The parish of Louth S. Mary centres upon the bustling market town of Louth, in East Lindsey. Louth has long held its status as a market, trade being evident from the Anglo-Saxon times of the early medieval period. Centuries ago, after S. Paulinus (a companion of the apostle from Rome, S. Augustine of England) had established the Church in Lincoln, the Benedictine monk Herefrid (d. AD 747) brought the Catholic Faith to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Lindsey. S. Herefrid was well known to the more famous S. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, S. Beda of Jarrow and S. Boniface of Crediton, and Beda mentions him in his famous ecclesiastical history.
Lyndsey’s Christian witness and the monastery at Louth were demolished during the Danish presence in the following decades, and had to be restored during the reign of King Edgar of Wessex, in the time of the reformer bishop S. Dunstan. In Norman times, a great Cistercian abbey was established at Louth, and remained until the dissolution of the monasteries by King Henry in the sixteenth century. Louth featured strongly in the Catholic reaction to the establishment of the Church of England by King Henry VIII – Thomas Kendall, the rector of the parish church of S. James was given the Tyburn treatment for his efforts in 1537, as also was one of the greatest of the English Martyrs, Father Eustace White, who was born here, worked mostly in the south country and was killed at Tyburn on the 10th of December in the year 1591 for the crime of being a Catholic priest.
Louth had a Catholic chapel of some sort by 1792, but there is little evidence of a permanently resident priest until the present church of S. Mary was begun in the 1830s alongside the presbytery, with the sanctuary being added a few years later, and the sacristy a little later, in the 1870s. A more modern parish hall now complements the church and house, used by the parish community and occasionally as a rented hall. Following a ‘reordering’ of the sanctuary in 1997, which destroyed its high altar and reredos ensemble and several of the gothic-style shrines on the walls, the church has benefited very much from a series of stained-glass windows, mounted in honour of our late parish priest, Father Raymond Mendel (+, d. 2007).
S. Mary’s parish covers an area of over 200 square miles, in one of the most beautiful parts of England.
The parish of Mablethorpe S. Joseph is more recently-established at the seaside resort town, with its origins in a summertime Mass-centre at the beginning of the twentieth century. This was the project of Monsignor Gilbert Bull who established a Mass centre for Sundays during the holiday season, in 1906. He also built a first, small chapel. Even after Monsignor Bull (d. 1937) left Mablethorpe, Mass continued to be offered until 1920, although his chapel became a converted shop on Gibraltar Road (now Queen’s Park Close); he remembered Mablethorpe towards the end, and left a legacy which permitted us to build anew. From 1924, Capuchin Fathers from Panton reestablished a Mass centre on a seasonal basis again, and a new temporary chapel appeared on the Seaholme Road in 1931, dedicated to Our Lady of Victories and served from Louth.
Father Bull’s legacy and other funds helped us begin the present church in 1938, with the foundation stone laid by Monsignor McNulty, our seventh Bishop. The statue of S. Joseph above the entrance was made in France, as a gift from a Catholic family in Louth. The church is said to have the first shrine to Our Lady of Fátima erected in all of England, dating to 1937; the statue of OL of Fátima was made near the shrine in Portugal. The two holy water stoups at the doors have the inscription, ‘This stoups originally formed part of the Louth Abbey AD 1139.’ The baptismal font, inside the church and on the right hand side, contains a carved-stone ambry and a font which was a gift from Father Murray of Coatbridge, Scotland.
The most recent addition to the church, some twenty-five years ago, was a small meeting area (or parish hall) directly in front of church and so advancing the front of the main building towards the Seaholme Road. Mablethorpe, together with the surrounding towns and villages, received parish status in 1956, and has had resident priests since then. We have not lost our seasonal character, and local parishioners happily welcome visiting holiday-makers to the church during the summer months.
Catholic Louth and Mablethorpe 