 in. The north aisle was also extended, but the three bays of the south side remained as original.

Both the north and south doorways date from the 13th century with characteristic edge rolls. The tower followed later in the 14th century. The chapel at the east end of the south aisle dates from the 14th century, and now contains the table tomb of Roger Wake and his wife Elisabeth Catesby.

There may have been a mediaeval stone sedilia in the south wall of the chancel, but this has not survived.

The chancel, high altar and east window in the Church of Saint John the Baptist (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The five-light East Window with unusual tracery may have been added in the 14th century when the east and north walls of the chancel were rebuilt or refaced. Three large windows were inserted in the chancel in the 15th century, but two of the small original 13th century windows in the south side were left untouched.

There are two large windows In the north wall of the chancel, one with some panels of mediaeval stained glass that have survived since the Reformation.

The first stained-glass window in the chancel dates from 1872, and is a memorial to the late squire and his wife, George and Mary Stone. The East Window contains a memorial to Revd William Barry and his wife Frances and may date from 1885.

The large window on the south wall is a memorial stained glass in memory of a son of the rector, who died at the age of nine.

The blocked north doorway in the chancel is known as the ‘priest’s doorway’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

A blocked north doorway in the chancel is often referred to as the ‘priest’s doorway.’ It is not known when this was blocked. This door was only used it by the rector and members of his family, who has a private pew in the chancel. The ‘priest’s doorway’ was blocked up when the organ was installed in 1889, and the choir was moved into the chancel.

There are blocked low side windows on both north and south sides of the chancel. These so-called ‘Low Side Windows’ are a common feature of local parish churches but are now mostly blocked up.

A wooden rood screen was built in the 15th century, but all that remains of the rood loft is a rood loft stairway on the north side of the chancel arch.

All that remains of the rood loft is a rood loft stairway on the north side of the chancel arch (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The church also has two squints. The north squint was obscured by the 1888 organ until it was moved in the 1970s. A carved wooden architectural boss was found in the 1970s hidden in the south squint when it was opened up. Both squints are angled so that a priest in each side aisle might see all that was happening at the altar.

The tower was added at the end of the 14th century and terminates in a battlemented parapet without pinnacles. The earliest mention of bells is in 1552.

The present porch was built in 1607.

Among the tombs and monuments in the church is the tomb of Margaret Blackey, wife of Lyonel Blackey, sergeant at arms to Elizabeth I and James I. It reads: ‘She lived a maid eighteen yeares, a wife twenty, and widow sixty-one and dyed the 20th January 1683 in the 99th yeare of her age.’

The table tomb of Roger Wake and his wife Elisabeth Catesby at the east end of the south aisle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Major changes took place in the 19th century, when the church was restored in 1856 by the Northampton architect Edmund Francis Law. He arranged the pews, replaced the roof and covered the floor with encaustic tiles.

The Elmhirst family of Blisworth House gave the carved reredos and the raised oak floor in 1910. The Victorian altar or communion table was then encased within an oak super-structure made to carry new needlework. The 1855 Communion Table was later moved from the case to the south door.

The south aisle was rebuilt in 1926.

The oldest pieces of church plate in Blisworth include a silver Communion Cup made ca 1570, and a paten made about 1636.

Inside the Church of Saint John the Baptist, facing west (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The most notorious and mysterious person associated with the parish is the notorious Revd John Ambrose (1768-1839). He was the Rector of Blisworth for over 40 years from 1797 to 1839, but was often absent during that time. It was said of him that he ‘disgraced a profession which he ought to have adorned, for he was clever and had a remarkably fine delivery … He passed as the natural son of an Irish peer, whose loose morals had descended to him.’

The student records at Oxford say John Ambrose was born in 1768, the son of John Ambrose of London. But later he claimed he was the illegitimate son of an Irish peer, John Blaquiere (1732-1812), 1st Baron de Blaquiere, and the singer and actress Caroline Ambrosse or Ambrose.

Another illegitimate child of John Blaquiere and Caroline Ambrosse was Henrietta Ambrose Whatley (1766-1852), who was born in Killarney, Co Kerry and was the great-grandmother of the composer Gustav Holst. Could John Ambrose have been born in Killarney too two years later?

Blaquiere was a senior diplomat at the British Embassy in Paris when he was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland (1772-1776). He was an MP in the Irish House of Commons for Old Leighlin (1773-1783), Enniskillen (1783), Carlingford (1783-1790), Charleville (1790-1798) and Newtownards (1798-1801). He was made a baronet in 1784, and was given an Irish peerage as Baron de Blaquiere in 1800 for his support for the Act of Union. Later he was MP for Rye (1801-1802) and Downton (1802-1806). He died in Bray, Co Wicklow, in 1812.

Meanwhile, John Ambrose entered University College, Oxford, in 1784, aged 16, and received the degree BA in January 1791 and MA in June 1791, when his name was spelled Ambrosse. In the intervening years, he married Mary Mahon a soprano of Irish parentage, at Saint James’s Church, Piccadilly, on 3 April 1787, and they were the parents of at least five children.

But questions have been asked about why it took Ambrose seven years to complete his first degree, and whether he spent time in revolutionary France during this time.

The stained glass window on the north side of the chancel includes an image of Saint John the Baptist (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

John Ambrose was ordained deacon by the Bishop John Douglas of Salisbury on 25 September 1791 and priest by Bishop Beilby Porteus of London at Saint James’s Chapel Royal on 22 April 1792. He was a curate in Swindon, Wiltshire (1791-1797), until was presented to the Parish of Blisworth on 19 April 1797 by the patron, George Finch Hatton, whose family owned the Hatton Garden Estate in London and held the title of Earl of Winchelsea.

The Irish-born actor and dramatist Charles Macklin (1699-1797) often acted often on the stage of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. When he died on 11 July 1797, he left £50 to Ambrose as a former pupil to preach at his funeral.

Ambrose was known for his interests in hunting and boxing. His last signature in the Blisworth parish registers was for a baptism in 1807. Soon after he fled his creditors, and was said to have ‘died abroad in obscurity and want’, perhaps in Paris. In fact, he spent some time in the debtors’ prisons, firstly in Horsham from 1813 and then in the Fleet Prison in London. By 1825, he had fled to Nantes and he was still there in 1833.

Ambrose was 66 when he married again. His second wife was the much younger Juliana Catherine Colyear and they were married in the British Embassy in Paris on 15 July 1834. She was said to be an illegitimate daughter of Thomas Charles Colyear (1772-1835), 4th Earl of Portmore. They were the parents of at least four more children, including two daughters, Emma and Juliana, who were born in France.

However, Ambrose remained Rector of Blisworth throughout all those years and he returned to Blisworth in 1836 two years after his second marriage to baptise his daughters. He remained in the parish until he died at Blisworth Rectory on 6 June 1839, aged 71, and he was buried in the churchyard.

A memorial tablet in Blisworth church recalls Joseph Ambrose Lawson (1806-1864), who was born in Waterford. Why is this tablet in Blisworth church? Could there be a connection with John Ambrose, perhaps through the Irish peer he claimed was his father?

The Revd William Barry built a new rectory west of the church in 1841 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Ambrose was followed in Blisworth by the Revd William Barry. He seems to have been unhappy with the old Rectory and in 1841 he built a new rectory west of the church with stables and a coach house. During Barry’s 45 years as Rector, he oversaw many alterations and made many gifts to the church, including three pieces of plate and silver.

The four steps and socket stone of a churchyard cross are on the north side of the church, by the path leading to the porch.

To the north of the cross, on the other side of the High Street, is the site of the supposed Manor. The farm there was called ‘The Manor’ in the 18th century, but the seat of the Manor, where the Wake family lived, seems to have been the site of Blisworth House, to the south-east of the church.

The five-light East Window has unusual tracery and depicts the Resurrection (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

• Canon Richard Stainer has been the Rector of Blisworth, Alderton, Grafton Regis, Milton Malsor and Stoke Bruerne with Shutlanger (the Grand Union Benefice) in the Diocese of Peterborough since 2019. The Family Eucharist (Common Worship) is celebrated at 11 am on the First, Second and Fourth Sundays.

The Royal Oak is the village pub in Bilsworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)