St Wulstan and St Thomas of Canterbury

Introduction

Stourport's formal establishment as a separate parish in 1948 was the point at which the chapel dedicated to Saints Wulstan and Thomas of Canterbury became a church. March 1973 saw work start on a new church on the Vale Road site, which an archbishop opened and blessed on 22nd December that year.

History

Only a small number of Catholics lived in Stourport in the late nineteenth century, and they had to hear Mass at Saint Ambrose' Church in Kidderminster. The Raven public house had been a place where meetings were held. Wilf Mulloy (1903 - 74) recalled coming once a month during the first World War to Stourport with the parish priest of Saint Ambrose' Church so that he could serve Mass. Miss Randle's tea room on the West side of Bridge Street was where, in about 1911, Stourport's first post-reformation Mass was celebrated.

From Miss Randle's death until 1935, Stourport had no regular Mass. Parkfield, 17 Minster Road, a house Mrs Morris gave to the church, was the presbytery of the first parish priest. Monica Baldwin, writing in I Leap Over the Wall, first published in 1949, called the nearest church, at Stourport, a tiny chapel of ease. Tenbury Wells came within the parish boundaries during a priest's incumbency.

The church of Saint Patrick in Birchen Coppice closed in 1982, and that area was incorporated into Stourport. Contact for the parish food bank goes through the presbytery. Contact for a social group for the elderly goes through the presbytery.

Architecture and furnishings

Although the Lodge Road church had been extended, in the late 1950s it was still too small for the Sunday congregations. In 1992 a priest was responsible for the erection of a new presbytery adjoining the church.