Directory

Church name:

St Lawrence

Parish Priest:

Rev James Williams

Address:

71 Broad Street, Chipping Sodbury, Bristol BS37 6AD

County:

South Gloucestershire

Parish date:

(1838)

Deanery:

Bristol East

History of Parish:

The history of Chipping Sodbury begins with nearby Horton where a branch of the Paston family (the 15th century letter-writers maintained a mission from the early eighteenth century until its last member died in 1794.Thereafter Horton was served in primitive accommodation by the Benedictine mission at Bath. In 1838 the focus of the mission moved to Chipping Sodbury when Sarah Neve, the Catholic wife of the vicar of Old Sodbury (also a benefactor of Cheltenham and patroness of the Benedictine mission to Australia), bought the Swan Inn, an Elizabethan house, for £1,300.The ostler’s accommodation was converted into a sacristy and the stables and brewhouse into a chapel, dedicated to St.Lawrence. She also endowed the mission, which continued to be served by the Benedictines.

The subsequent history of the mission, unusually, is one of decline; the explosive growth of the Catholic population in the nineteenth century largely passed by Chipping Sodbury.Fr. Ralph Maurus Cooper was appointed in 1846 to what was seen as a comparatively easy mission.In 1858 he gave an account of what was still a typical far-flung rural mission of earlier days. There were sixty-eight Catholics, of whom twelve were at Chipping Sodbury and the remainder scattered as far as Thornbury, twelve miles away.

Problems of distance meant that attendance at Chipping Sodbury then averaged little more than ten. After Fr. Cooper’s death in 1869 the mission continued to be served by Benedictines, until 1890 from Ampleforth and Downside and thereafter, following changes in the constitution of the English Benedictine Congregation, from Douai.In 1891 the newcomer Fr Ignatius Stuart found the mission ‘in a shameful condition’, with a Mass attendance of only seven. For a time at the end of the century it was served from Great Malvern and elsewhere, with only three or four at Mass. In 1908 the Benedictines wished to discontinue the existing arrangement, and the Chipping Sodbury endowment was transferred to Knowle, a suburb of Bristol, with Chipping Sodbury served from it.

In 1928 secular clergy were appointed to the parish, the first of whom, Fr.Bertrand Ellis, remained until 1948 to see the beginning of the post-war expansion. This was especially marked at nearby Yate, and Mass centres were opened in the parish hall there in 1965 and at Rodford junior school in 1970.When St. Paul’s junior school was opened in Yate in 1974 both were superseded by a centre there, which, in turn, gave place to St Paul’s Church.

Extract from 'The Diocese of Clifton 1850 – 2000' by Rev Dr J A Harding the Diocesan Archivist, available from the 'Publications' page of this site.

Sunday Mass:

9.00 am

Holy Days:

7.00 pm

Weekdays:

See notices

Confessions:

Saturday 10.00 am to 10.30 am.

Convents:

Salvatorian Sisters, 62 Station Road, Yate, Bristol BS37 4PW Tel: 01454 327105

Schools:

St Paul’s Catholic Primary School, Sundridge Park, Yate, Bristol BS37 4EP. Tel: 01454 866790

Serving:

Yate

Tel:

01454 312161

Fax:

01454 316787

Parish website