EPW022749 ENGLAND (1928). St Mary's Church, Henley-on-Thames, 1928

Did you know that Nicholas Breakspear (also spelt Brekespear and Brakespear) is, as yet, Britain’s only Pope, ruling under the name of Pope Adrian the Fourth from 1154-1159 as the Vatican’s 170th incumbent?



Nicholas Breakspear’s father, Robert Breakspear, had been a priest in the diocese of Bath before moving to the monastery of St Albans in Hertfordshire. The future Pope is believed to have been born nearby at Abbots Langley and was educated at the Abbey School in St Albans (now St Albans School).



From there, he moved to France to become a monk, an abbot, the cardinal bishop of Albano near Rome, and the papal representative to Scandinavia.



A second Robert Brakspear, a descendant of the same family, formed W.H.Brakspear and Sons Brewery in Henley, Oxfordshire in 1779 after a period as landlord of a coaching inn in Witney. In a quirk of fate, when the Henley Brewery was closed for re-development in 2002, a new site was found back at Wychwood Brewery in Witney for the re-establishment of the historic Brakspear brewing tradition.



Pope Adrian IV used the symbol of a bee on his mitre - the tall tapering headdress worn by senior churchmen - as a reminder of the ‘B’ at the start of his original surname; and a bee remains as the main element of the brewery’s logo and on their beer labels.