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Guide to the Church of St Thomas of Canterbury

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Guide to the Church of St Thomas of Canterbury GUIDE TO THE CHURCH OF ST THOMAS OF CANTERBURY, HORCOTT BY Richard Barton April 2003 Historical Background The first mention of a church at Fairford dates from the eleventh century but, except for the lower part of the central tower, it was completely rebuilt from about 1490. John Leland states that ‘John Tame began the fair new Chirche of Fairforde and Edmund Tame finished it’. The new church was consecrated on June 20th 1497 and its great benefactor died on May 8th 1500 and his tomb is situated close to Our Lady’s Altar in St Mary’s Church. This fine old Parish Church is renowned for its complete set of original stained glass windows and offers us a picture of pre-Reformation piety and devotion. From the religious settlement of Queen Elizabeth I, St Mary’s Church ceased to be a place of Roman Catholic worship and its clergy were no longer in full communion with the See of Rome. However, on May 24th 2000, the Vicar, Churchwardens and Parochial Church Council invited the local Catholic community to celebrate Mass there once again to mark the beginning of the new millennium. The story of the local Catholic Mission moves to Hatherop Castle where the families of Blomer and Webb maintained a priest and private chapel from the seventeenth century until the death of Lady Barbara de Mauley in 1844. There is a fine recumbent effigy of Lady Barbara, placed between two standing angels, in her memorial chapel in the Anglican Parish Church of St Nicholas at Hatherop. It is in white marble and was beautifully carved in the most natural detail by Raffaelle Monti in 1848, the year that Monti fled to England after serving in the Risorgimento. Following the death of Lady Barbara, her mother’s cousin, the Countess of Newburgh, gave support to the Mission until her own death in 1861 aged 99 years. 1 During the mid 1840’s, Richard Iles, a farmer of Kempsford, his wife Dorothy (née Arkell) and her sister Mary had been received into full communion with the Catholic Church. The story is told that Iles had become frustrated with the local Anglican incumbent when he refused to visit one of his dying farm-workers. Using funds donated by members of the Webb and de Mauley families, they set about erecting a small church at Horcott. After nearly four hundred years there was once again a Catholic place of worship in the Fairford area, although very modest in comparison with the ancient Parish Church of St Mary. The Church of St Thomas of Canterbury is a simple buttressed church, in lancet style, consisting of chancel and nave with a west porch and a thin bellcote. It was built in 1845 at a cost of £700. When it was opened, the only ornament was the stained glass window above the altar, depicting St Thomas of Canterbury, and flanked with scenes from the lives of Pope St Gregory the Great and St Augustine of Canterbury. It is believed that Pugin may have influenced the design of the building. The construction of the roof and other details are certainly reminiscent of some of Pugin’s humbler churches in England, Ireland and Australia. Interestingly, we know that in May 1842, Pugin sketched Fairford Parish Church and he visited the town again in July 1850. The Reverend John Mitchell, who had for some years served the Hatherop Mission from Chipping Norton, performed the opening ceremony and celebrated the first Mass in the building on Sunday 12th October 1845. Fr Pascal O’Farrell, the Franciscan Priest from St Mary-on-the-Quay in Bristol, preached at the High Mass and Dr Daniel Rock, the Chaplain at Buckland, preached in the evening. When Fr Pascal died he was the last survivor of the post-Reformation Franciscan Province in England. Dr Rock, a friend and supporter of Pugin, was himself an eminent ecclesiologist and antiquarian who had served for many years as Chaplain to Lord Shrewsbury at Alton Towers before moving to Buckland. Dr Rock can be seen in the mainstream of that liturgical movement, of which Augustus Welby Pugin is the best-known representative, which sought to restore medieval worship in all its exuberance. Monsignor Crichton has since written, ‘They wanted churches furnished with roods and screens with burning lights before altars and shrines, chantry chapels and the whole disorderly profusion of late medieval objects’. Shortly afterwards Father John Mitchell resigned from serving the new Fairford Mission. For a few years priests from the new Passionist Retreat at Northfields, near Nailsworth, looked after the needs of the local Catholic community and it is recorded that the Blessed Dominic Barberi, who received John Henry Newman into the Catholic Church in 1845, celebrated the first Easter Mass at Fairford. It is possible that Cardinal Newman had some connection with the Fairford mission as the alb that he is said to have worn to celebrate his first Catholic Mass has belonged to the parish for many years. We know that Newman stayed with John Keble’s family in Fairford on a couple of occasions during his Anglican days. The closest neighbouring mission to Fairford was at Buckland where the patron, Sir Robert Throckmorton, commissioned a new church for Dr Rock and his congregation; this opened on Low Sunday 1846. The new mission at Fairford served a wide area and led to the establishment of further missions at Swindon (1851), Cirencester (1855), and Cricklade (1938). The church has not always been served by a resident priest but Mass has been celebrated here continuously. 2 In 1863, Father Peter Seddon was appointed as resident missioner at Fairford. He was responsible for erecting the Presbytery, the school and schoolhouse. He also opened the graveyard. The buildings were designed by the brilliant young Catholic architect, Benjamin Bucknall, who designed Woodchester Park, near Stroud, the unfinished masterpiece of Victorian building. The Presbytery contains many interesting stone features including window seats and a turned stone staircase. The Catholic school closed at the end of 1888. This was partly due to the opening of an Anglican school for infants in a cottage at Whelford during the late 1860’s and the lack of Catholic children in the area. In 1967 the old school building at St Thomas’s was described as being in an appalling condition but it was briefly revitalized as a parish hall. Eventually it was sold in 1974 and incorporated into the private house that is situated beyond the graveyard. The church was built with a small sacristy attached and there is evidence that a doorway once gave access from the sanctuary. It is likely that, when the Presbytery was erected, this sacristy was extended towards the road by Bucknall. At this time, the doorway into the church was moved from the sanctuary into the nave and this also involved the elimination of one of the nave windows. The rear window of the sacristy was not inserted until 1964. In about 1908, a brick extension was added to the rear of the Presbytery, financed from a legacy from the estate of Susan, Lady Sherborne. She had died during the previous year, aged eighty- three years, and was buried in the family vault at Sherborne. At various times the church has been embellished and renovated, notably just before the First World War when Fr Michaud acquired the rood, three hanging candelabras, votive candle stands, and riddel curtains for the altar. He also introduced a pair of statues of adoring angels, which stood on either side of the altar. Within a few years three more stained glass windows were installed in the church. The wooden altar rails were replaced with wrought iron ones and the stove, which stood by St Augustine’s window, was replaced with new heaters. For thirty years Father Edmond MacSweeney was Parish Priest and, during that time, the parish welcomed Father Leonard Czapski and the many Polish families who settled at Fairford Park Hostel in the aftermath of the Second World War. The Irish employees who worked on the construction of RAF Fairford, together with the American Air Force personnel who were later stationed there, helped to swell the congregation at St Thomas’s. The Iles family continued to support the mission until the death of Margaret Iles in 1962. It is said that the visit of Monsignor Richard Iles, his brother Daniel and sister Mary, in July 1968, was the last occasion when members of the family attended Mass at St Thomas’s. In 1962, Father Michael Roche succeeded Father MacSweeney and set about refurbishing the parish property. The architect Eric Cole of Cirencester drew up a full restoration programme, and for some time Father Roche lived in a caravan whilst the house was being gutted. Not only were the kitchen and garage rebuilt at the rear but the main rooms were also rearranged. This decision was justified by the architect who felt that the central hall was unusable because it lacked windows and had so many doors leading from it. The result was that the whole appearance of the Presbytery was changed with the re-positioning of the front door and the provision of a window where the 3 door had been situated. In some ways it is rather sad that Bucknall’s original design for the Presbytery was so severely altered. At this time the church was also refurbished and the sanctuary of the church was re-ordered. The riddel curtains were taken away and the wall around the altar was faced with marble. Before 1965, the centre of the aisle was paved with stone slabs and there were stone pedestals for the statues of the Sacred Heart and Our Lady.
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