Our Lady and St. Kenelm, Stow-On-the-Wold

Introduction

Our Lady and Saint Kenelm in Cheltenham is a small, plain 1830s Tudor-style building, originally a Church of England school with school house, acquired for Catholic use in the twentieth century.

History

The first Mass was said in 1918 in the disused Church of England infant school, a building of 1836 that had closed in 1908 and become a builder's store. The church was completely refitted in 2023. The church contains a window of c.1950 by Donald Brooke, late Arts and Crafts in style.

Architecture and furnishings

The church is built of semi-dressed local stone with ashlar dressings under a Welsh slate roof and is lit by two-light mullioned and diamond-leaded windows with hoodmoulds. The roof structure seems original to 1836 and has tie-beams with crown-posts and struts. The nave is a small, plain rectangle with a western projection into the former school house. Inside the walls are plastered and painted off-white, a finish dating from the 2023 refurbishment.

Parish life

The parish serves the villages of Stow on the Wold, Bourton on the Water, and the surrounding villages, including Northleach. In 1942, the newly appointed priest at Stow-on-the-Wold determined that a Mass centre should be provided at Bourton, and the Church of England hall was rented for Sunday Mass. In June 2021, the decision was taken to close Our Lady, Help of Christians, because the church at Stow is only a short distance away. There are on-going courses for First Communions and Confirmation.

Visiting

The church has a clean, light interior. The dedication recalls the boy-king martyr of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, the chief centre of which was Winchcombe. Before the First World War the Catholic churches in the area were at Chipping Campden (founded 1854) and Chipping Norton (founded 1836). Mass centres were set up at Moreton-in-Marsh and at Stow-on-the-Wold, served from Chipping Campden, but Mass was discontinued in 1917 after the number of refugees dwindled.

At first the schoolhouse was used as the presbytery. In 1927, Henry James Barnes was received into the Church by Father van den Biesen, who was then living in retirement at Stow and helping George de Serionne in the parish. The first Mass was said at Bourton at Easter, 1940 in the Barnes' home. The Victoria History of Gloucestershire reports that in 1667 Bourton was clearly a known centre for papists, and figures for that year indicate that half the papists in Stow deanery were gathered there.

When Charles Trinder purchased the Manor House at Bourton in 1662, he established there a Catholic centre with resident priests, served by chaplains who were mainly Benedictine monks. On 24th May in 1960, building work began on the church at Bourton, dedicated to Our Lady, Help of Christians. In the sanctuary, on the north wall, is a copy of Botticelli's 'The Annunciation', the original of which is in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.