History of our churches
Our Lady & St. Guthlac, Deepings
- Charles Waterton was born on 3rd June 1782 and died in 1865. He was the 27th Earl of Walton Hall, which is located near Wakefield in Yorkshire. His family had survived the Wars of the Roses but were deprived of most of their property during the Reformation because they remained faithful to the Roman Catholic Church. He claimed descent from Saint Thomas More, through his grandmother. He travelled extensively in South America, observing and collecting specimens of natural history and was an authority on the flora and fauna of that country. He perfected a unique method of taxidermy and his large collection of stuffed animals is preserved at Stonyhurst, the Jesuit College where he was educated.
- In 1829, he married Anne Edmonstone, whose mother was the granddaughter of an Indian Chief and who was descended on her father’s side from Robert I and Robert II of Scotland, and also Lady Godiva. Anne died in 1830, three weeks after giving birth to Edmund Waterton.
Edmund Waterton was perhaps, the first ‘conservationist’ in this country. He turned the grounds of Walton Hall into a bird sanctuary and a safe habitat for wildlife. He was a Knight of the Sacred Order of Christ; Knight of St. John; Papal Privy Chamberlain to Pope Pius IX.
He also travelled extensively but collected religious artefacts, some of which are in the British Museum. Still in place in the present Catholic Church in Deeping, is a stone font and a wooden crucifix thought to be brought from France and dated about 1500AD. The statue is from Boulogne Cathedral.
In 1876, Edmund sold Walton Hall and then bought Deeping Manor slightly later in 1879. The Manor stood on the land between Bell Lane and Hereward Way, Deeping St. James. In 1880, on land to the east of Church Lane, behind Hereward Way, he converted a stable into a church, and this church was used by his family and the small Catholic community until December 1968, when this new church on Hereward Way was completed.
In 1862, he married, and his wife Josephine, bore him six children. She died in Cannes, France in 1879 and her body was brought back to England to be interred in this chapel. Edmund was interred beside her when he died in 1887. As this Catholic community grew, permission was granted by the Home Office in the late 1950s, to re-inter their bodies below ground, which afforded more space in the church.
In 1891, Edmund’s eldest son sold the Manor House to the Marquess of Exeter but the church remained the property of the Waterton family and continued to be used by the Catholic community.
Xaverian Brothers
In 1919, the Manor House was rented to the teaching order of Xaverian Brothers as a novitiate. They brought it in 1932 and in 1940, after the outbreak of World War II, their boys’ preparatory school at Foxhunt Manor in Sussex was evacuated to the Deeping Manor. In 1945, after a serious fire, the school was moved back to Sussex and the Manor House reverted to a novitiate.
In 1952, it was bought by a local businessman. The land on which it stood, extended from Manor Way to the west, Broadgate Lane to the north, Church Street, Deeping St. James to the south and Hereward Way to the east. It was agreed that some of the land should be reserved for a new and bigger Catholic Church, to be built at a later date.
The Brothers’ used to be remembered by some of the older residents of Deepings, for their concern for the welfare of the people during the years of economic depression in the 1930s. The priests who ministered to the Brothers also ministered to the Catholic community and when the Brothers left, the church was left without a permanent priest and without vestments, altar linen and the artefacts necessary for church services. To deal with this situation, missionary priests came and the Altar Society was founded.
Altar Society
The community was served by priests of the African Missions from Ireland, and then by priests of the travelling mission in England. The Altar Society was formed by a very small group of women in 1953. Their task was to care for the Church, to provide the necessary vestments etc., to raise money to support the priest, to provide his food and lodging and to care for him. They were helped in this task by many of their non-Catholic friends and relations.
In January 1957, Father Jordan was appointed Parish Priest by the Bishop of Nottingham and the Catholics of the Deepings became a Parish.
Sacred Heart Fathers
The Sacred Heart Fathers are a Missionary Society and Fr Jordan was the first one to serve the parish of Deeping St. James. He was followed by Fr Jones in 1961; Fr Durkin in 1964; Fr Peppard in 1970; and Fr O’Sullivan in 1978.
In 1964, the Manor Park Estate was well under way in development and a site was allocated for the Catholic Church. It had to be built whilst the estate was under construction and so this enormous task was undertaken by Fr. Durkin and his parishioners. The church was completed in December 1968 and the first service to be held there was the Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve 1968. Sadly the ‘Waterton Chapel’ had to be abandoned and it was many years before the, now scattered, Waterton descendants could be traced. Eventually permission was given for the remains of their ancestors and those of the family retainers, who were buried in the grounds to be placed to rest in the cemetery of the parish Church of Deeping St. James. This re-internment took place in June 1988, in the presence of two direct descendants of Edmund Waterton. The chapel and the land were then sold.
Fr O’Sullivan died while still serving as parish priest in 1984. By that time the parish was a mission field no longer and the Sacred Heart Fathers felt that their missionary vocation was no longer needed.
In 1984, the Bishop of Nottingham appointed his diocesan priest, Fr O’Hanlon to the parish until he was replaced in 1990 by Fr Hugh Doherty. In April 1996, Fr Pat O’Doherty became the parish priest replacing Fr Hugh who was moved to North Derbyshire. In 2004 he retired and Fr Brendan O’Sullivan was appointed to the parish. When ill health forced him to take a step back Fr Clement Orang’o from Kenya arrived. In 2015 he was moved to Syston Parish in Leicester and Fr Victor Dakwan from Nigeria took over as parish priest. In 2019 he was seconded to serve as Chaplain in His Majesty’s Royal Navy, and Fr Paul Lloyd joined the parish in January 2019 just before the Covid pandemic struck. Fr Paul remains the parish priest of Bourne and Deepings to this day.
Sacred Heart &St Gilbert’s, Bourne
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In 1911, Mary Ann Duffy, born at Montrose, Scotland, moved to Bourne, and married a non-Catholic, Mr W H Scotney. She became the only Catholic in the town but there was no priest, no church and their two children, Bernard and Oliver, were baptised into the faith at Spalding. By the 1920s, the number had increased to ten worshippers and Mass was being said at one of their homes in Albion Terrace, a row of small cottages in North Street, Bourne. The meetings later moved to a studio at the rear of a newspaper shop at No 13 West Street but this became too small and the congregation then rented the long room at the Angel Hotel. Services lapsed for two years because there was no visiting priest and a hired bus was subsequently arranged to take worshippers to the Church of Our Lady at Mount Carmel at Corby Glen.
- Services then began in the chapel at the Ministry of Labours Instructional Centre off West Road and afterwards in the social room of the Co-operative Society premises at No 17 North Street, rented for 2s. 6d. a week (12½p) with services being conducted by Fr James Power who travelled over by taxi every Sunday from Deeping St James, where he had recently been appointed chaplain, at a cost of 2s. 6d which included waiting time.
More space was needed during the Second World War of 1939-45 because of the influx of servicemen into the area and so the Corn Exchange was hired for services, and the first Roman Catholic centre for Bourne was established in 1950 on a site in Exeter Street bought for £100 provided by Ernest Orbell and where a wooden hut was erected for a further £100 (later to be used as a scout hut). The temporary church was officially opened in January 1950 as the church of the Sacred Heart.
The church had an expected life span of ten years, although it was subsequently used until the present building was completed in the autumn of 1976. The first permanent Roman Catholic centre in the town since the Reformation. The circular shape excited great interest and even surprise when the design was announced and Fr Patrick Peppard, priest for Bourne, the Deepings and Corby Glen, commissioned a model of the building from Mr Thomas Wilson of Oakham which went on public display in the church at Deeping St James. “It will be a dual purpose church,“ explained Fr Peppard. “We will be able to close off the sanctuary at one end and use the rest of the building as a hall with the usual ancillary facilities provided.”
Much of the credit for this development was due to an organisation known as the Altar Society, formed in 1949 by the early pioneers of the faith in Bourne who were confident that a building of this stature would eventually be realised. It is interesting to note that the committee behind this organisation consisted entirely of ladies who were married to non-Catholic husbands, a total of twelve members in all.
In January 1957, the Catholics of Deeping, Bourne and Corby Glen became a parish that existed until 1984, when the district was re-organised, Corby Glen was transferred to Grantham and a new parish known as Bourne and Deeping was formed with Fr James O’Hanlon as the first parish priest. The new arrangements were celebrated with a Mass at the Church of Our Lady and St Guthlac at Deeping St James when thanks were offered for the work done in the previous 29 years.
Today, the Catholics do not have a significant presence in Bourne where the parish is still shared with that at Deeping St James. St Gilbert’s Church, named after St. Gilbert of Sempringham, is therefore a modest building and one of the first to be completed as part of the St Gilbert’s Road development. It stands immediately next to the bus station that was built at the same time, an unfortunate position for despite being separated by a low wall, by virtue of its shape and size it has been known to be mistaken as a cafeteria by visiting bus passengers.
The church, or centre as it was known, can seat 200 worshippers. It was designed for a dual purpose function under one sweep of roof, the sanctuary being at one end that can be closed off while the rest of the floor space is used as a hall for social purposes. The building was dedicated in December 1976 by the Bishop of Nottingham, the Rt Rev James McGuinness. It had cost £70,000, although more than half of that had been raised by the time it was opened and the bishop appealed for further funds towards the project.
“The people in the parish have made sacrifices and have worked hard so that the centre could be built“, he said. “They have been helped by the parishes of Corby Glen and the Deepings and now the centre has become a focal point where people can look to for happiness and where Christians of various denominations can meet and enjoy themselves. I hope that this building will really do good things for the community in general.”
Papal Honor for Margaret Sarll
One of the highest lay honours of the Roman Catholic Church was presented to Miss Margaret Sarll, in 1974. She was given a Papal award, the Bene Merenti medal, to mark her church work spanning forty years and which began when Catholicism had no anchor in the town. The presentation was made during a celebration dinner at the Corn Exchange on Friday 26th October by the Bishop of Nottingham, the Rt Rev Edward Ellis, who paid tribute to her dedicated service.“When she started her church work“, he said, “there was no Catholic church in Corby Glen or Bourne and no priest came here but in recent years the diocese has more than doubled in size. A church has been established in the Deepings and money is currently being raised for a new church building in Bourne.” The occasion was also the annual dinner of the Bourne Catholic Altar Society attended by 200 guests, including many members of Miss Sarll’s family who had travelled long distances to be there. She was then aged 80, having moved to Bourne in 1931 to help her uncle and aunt, Mr and Mrs J H Berry, with their newsagent’s shopin South Street. There was no church and services were held at the Corn Exchange and the Co-operative Hall in North Street, now shop and business premises. She was a founder member of the Altar Society in 1949, formed to assist local priests in parochial matters and to help raise funds for a permanent building and at that time £10,000 had been raised towards the final cost of £50,000. In later years, she was elected president. A bouquet of flowers was also presented to Miss Sarll, who then lived in the Digby Court retirement home. She told the gathering:“ I have enjoyed every moment I have worked for the church and I shall continue doing all I can.”