Sacred Heart

Introduction

The Gothic-style stone church of Sacred Heart in Whaley Bridge was built in 1899 and has room for a maximum of around 200 people. Sacred Heart in Whaley Bridge opened on 26 August 1900, when Bishop Samuel Webster Allen, Bishop of Shrewsbury, celebrated a special Mass and confirmed 17 people.

History

Bishop James Brown preached outdoors at Errwood Chapel on 8 October 1851 to around 500 people from Macclesfield and the neighbouring area, having celebrated the first Mass there that day. Money raised by a bazaar in 1902 was enough to clear the entire outstanding parish debt. From 1920, the year Father T Lowery became parish priest, a resident parish priest has served. Local government changes in 1936 placed Whaley Bridge in Derbyshire and, in the 1970s, in the High Peak, when suggestions to give the parish to the Nottinghamshire Diocese came to nothing.

Sunday morning Mass for the wider communities in Disley began in 1959 at places including the Rams Head pub, the Community Centre and latterly the new Methodist Church, and lasted until the Mass Centre closed on 27 August 2023. Whaley Bridge, Bridgemont, Furness Vale, Newtown and Disley, together with the villages of Fernilee, Buxworth and Kettleshulme, lie within the parish boundary.

Parish life

A lunch club is up and running and offers regular informal meals that include people who are retired or live by themselves. The parish Christmas lunch, a traditional meal usually held before families celebrate Christmas, is on hold. Someone who feels called to ordained ministry or the religious life is asked to speak first to the priest or the deacon through the parish office.

Sacraments and pastoral care

A child's baptism needs at least 4 weeks' notice, and no date is set until the clergy have agreed it beforehand. Baptism preparation is a short programme of two or three sessions and includes a DVD, and the celebrant visits the home a few days before the baptism. Help is available to arrange a Requiem Mass or Service, and the bereaved are asked to contact the clergy.