The Nuffield/Cowley Rood

‘Rood’ is the Old English word for a crucifix, usually accompanied by the figures of Our Lady and St. John, fixed over the junction of the nave and chancel of a church or cathedral.

The Nuffield/Cowley Rood in the south transept of All Saints’, East St. Kilda, was originally sited in St. Luke’s Church, Oxford Road, Cowley, an industrial and residential suburb of the city of Oxford in Oxfordshire, U.K.

St. Luke’s Church and its fittings were given to the Diocese of Oxford by William Morris (1877-1963), created a baronet in 1929, baron in 1934, and a viscount in 1938, who founded the Morris Motor company. A generous benefactor of the Church of England, Morris also established the Nuffield Foundation, and founded Nuffield College at the University of Oxford.

The Morris company established its car manufacturing factory in Cowley on the site of a former military college, purchased in 1912. The church was designed by H.S. Rogers and construction began in 1937. It was consecrated in 1938. It has been described as “a large ‘vaguely Gothic’ building of yellow brick, comprising chancel, aisled nave, north-east and south-east chapels, north-west tower, and south-west porch.” Built of the best materials - hard buff Colville bricks, Clipsham and Douling stone, York stone and oak block floors - with bespoke wrought iron lamps and door fittings throughout, no expense was spared in its construction. Yet the building is restrained in appearance and it subsequently won an architecture award from the British Institute of Architects. However, the expenditure of so much money on a church at a time when wages were low caused considerable disquiet at the Cowley factory. The workers, says one report, would have preferred higher wages!

The Morris Motor company has undergone a number of transformations since it first churned out small affordable British cars at the Cowley plant. It later became the British Motor Corporation, then British Leyland, Austin Rover, and the Rover Company. Since 2001 it has been owned by the German automotive company B.M.W. In its heyday in the 1970s, the company employed 20,000 workers.

With the decline in the British motor industry, and a corresponding population shift and a decline in churchgoing, St. Luke’s Church was closed for worship, and declared redundant by the Diocese of Oxford in 1992. The church, de-consecrated, is now the headquarters of the Oxfordshire Record Office. A grant of £2.3 million from the British Heritage Lottery Fund in 1997 enabled the building to be transformed for its new purpose - the relocation and storage on one site of the records of the Oxfordshire County Council and the Diocese of Oxford. Preparatory work began on the site in 1998 and construction continued until completion in 2000 when the moving in process and the relocation of the county and Diocesan archives began. The official opening was early in 2001.

Today, the solid, well-insulated walls and the tall basilica-style nave provide perfect storage space for three floors of archives. The former chancel, vestry and side chapels are fine public areas. The County Archivist works busily in the former organ loft.

The connection with Australia began in 1998 when Fr. Tony Noble S.S.C., the Vicar of St. Mark’s Church, Fitzroy, in the Diocese of Melbourne, visited Oxford to inspect the organ from St. Luke’s Cowley, built in 1938 by Harrison and Harrison of Durham.

The Diocese of Oxford offered St. Mark’s the organ from St. Luke’s gratis, with the condition that the shipping and other related costs were borne by St. Mark’s parish. The Rood – the bigger than life size crucifix and the accompanying figures of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. John the beloved disciple- was included in the deal.

The offer was accepted, and the organ, restored with a grant of $20,000 from the Victorian Government was consequently installed in St. Mark’s Church, Fitzroy in 1999 as part of the church’s overall restoration programme.

The Rood, however, was judged unsuitable for St. Mark’s Church. It was then offered to and accepted by the Parish of Christ the King, Hamilton in the Diocese of Ballarat. On reflection, however, the parish decided the Rood was too large for Christ Church, Hamilton. It was then offered to and accepted by All Saints’, East St. Kilda, one of few Australian churches big enough to accommodate such a large and weighty ornament.

The Rood lay on the floor of the Parish Hall, gathering dust for some time until the appointment of a new parish priest in 2002. It was decided that the Rood was too big and heavy to be sited in the traditional place over the junction of the nave and choir. Subsequently, eighteen months later, cleaned and repaired, the Rood was fixed to the east wall of the south transept, where with the addition of an altar, prayer desks and a votive candle stand, it has become an integral part of All Saints’ Church, and a focal point for prayer and devotion.

RW.

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