A HISTORY OF CATHOLICISM IN HARPENDEN
The following is reproduced from the leaflet Our Lady of Lourdes Harpenden, A Short History and Guide 1905 - 2005. The leaflet contains further, more technical information about the church and can be obtained by contacting the Parish Office.
The history of Catholicism in Harpenden is both long and chequered with thirteenth century records of the area referring to a Catholic Church - 'the Chapel of St Nicholas' - in the centre of the village of Harpenden. Once can therefore conclude that until the sixteenth century, and the arrival of the Reformation, Mass had been said on the site of St Nicholas Parish Church for over 300 years.
As in other regions of the country the 'old Faith' was thoroughly stamped out in Harpenden during the sixteenth century Reformation. The Norman built 'Catholic' church of St Nicholas became 'Protestant', and Catholicism in Harpenden disappeared for over 300 years.
After an absence of more than three centuries, the return of Catholicism to Harpenden can be traced to the late nineteenth century when Father Archibald MacDonell, Rector of St Albans started visiting the village in the 1980s and ministering to the villages’ four Catholics.
By the early 1900s, the Catholic Community in Harpenden had grown to 25 Catholics who were then being visited regularly by Father Peter Louis Martin, a curate of St Albans. This increased activity led to the first Catholic Mass since the Reformation which was said in a gymnasium in Vaughan Road in 1905 led by the missionary zeal of Father Martin. Harpenden’s Catholics quickly secured a plot of land in Rothamsted Avenue less than 100 yards from St Nicholas’ Church and built a very humble corrugated iron chapel with much of the church furniture being made by Father Martin personally.
On 28 May 1905 Mass was said in this temporary 'little iron chapel' and for 14 years every Sunday thereafter, until 1919, various priests travelled from St Albans to say Mass in Harpenden.
The outbreak of war in 1914 boosted, albeit temporarily, Harpenden’s Catholic population as Harpenden became a staging post for troop movements to France. Catholic troops from the North and Midlands were stationed in a tented encampment on the Common and attended Sunday Mass. During the years 1914 to 1918, Harpenden’s congregation grew further as Belgian refugees from Malines and Namur joined troops and local Catholics for Sunday Mass and Benediction. Indeed, Sunday Mass soon became a very international event with the Belgian National Anthem played at the end of the Mass and all notices on the Church’s notice board written in English, French, and Flemish.
By 1919, the Catholic community in Harpenden had grown to 80 and decision was made by Cardinal Bourne to appoint a resident priest to take over the Catholic Mission from the Fathers at St Albans.
The missionary zeal of Farther Martin was continued in 1919 by the arrival of Harpenden’s first resident Priest, Father Bernard Longstaff, a member of one of England’s oldest Catholic families and a lineal descendant of St Thomas More, Chancellor of England in the reign of Henry VIII.
Father Longstaff arrived in Harpenden in November 1919 to find the corrugated iron chapel sparsely furnished, in a poor state of repair and containing only the bare necessities for Mass once a week and Benediction. A visionary and a great fundraiser, Father Longstaff set about building the finances of the Catholic Church. Within 4 years, through a series of garden fetes, bazaars, jumble sales, dances, and quarterly subscriptions from parishioners, Father Longstaff had built and paid for the presbytery adjoining the 'little iron chapel' which was then equipped with necessities for all functions for the Ecclesiastical year. As a result, in October 1923, Cardinal Bourne raised Harpenden’s status to a parish.
The early 1920s also saw the arrival of Catholic education in Harpenden. In 1920 a Convent of Dominican Nuns opened in Bowers Cottage (behind the High Street). The nuns ran a fee-paying Convent School for day pupils and boarders. In 1924 the school had proven so successful that the nuns moved to the picturesque Jacobean Harpenden Hall facing the Common where dormitories and a gymnasium were installed. The Convent School continued to thrive and in 1931 the nuns had outgrown Harpenden Hall and had to move yet again to Welcombe House (now a Hotel on Southdown Road).
Throughout the 1920s, under Father Longstaff’s leadership, the Parish grew, not only spiritually but also socially. A Catholic Social Club and a Catholic Tennis Club were started and became very popular within the town and a Catholic hostel, St Vincent’s Probationary Hostel was opened in 1924 in Leyton Road and became the first of its kind in the country.
By the late 1920s, Father Longstaff recognised that even with two Masses every Sunday the 'little iron chapel', now with over 130 parishioners, was soon not going to be able to serve the Catholics of Harpenden and surrounding villages. Plans for a new Church, 'Our Lady of Lourdes', were therefore drawn and on 4 August 1928, the foundation stone was laid for the new church by Cardinal Bourne. The Architect was Frederick Arther Walters 1849 - 1931, who was also the architect for Buckfast Abbey. Some 14 months later Our Lady of Lourdes RC Church was built and opened at a cost of some £19,940 on 29 October 1929.
Only when the Church was 'debt free' could Our Lady of Lourdes be consecrated. A further 7 years of frantic fundraising within the parish followed and by 1936 the Catholics of Harpenden had cleared the entire £19,940 debt. Consecrated by his Grace, Archbishop Hinsley, Archbishop of Westminster, who had travelled from Lourdes specifically for the ceremony, the consecration took place with 3 Bishops and 60 priests and 300 parishioners in attendance on 28 may 1936 (31 years to the day that the original 'little iron chapel' had opened).
At the consecration ceremony, Canon Longstaff paid tribute to Father Martin’s missionary work in Harpenden in the early 1900s and quoted from a prophecy made by Father Martin in 1906: 'I will, therefore, venture to hope that as Harpenden village will grow into a town, so also this mustard seed of Faith will develop into a large tree, and then one day may come when the tourist or pious pilgrim on the St Albans Road, looking down the gorse-covered Common, will rest his eyes on a graceful spire and hear as a reply to his query from a chance cicerone, "that is the Catholic Church, that is the Holy Virgin’s Shrine"'.
Between the years 1936-1939 Catholic chapels were built in Redbourn and Wheathampstead and Lourdes Hall was built for the 'social activities of the parish' at a cost of £3,700. It was in 1944 that Canon Longstaff celebrated his 25 years as Parish Priest of Harpenden. On Sunday 12 October 1947 the church was visited on behalf of Cardinal Griffin, Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, by one of his Auxiliary Bishops, the Rt Rev Monsignor George Craven who administered Confirmation to 27 children and adults in a crowded church. In February 1948 Canon Longstaff became ill and was ordered to take three months complete rest. During the next two years Fr Peter Kelly was assistant priest in the parish. The Canon died while on holiday in Torquay on 24 August 1950. Canon Terence Keenan then became the new Parish Priest of the church.
It was during his period of office in the parish in the 1960s/1970s and as a result of Vatican II, a number of changes were made in the church. Mass was no longer celebrated in Latin but in English with the congregation making responses. The priest faced the congregation as the mass was being celebrated. The altar was moved further forwards and the altar rails completely removed. The pulpit was also moved to the sanctuary. During these years the first evening mass was introduced and was celebrated on the Feast of the Sacred Heart. It was in 1977 that Canon Keenan celebrated his Golden Jubilee having been ordained to the priesthood in 1927. He had now served 27 years at the parish.
It was then in 1984 that Canon Keenan retired, at which point Canon Maurice O’Leary took over as Parish Priest until his retirement in 1995. Canon O’Leary made some further changes by re-sitting the choir and organ from above the sanctuary to a newly created organ loft above the narthex. The Baptismal Font was also moved from the Baptistry to the beginning of the nave. He also changed the library into a Chapel of Reconciliation which sometimes serves as a 'cry room' in emergency. Canon O'Leary was also responsible for the introduction of the Children's Liturgy at Sunday Mass. He retired in July 1995 after serving 11 years at the parish.
Father Eugene Fitzpatrick became the Parish Priest at the beginning of August 1995. A younger priest, with an abundance of energy, he will be remembered for the way in which he extended and enhanced many of the groups and ministries, which involved many more people actively in the life of the parish. This resulted in a growing number of people attending Mass under his ministry and he introduced an additional Sunday family mass to the three existing masses. Father Eugene also helped to develop and extend the collaboration between the various Christian denominations in the town and was responsible for much of the refurbishment of the church and of Lourdes Hall.
Father Eugene was suceeded in 2001 by the present day Parish Priest Monsignor Canon Harry Turner.