St. Bede, Clayton Green

Introduction

Thomas Burgess built the Roman Catholic chapel in 1823. The parish holds written records of baptisms from 1824, marriages from 1838 and burials from 1825.

The parish has a Parish Council. The parish has altar servers, greeters, collectors, eucharistic ministers, and readers.

Volunteers clean the church every Thursday after morning Mass. Flowers are arranged on the altar every week.

Architecture and furnishings

The chapel is of coursed sandstone with a slate roof and a modern pinnacled bellcote. The chapel has a simple 3-bay rectangular plan entered at the east end, with the presbytery attached at the west end. The east front has a round-headed doorway with a fanlight with radiating glazing bars and double doors. A stone table on the east front bears the incised inscription 'Gloria et Honor Deo in Saecula Saeculorum Amen 1823'.

The interior is a single cell with 3 plain pilasters on each side, a coved cornice and a flat ceiling. The east gallery, dating from about 1850, stands on 4 slim iron columns and contains an organ. The sanctuary is in a recessed rectangular bay with an elliptical arch rising from flanking Ionic columns. The sanctuary bay's inner walls are elaborately decorated with a blind arcade of fluted pilasters and illuminated by a skylight.

Flanking the sanctuary bay are 4-seated sedilia with round-headed screen arcades of Ionic columns supporting a dentilled cornice. The chapel has a plinth, a low sill-band, and a band to the pediment of the gable; its side walls have two simple buttresses and three round-headed windows. On each side, a doorway into the presbytery is set under a detached dentilled cornice. A single-storey service extension is attached to the left wall of the presbytery.

Sacraments and pastoral care

The parish asks parishioners to remember the elderly, sick and housebound, and to give them a telephone call. The parish priest invites anyone who would like a Mass said for a particular intention to contact him.