After Cropredy Festival, we made our way to Oxford for a first great taste of this city.
We soon found ourselves seeking St. Barnabas' church in the Jericho district, because of its Jude The Obscure, High Church fame.
But while seeking out the Hardy church, we ran across a strange bar:
Which once had been a church:
To our relief, it wasn't the Jude the Obscure church that we sought, but one once called St. Paul's.
To our horror, the strange, postmodern-looking bar never sold draught beer, and didn't accept cash payments.
But my friend had some kind of cash card and bought two very small, overpriced bottles of Pilsner Urquell. At least this good, Czech beer was well-chilled.
Having visited this strange bar, I had to learn something about how St. Paul's church had been transformed into such a place.
A quick Internet search tells me that St. Paul's wasn't that old, only opened as a church in 1835, and that it was famous, in its time, for being connected to the Oxford (High Church/Anglo-Catholic) Movement.
Moreover, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, St. Paul's seems to have been famous for its elaborate religious ritual and processions; having Sunday Evening Services that drew in queues of students to hear the distinguished preachers of the time; and a highly active social club.
Sadly, after the two World Wars had brought about a declining interest in religion in the Western world, St. Barnabas and St. Paul's parishes had to be united in 1963, and by 1969, St. Paul's was closed.
St. Paul's then remained empty until 1975, after which it has been transformed and used for a variety of entertainment functions.
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