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Townesend Monument
 The
restoration of the Townesend Tomb at St Giles
In 2005, as a result of recent legislation, St Giles’ churchyard underwent
its first Cemeteries’ Health and Safety inspection. Only one tomb was declared
unsafe and ring-fenced for either demolition or repair. The church was
fortunate. In some areas of the country tombs have been knocked to the ground in
atrocious acts of official vandalism to ensure public safety. The tomb has now
been restored
This is the most historically and aesthetically significant tomb in the
graveyard. It is a remarkable Georgian monument, the tribute by one of Oxford’s
greatest Georgian architect-builders, William Townesend, to his father, John. I
John Townesend was born in 1648 and died in 1728. His father was a labourer but
John was apprenticed to Bartholomew Peisley, one of a family of builders and
stonemasons based in St Giles. By 1674 John was an independent mason. His
buildings included the Long Library at The Queen’s College, (1692-5), the
Kitchen Court and the
Clock Tower at Blenheim Palace (1705-1712), the gate house and some of the
Turl Street wing of Exeter College, and the main gate, gate tower and Master’s
Lodging at Pembroke (1691-1709), although his work at both these last colleges
has had subsequent remodelling.
John prospered and in his later years held several offices on Oxford City
Council, becoming Mayor for the year 1719/20. Thomas Hearne commented:
“Yesterday Mr Townesend, the mason, father to (William) Townesend who hath a
hand in all the buildings in Oxford and gets a vast deal of money that way, was
elected Mayor of Oxford. This old Townesend is commonly called “Old Pincher”
from his pinching his workmen”.
It was usual for each Mayor to give a grand breakfast at the end of his year
in office. Hearne records that John Townesend’s breakfast was “so splendid that
the like hath not been known many years”. John had three sons who all became
very well known masons. John worked in London and George in Bristol; but William
was apprenticed to his father in Oxford and has the
Peckwater Building at Christchurch, the Fellows’ Building at Corpus and the
Woodstock Gate and
Column of Victory at Blenheim Palace among his many great achievements. This
dynasty of mason-builders dwindled back into obscurity after John’s grandson,
another John, lost money building new bridges across the Thames at Maidenhead
and Henley while his son Stephen encountered even greater difficulties building
the bridge at Staines.
In 1797 Stephen sold the yard and business to his foreman, Thomas Knowles,
whose descendants still run
Knowles and Son
the firm involved in the recent building of the new vestries in St Giles’.
Sir Howard
Colvin encouraged St Giles to have the monument conserved properly while
making it safe and
Rory Young, a specialist in tomb conservation, carried out the work in the
summer of 2007. The cost was around £11,000
Catherine Barrington-Ward
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