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COVER ILLUSTRATION. St Mary's Church, almshouse and school, Ewelme, Oxfordshire.

Photographed on a winter morning by Dr Christopher Winearls

Ewelme church, almshouse and school were built soon after 1430, and continue to fulfil many of the functions for which they were originally constructed. In 1605, James I united the office of Master of the Almshouse with that of the Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford, and this arrangement still survives. The church contains monuments to three previous Masters and Regius Professors: Dr William Kelly, Sir Christopher Pegg and Sir William Osler. Between the chancel and St John's chapel lies the elaborate alabaster tomb of Alice, Duchess of Suffolk, the grand-daughter of Geoffrey Chaucer and wife of the benefactor. Aficionados of church architecture may note the use of brick, rare in this period and, in St John's chapel, the diapered monogram IHS (in hoc signo), alluding to Constantine's vision of the Cross before his victory over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge. This emphasis on Christ in pre-Reformation Catholic England is unusual. Jerome K. Jerome, author of the comic novel Three Men in a Boat, is buried in the churchyard.



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