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Our Lady of Grace
Our Lady of Grace Church is a Grade II listed Catholic Church in Prestwich. This page is largely constructed from [ourladyofgrace.co.uk] and Prestwich & Whitefield Heritage Society
Extracts from a talk to Prestwich & Whitefield Heritage Society by Monsignor John Allen (2016) combined with other sources.
With the activities of Henry VIII in 1534 and subsequent movements in religion and monarchy, the Catholic church has undergone great upheaval.
For a brief period under Queen Mary (1555) communion with Rome was re-established, but in 1559 Queen Elizabeth broke it off again, and Catholics referred to as "recusants", were forced underground for a further 250 years.
The House of Lords set up an enquiry into the number of Papists in every parish in England and Wales and the ‘returns of Papists for the diocese of Chester’ were published in 1780. They show that there were 3 Catholics in Prestwich:
“Mass for the first time in the Cooperative Store Hall, Warwick St, Prestwich. Attendance: Morning 82. Sunday School 28. Evening 47. Rent of hall 7/6d per Sunday. A crowd watched us dispersing after Evening Service, there being an excitement in the village about the Catholics having service."
Fr Walshe stayed only a few weeks at St Thomas’s, and on the 3rd of July he rented 2 Devonshire Place, off Chester St in Prestwich for £26 per annum. He had a great difficulty in getting a house, with many not wanting to let their house to a Priest.
The following year, 1890, on May 15th, Feast of Our Lady of Grace, some land was taken on Fairfax Road. The children and friends assembled there for the Whitweek procession and sang Faith of our Fathers, and plans were prepared for a school chapel by Oswald Hill Esq. A two storey building was refused by the Salford Diocese, with lesser plans approved and funds continued to be donated and collected.
In July the contract for Building the school chapel was awarded to Robert Neild & Sons Manchester for £1650, with the foundation stone laid on 8 November 1890.
An inflow of water and a continuance of frost caused it to take 10 weeks to put down the foundations of the north side and apse. A man working the pumps was employed all this time both day and night and the work was made more difficult by the work not being part of the contract.
Mrs Elizabeth Whittam, a Catholic lady lived at an impressive house called Westfield in Prestwich Park (1891). Her husband James, was a Calico Bleacher from Bury. She gave generously of her time and money and was the principal benefactor for the building of the presbytery, which was completed in 1894. Her name appears on the stone by the front door. Sadly, the first Requiem Mass in the completed school-chapel was for her husband, James Whittam.
He came from County Kerry and was a curate here for four years before returning as PP in 1926. He was to remain here for 22 years, the longest serving PP until now. He retired to Ireland in 1948 at the age of 64 and died the following year.
The foundation stone of the new church was blessed and laid by Bishop Henry Hanlon on 24 May 1930. Bishop Hanlon was born in 1862 in Manchester. Prior to joining the priesthood he trained as a cabinet maker. He was ordained Priest in 1889 for the Mill Hill Missionaries and travelled to Northern India, where he served for five years until he was appointed the first Vicar Apostolic of the Upper Nile District. He was then sent to lead the first band of four Mill Hill missionaries into the African interior; they arrived in Kampala in September 1895 after walking from Mombasa. In 1903 he brought some Franciscan Sisters of St Joseph from Manchester to Kampala where they established a school and a hospital for the local district. He continued in Uganda until 1911 when he resigned and returned to England and began Parish work in his native Diocese of Salford. The new church was opened in 1931, and you can see The Bishop Hanlon's name on the foundation stone from the car park at the rear of the church.
It is a late example of a full-blooded Gothic Revival church, with the interior elaborately fitted and decorated and almost all the furnishings are original or early. The appearance and features of Harold Greenhalgh's design of the new church are detailed on Manchester Architects website
The windows are well worth examining. A lot of thought obviously went into their planning. The window in the façade contains lilies, a symbol of Our Lady. The back windows in the sanctuary nearest the tabernacle contain symbols of the Eucharist. The four front windows in the sanctuary nearest the lectern contain the emblems of the four evangelists. The windows over the confessionals are symbolic of the power to forgive sins. They show the crossed keys. The windows nearest to Our Lady’s altar show symbols of Our Lady. Those in the former baptistery have symbols of baptism and the new life Christ has gained for us, while round the walls are various symbols of the Persons of the Blessed Trinity and of the Eucharist.
The picture Our Lady of Grace was painted for this Mission through the kindness and generosity of Dr Vaughan who happened to be in Rome while the original building was being erected in 1890. The original is in the church St Andrea delle Fratte Rome.
The carved timber is the work of Ferdinand Stuflesser of Ortisei in the Italian Dolomites. That region is famous for its woodcarvers and the Stuflessers are the kings of the carvers. This church isn’t unique in housing their work. You’ll find it in many churches in this diocese.
Inside the church Stuflesser's work can be seen, the carved reredos and the painted Rood in the sanctuary, the robust altar rails with the two carvings of ‘Martha and Mary’ and the ‘Roman centurion’ (since removed), the elaborate carving in the side chapels of the Sacred Heart and Our Lady, with panels of the Sacred Heart and the Nativity, the Stations of the Cross with their exquisite details, the benches, and the carved bench ends, every one of which is different, finally you'll see the beautiful carving of the screen in the porch and the ceiling there.
The Contractor was paid £15,180, the Architect £750, and the Clerk of Works £289.18.0. Stuflesser was paid £2,970.19.0, and with additions all totalled £19,885.2s.6d.
In 1965 the new church was overhauled and redecorated by Greenhalgh & Williams.
The baptismal font, made in 1882, is also new to this church. It came here in 2003 from the church of the Sacred Heart, Accrington, now demolished, and has been restored by the firm of Alberti Lupton of Moston. The font is carved of Caen stone from Normandy (as is the statue on the front of the original school-chapel building), with dark marble pillars also probably from France and a grey marble top of Bardiglio, from Carrara in Italy. The font is octagonal in the traditional shape of baptisteries, representing the eight beatitudes.
The benches with their carved pew ends appear to be original to the church, but the original timber sanctuary rails and an openwork timber pulpit have been removed. The elaborately decorated interior was repainted in 1997-8.
The Old Church hall, and the fire station next door appeared on the cover of "How I Wrote 'Elastic Man' / City Hobgoblins" by The Fall, released in 1980.
Within the Catholic Church, Prestwich was originally a parish in the diocese of Lichfield, and then that of Chester.
The authors Farrer and Brownbill in the Victoria County History record that the Rector of Prestwich, William Langley, “was at first reluctantly compliant and then an avowed opponent” to Queen Elizabeth’s religious settlement of 1559. In 1767 the Anglican bishops were openly criticised in the newspapers for not restraining the spread of Catholicism in their dioceses.
The Egerton's of Heaton Hall were a Cheshire family dating back to the Plantagenets. In Tudor times it claimed among its members a Lord Chancellor who was the ancestor of the Dukes of Bridgewater. Thomas Egerton gave up his Catholic faith and became a favourite of Elizabeth I. He became Chancellor of England (1597) and was complicit in the death of some of the priest martyrs.
John Chapman, weaver, aged 40 years, resident 17 years;
James Chapman his son, weaver, aged 15 years;
Jane Shipley, widow, aged 56 years, resident 20 years.
There were 21 Catholics in Oldham, Shaw & Bury had just one each, and there were none in Radcliffe, Unsworth, Royton or Heywood. In Manchester there were 287 Catholics, and 64 in Salford.
Anti-Catholic laws started to be removed during the 18th century, and St Marie’s parish in Bury began in 1825, four years before the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829.
St Mary’s in Radcliffe began in 1863 and St Thomas of Canterbury, Hr Broughton, in 1878. For Catholics in Prestwich and Whitefield those were the nearest churches.
By the census of 1851, there were 32 churches and chapels served by 37 priests in the Diocese of Salford. 33,029 Catholics attended Mass on 30th March 1851.
Immigration continued from the English countryside as well as from Ireland and Bishop Herbert Vaughan (1872 – 1892) founded more than 40 new missions, or parishes, including Our Lady of Grace in Prestwich.
In the early part of Lent 1889, the Bishop Dr Vaughan appointed the Rev David Walshe of St Alban’s Blackburn to the charge of the District around Prestwich. Rev Walshe formally took charge of Prestwich on Synod Day, May 7th 1889 and succeeded Fr Daniel as chaplain to the Asylum.
Fr Walshe, born in Waterford, Ireland, was 31 when he was given the job of starting this parish and at first he lived at St Thomas’s in Salford. His Log Book records on the 9th June 1889:
[Read more about Prestwich Co-op]
The following Sunday attendances had grown to 95, 31 and 68 respectively, and on the Sunday after that to 102, 31 and 71.
The Catholic Herald newspaper reported:
“Prestwich once more vindicates its name. The home or dwelling of the priests (preost-wic) in Saxon times, it once more after the long desolation is the home of a Catholic priest. On Sunday last the first Mass was said in the village since the Reformation”.
Fr Walshe held Holy Benediction in the Cooperative Hall and Mass and confessions each morning in 2 Devonshire Place at 8 o’clock. Dr Vaughan came to inspect the house and appointed the front room to be used as a temporary chapel. The Brothers, St Joseph’s Industrial school presented a tabernacle for the chapel.
Bishop Vaughan was on his way to Rome. So Fr Walshe got the local MP to lay the stone, Mr William Mather of Woodhill in Prestwich, a non-Catholic.
The picture Our Lady of Grace was painted for this Mission through the kindness and generosity of Dr Vaughan who happened to be in Rome while the original building was being erected in 1890 and sought a copy of the painting he saw in St Andrea delle Fratte, Rome.
The long winter of 1890-1891 was terrible. Frost and heavy snowfalls paralysed the country. Work on the Manchester Ship Canal was seriously interrupted. So too here in Prestwich, heavy snow and frost held up the building work.
The Foundations gave infinite trouble in consequence of a quick-sand running through the land and some that was built had to be pulled down and rebuilt on solid ground once the sand had been removed.
The architect, Harold Greenhalgh, and Fr Walshe several times contemplated putting in piles, strong columns sunk deep into the ground, but the work went on and finally the building was blessed and opened on 15 August 1891, with an official opening the following day by Bishop Vaughan.
It was a most joyous occasion. There was a packed congregation and the choir of St Marie’s, Bury, sang. The evening service that day was overcrowded. Many people could not get in and stood outside.
The cost of the school-chapel (with the Chapel being upstairs) was £2,437.6s.61/2d, and is still giving excellent service after over 130 years. The statue of Our Lady placed on the front of the original school-chapel building when it opened in 1891 is carved of Caen stone from Normandy.
Mrs Whittam provided all the altar furniture. The tabernacle was kindly given by the Brother Director St Joseph’s Ind school, Longsight. The altar itself was brought from Rome and had been in St John’s Cathedral as a temperance altar by the Bishop Dr Vaughan. After 15 years at OLOG it was replaced by the present St Peter’s Chains altar.
Some of the vestments were given by the nuns of Perpetual Adoration Alexandra Park, some by the people of St Alban’s Blackburn and others were given to the Mission by Mrs Whittam.
The Harmonium was bought on the Hire system with Mrs Whittam paying £3 monthly for a year.
Fr Walshe died in 1906 aged 48. The second priest was Fr Joseph Hayes, the only English born PP here apart from Rev Allen. He came from Preston and was educated at the English College in Lisbon, Portugal. He was here for 12 years before moving to Osbaldeston. Next came Fr James Corkery, a Cork man. He was here for 16 years before moving to Mt Carmel, Blackley. The altar rails (since removed) were a memorial to Fr Corkery, who died in 1930. The next Parish Priest was the builder of the new church used today, Fr William Browne.
Old & New
People sometimes ask about the ‘Star of David’ window on the upper floor of the hall next door. That window was part of the chapel building from 1891 and again is a symbol of Our Lady. The six-pointed Star of David is a sign of the royal Judaic lineage of Mary in the House of David.
When the new church was opened in 1931 the school took over the whole of the building next door and remained there until the present school was opened at the top of Highfield Road in 1975.
The organ was erected in memory of Fr Browne who was PP when the church was built. It was rebuilt from a concert organ and installed here in 1952.
After Fr Browne retired Fr Denis O’Brien was appointed PP in 1949. He was a Limerick man but at the age of 65 he retired to Tralee, County Kerry, in 1961. He was succeeded by Fr Denis Gleeson, a Kerry man. Fr Gleeson had been at Our Lady of Grace as a curate 1938-1945 (and so during the 2nd World War). He served as PP 1961-1979. He died suddenly 25 in the presbytery aged 72.
Fr John O’Sullivan then came. He too had been a curate at Our Lady’s (1964-1972) and was PP 1979-1996. He also died suddenly in the presbytery aged only 66.
Fr Gleeson recorded :
The removal to the new school building will take place tomorrow and Tuesday, 23rd and 24th June [1975]. The children will not be in school on these days. On Wednesday the Infant classes will transfer to the new school on Highfield Road and the remaining classes in two easy stages. This week marks the end of an era in the life of the Parish, and while we look forward to working in our beautiful new school, there will be some who think sadly of Fairfax Road building as a place of learning.
The monument to Pope St John Paul II, was erected in the Lady Chapel in 2015 to commemorate his visit to Britain in 1982, and specifically his saying Mass and ordaining priests within this parish – in Heaton Park, ironically home to the Egerton family.
Dorothy Frankish recalls: John and I were married at Stand Church in Whitefield on 24 June 1944. We held our reception at Tower Buildings, Prestwich. Due to rationing through the war, John went with his brother Arthur into Prestwich Village to try to get a drop more wine. When I saw Arthur a short time afterwards, I asked him where John was. “He’s gone to a wedding” he said. “O, very funny” I said. Well it seemed that he had. As John was in his soldiers uniform, a man approached him and asked him ‘Would he be best man at his daughter’s wedding’ at our Lady of Grace Church. He explained that their best man had not managed to get there in time because his train had been delayed. So after officiating for them, back he came to his own reception.
