Saint Bede, Clapham Park

Introduction

Saint Bede, Clapham Park, in the Archdiocese of Southwark, was built in 1906 and serves a multi-lingual community of about 50 national origins. The church is unique in having three distinct liturgical communities: English, Latin traditional Roman Rite, and Latin American in Spanish.

History

In 1903 Frances Ellis donated Hyde House to the Diocese, and the first Mass was offered by Bishop Bourne on 8th September 1903 in a ground floor room. The Church of St Bede, financed by Frances Ellis, was opened for public worship on Friday 27th April 1906. On 8th September 2003, St Bede's celebrated its first centenary with a bishop presiding at Mass.

Parish life

St Bede's Latin Mass Community was initiated in January 1995 and taken over in March 1997. St Bede's Latin American Fraternity began in the 1990s when a monsignor started the Spanish Mass on Saturday evenings. The Union of Catholic Mothers was founded at St Bede's in 1957. St Bede's Social Club was founded largely by a priest who was at St Bede's from 1968 to 1981.

The Parish Council is a consultative advisory group of parishioners representing different parts of the parish. St Bede’s has two server guilds, for the English Mass and the Latin Mass, with 35 servers, and holds a servers trip twice a year and a Mass for Altar Servers on the feast of St Stephen. The parish bazaar is held just before Advent Sunday and raises over £10,000 in two days.