St Bede's Church

[AllanUK]

I am trying to find a photograph / image of the old St Bede's Church - can anyone help please?

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

3 hours ago, AllanUK said:

I am trying to find a photograph / image of the old St Bede's Church - can anyone help please?

@AllanUK I think all the photos of St Bede's that we have on this site are the school class photos in the 'Gallery' album - St. Bede's Primary & Senior School - in page 2 of the Historic Bedlington section.

Have you looked through the album?

I think I have seen a photo having been taken in the alley way between Hartford Road West and the old Police Station

but I will have to do some searching. Let you know, one way or the other, what I find.

 

[AllanUK]

Thank you replying Alan.

I will look through the gallery now and I would be most grateful if you find an image in your search.

Best wishes,

Allan

[Canny lass]

Was it this building (the gable end showing with cross at its highest poin) or am I totally mistaken? I have one picture from my sister's wedding which I believe to be taken on the corner of the building early 1960s.

 

Edited April 9, 2022 by Canny lass

[AllanUK]

Canny Lass you are a star -- the largest building (with the cross on the gable end) is indeed the 'old' St Bede's, I believe that it was pulled down in the early 1990s.

Allan

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

@AllanUK - haven't found the one(s) I thought I had see. I've searched the Bygone Bedlington Facebook group. All I have found at the moment is this aerial shot that @John Fox (foxy) posted. There wasn't a date with the photo but it has to be between 1953, when the B.U.D.C shelter, to the right of The Red Lion as you look at the photo, and the early 1970's, as the Trotter monument hasn't been moved for the building of the roundabout and dual carriageway down the Glebe bank. 

@Canny lass

[Canny lass]

4 hours ago, AllanUK said:

Canny Lass you are a star -- the largest building (with the cross on the gable end) is indeed the 'old' St Bede's, I believe that it was pulled down in the early 1990s.

Allan

I'm not too aquainted with the RC Church in Bedlington, only that one wedding, but if this is it then it hadn't been demolished in 2009 as the picture is from Google Earth of that year. I've a vague recollection of hearing that the old church would somehow be incorporated into the new building and looking at the Google earth view this would appear to be so. It's had a facelift since the 1960s.

[Canny lass]

This might be of interest.

The church had its beginnings in 1875 as a mission and a school and was adapted to a church. Accommodation for a priest was added the following year. The roof of both the church and the presbytery were replaced as recently as 1970 but the concrete tiles caused structural damage leading to a decision to rebuild the church. Now the interesting bit:

”the 1876 sanctuary survives as the presbytery garage with a meeting room above, the original coffered roof running parallel to Catholic Row and the former ’north’ sanctuary two-light window surviving at first floor level. The rendered gable may contain the chancel arch.” (https://taking-stock.org.uk/building/bedlington-st-bede)

 

Here’s a screenshot of the side of the building on Google Earth. The ’rendering’ is clearly visble in this (and the previous photo) as is the presbytery garage and ground floor window.

 

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

11 hours ago, Canny lass said:

”the 1876 sanctuary survives as the presbytery garage with a meeting room above, the original coffered roof running parallel to Catholic Row and the former ’north’ sanctuary two-light window surviving at first floor level. The rendered gable may contain the chancel arch.” (https://taking-stock.org.uk/building/bedlington-st-bede)

 

@Canny lass  - @AllanUK - just checked the info in the Gallery album for St Bede's and the web address in there is is no longer active so looks like CL's above link to the online site has taken over.

This is the entry in the album :- 

@AllanUK - the only other images I can find on the Facebook Group - Bygone Bedlington - are wedding photos = wedding groups standing outside the church entrance.

[Canny lass]

That site is quite good. I've used it a few times for other churches. However, I have to admit i found the entry for St Bede's a bit confusing.

The piece I quoted refers to the garage and the meeting room above it, as well as the window, as originally being the 1876 sanctuary – in other words, part of the church. It refers to the rendered gable as possibly containing the chancel arch – also part of the church.

 

However, if you continue reading the description of the new church which follows, its third paragraph tells us that ”the 1870s presbytery (which also contains a parish office and a first floor meeting room accessed by a circular staircase tower) is to the northwest [of the new church] along Catholic Row.” This suggests that the gable end belongs not to the church but to the presbytery - the home of the priest.

The circular staircase tower is, I am presuming, that tower seen on the photo i posted from Google Earth.

Edited April 10, 2022 by Canny lass

[Canny lass]

Maps from 1924 and 1938 show St Bedes as located parallel to Catholic Row (which is how I remember it) and exactly opposite the BUDC’s water reservoir. Google Earth 2009 shows that space as unoccupied by anything other than the narthex of the new church. I am now tempted to believe the church may have been demolished and we are looking at the former presbytery. Here are the maps and photo I’m referring to.

 

(Re GE photo: ignore the marker for St Bedes RC Church which is wrongly placed on the Free Masons, St Cuthbert’s Lodge. If you’ve any doubts take a street view on GE and you’ll see a brass plaque on the eastern corner, St Cuthbert’s cross in every window and further stone crosses on either gable end).

 

Eggy, perhaps there are Catholics available on other sites, who could help identify the gable end?

Edited April 10, 2022 by Canny lass

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

48 minutes ago, Canny lass said:

Eggy, perhaps there are Catholics available on other sites, who could help identify the gable end?

@Canny lass - questions asked on FB group - awaiting replies- 

[Canny lass]

Good lad! You're working well!

Just to add to the confusion: I've just talked to a former colleague who informed me that a presbytery doesn't have to be the priest's residence. It can also be a part of a church near the altar which is reserved for clergymen. (His speciality was ecclesiastical documents so I think he probably knows what he's talking about). I never knew it had several meanings but it would locate it close to the sanctuary and the chancel arch at the gable end. Maybe it is the old church after all.

[AllanUK]

Many thanks for the information to date -- hopefully something more will surface in the near future.

Allan

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

@AllanUK & @Canny lass - on the Facebook group Bygone Bedlington there is one posting showing two photos of the old St Bede's church and each one has the text 'Catholic Church,Bedlington.' The posting by a Robert Cox :-

and there were only two comments from other members :- 

I posted a comment a couple of days ago asking for any further info but I have had no response from any member.

Theses are the two photos Robert posted + a couple of Google street view, 2009, images of Catholic Row with one photo added to the Google views.   

[AllanUK]

@Alan Edgar (Eggy1948) & @Canny lass

Many, many thanks to you both for your replies and a big thank you @Alan Edgar (Eggy1948) for coming up with the two photographs of the old church.

Allan

 

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

29 minutes ago, AllanUK said:s

Many, many thanks to you both for your replies and a big thank you @Alan Edgar (Eggy1948) for coming up with the two photographs of the old church.

Allan

 

@AllanUK - I will pass on your thanks to Robert Cox who posted the photos. 

[AllanUK]

@Alan Edgar (Eggy1948) yes, please do so 

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

30 minutes ago, AllanUK said:

@Alan Edgar (Eggy1948) yes, please do so 

Done.

[Symptoms]

Back in 2013 I posted this in "The Games We Played in the Past":

"We were 'top-end' lads so our favourite orchards to go on raiding parties to were Jimmy Millne's (behind his house on Front Street) and the Priest's one behind the Rectory (in Catholic Row). Jimmy had a large Alsatian dog which used to chase us around the orchard and we often had to leap over the stone wall to escape its nashers - this orchard only had apples. The boss Priest was a guy in a brown habit (he may have been a monk of some sort) and his orchard had apples, plums, pears and gooseberries. My Dad was friendly with this Priest and would often have a drink with him, either in the Red Lion or a snifter of Drambuie in the Rectory. I've been onto Google Street View/Maps but can't locate the orchard in Catholic Row but reckon it's where that new church is. Also the Priest's front door is blocked-up and pebble-dashed."

and in a later post on the same thread:

"Friar Tuck was the fat monk in the brown habit. That boss Catholic Priest I mentioned earlier had the same type of habit as Tuck. Maybe some 'left-footer' (apologies for using this term but we're operating in 60s mode with our memories ... anyway, is it considered to be inappopriate today?) here might be able to shed some light on what order the boss Priest & Tuck belonged to."

Not much help to the AllanUK but maybe adds a little bit of an early to mid60s backstory.

 

[AllanUK]

@Symptoms -- your tale reminds me of similar antics carried out by myself and fellow orchard raiders in the late 50s and early 60s on the 'posh' houses on Green Lane in Ashington. Always hearing shouts from the householder of 'I know who your parents are' and other similar phrases scaring the life out of us but we would be back a few days later for more apples and pears.

[Canny lass]

Referring back to my earlier quote:

”the 1876 sanctuary survives as the presbytery garage with a meeting room above, the original coffered roof running parallel to Catholic Row and the former ’north’ sanctuary two-light window surviving at first floor level. The rendered gable may contain the chancel arch” and relating it to the interior photo recently posted I think It’s now possible to see what’s happened to the church.

What can be seen in the interior photo is the nave looking toward the chancel arch which separated the chancel from the nave (the chancel being that part of the church housing the altar, credence table and seating for the clergy. Even this area is sometimes referred to as the sanctuary). The pulpit is in the nave and to the right of the altar. Behind the pulpit is the door which leads to the sanctuary.

I believe the main body of the church, the nave, has been demolished leaving the chancel and sanctuary intact. This would account for the vacant area opposite the reservoir. The quoted text suggests that the chancel arch we see in the photo may even be contained in the rendered gable. That space beyond the arch has now been converted to house the presbytery garage. Next to that garage is the two light (now only one light) window which was originally situated in the sanctuary, through the door to the right and situated behind the alter

The quoted text also mentions the ”coffered roof of the sanctuary”. I had to google it but a coffered roof (ceiling would have been more helpful) consists of a series of rectangular, square or octagonal grids in three dimension sunken or recessed panels. This feature can be clearly seen just beyond the chancel arch.

 

 

[Canny lass]

On 13/04/2022 at 16:00, Symptoms said:

Also the Priest's front door is blocked-up and pebble-dashed."

@Symptoms do you mean the door that's seen at the end of the masonic building? I always thought the priest's residence adjoined the church.

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

@Symptoms & @Canny lassis it this one?

[Canny lass]

I was wondering if that was the door Symptoms was referring to. I thought that the priests lived to the west of the RC church but I could be wrong. I don't know much about Catholic Row - but would like to. It has a little niche in my research.

As I said earlier, I was at one wedding there and as a Girl Guide I was once in the catholic school at some joint event in the very early 60s. It lay behind the church away from the road. I'm wondering if the photo of the two priests is taken in front of the school? The gate to the left suggests it might be. I have two photos taken in front of the church and both show it as stone-built.

@Symptoms kind sir, could you give us any description of the church (outside) or the street itself at the time of your 'fruit picking'? It would be a great help.

Edited April 15, 2022 by Canny lass