St Boniface Catholic Church, Southampton

Centenary of Shirley’s tin church

Foundry Lane

In 1830 St. Joseph’s church was built in Bugle St, Southampton. Before that, French priests escaping the Revolution, had served French Catholic refugees and the small number of South Hampshire’s Catholics from a room in the White’s Court slum, near St Michael’s church in the centre of the city.

By the late 1800s however, there was a Mass Centre located in a cottage in Stratton Road, Shirley. But on 17 August 1902 Bishop Cahill celebrated the first Mass of ‘The Shirley Mission’ in a house bought for £900, called ‘Wilton Lodge’ on Foundry Lane. An ‘Tin church’ was added to the house in 1908 to accommodate the increasing congregation.

The sale advert for Wilton Lodge described it as:-

THE EXCELLENT DETACHED RESIDENCE

Standing 30 feet back from the high road and known as “WILTON LODGE, FOUNDRY LANE” SHIRLEY

Having Good Rooms, Stabling, Conservatory and Gardens with Frontage of 90 feet and depth of 153 feet, Good water and not far from Millbrook Railway Station

Building the church

The accounts for the erection of the church include £45 spent in buying the tin church and £110 2s to move it from its previous location at Boscombe convent in Bournemouth, £16 12s 6p for 100 chairs and £8 10s for a statue of Mary. The total cost of the church was £209 – about £15,000 in today’s money! The costs were offset by income, including a donation of £50 from local magistrate Archibald Dunlop, £5 from the Vicomtess de Sapucahy for a ciborium and £11 8s collected on the streets of Shirley.

St Boniface’s became a parish in its own right in 1913. Fr Michael Mullins was then parish priest. The boundaries of the parish extended as far as Chilworth, Totton, Dibden Bay on the Waterside, Lyndhurst and Romsey. In 1915 he was called up as an army chaplain.

A view inside

From 1909 until its closure in 1913 St Boniface’s Mission also featured in the monthly ‘Southampton & Woolston Catholic Magazine and Sacred Heart Messenger’, a page of which is reproduced here for May 1911. The St Boniface page always featured this picture of the interior of the church.

Note that the Mass times are the same as today, and the familiar request for new attenders to contact the priest. The plinths on which the statues sit can still be found in St Boniface church today, painted black

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St Boniface’s Church, Foundry Lane, Shirley (Served from St Edmund’s)

Sundays – Low Mass, 8.30; Sung Mass (with sermon), 10.30; Catechism and Benediction, 3.15; and Evening Service 6.30.

Confessions are heard before the 8.30 Mass on Sundays, and from 6 to 7.30 on the Saturday evenings before the 1st and 3rd Sundays in every month.

General Communion of the members of the Apostleship of Prayer and of the members of the Young Men’s Society on the 1st Sunday of every month.

General Communion of the boys of St Boniface’s Boys’ Guild on the 3rd Sunday of every month.

Father Byrne gave an address last month on “Mount Melleray Abbey” to a large gathering of C.Y.M.S. members and their friends.

The elected offices of the Shirley Branch of the C.Y.M.S. for the coming year are Mr. Cosgrove, President; Mr. Connell, Vice-President; Mr. Kenway, Secretary; and Messrs. Arnold, Cosgrove (Junior), Fordham, and MacCarthy, Councillors.

On Low Sunday six additional children made their First Communion and Father Byrne enrolled twelve new members in St. Boniface’s Boys’ Guild. The members of the Choir kindly attended the First Communion Mass and sang appropriate hymns.

New-comers to the Mission are earnestly desired to give their names and addresses any Sunday to one of the Priests of the Church.

“Of all the divine works there is none more divine than to co-operate with Christ in the salvation of souls.”

Opening of the Iron Church

From The Shirley & Freemantle Advocate, June 20th 1908

The first chapel was opened in Wilton Lodge, Foundry Lane in August 1902, the congregation being at first very small – one room being sufficient. In 1904 another room was added to accommodate the increased number of worshippers. The congregation increased so much that it was found necessary to remove to the present church in the same grounds. A suitable iron church was acquired from a sisterhood at Boscombe, and was removed by pulling down and re-erecting, the work being undertaken by Alderman H. Cawte J.P., of Shirley, whose services have given every satisfaction.

Among those present in addition to Mr. A.C. Dunlop, J.P., K.S.G., a generous contributor to the expenses, were: Messrs. P. Tracy, Hayes, Miss Horne, and others from Southampton, Messrs. Gudgeon, Cosgrove, Wakeford, Adams and Mrs McClosky. The Master of Ceremonies was Mr. Hambly, and acolytes Messrs. C.J. Cosgrove and T. Carroll.

The new St. Boniface Roman Catholic church in Foundry Lane was opened for Divine Service on the 14th of June, Trinity Sunday morning with a celebration of High Mass and sermon by the Bishop of Portsmouth (Rev Dr J. B. Cahill). At half past ten o’clock a congregation assembled which quite filled the new edifice, which is of a temporary character of iron, though substantially built and capable of accommodating some 250 persons, and amongst those present was Mr. A.C. Dunlop, J.P. the benefactor through whose generous aid the catholic mission has been established.

Father O’Mahony attended upon the Bishop and Fathers Daly and Breslin were officiating priest and deacon and. Father Regis ( chaplain to the Poor Clares, Hill Lane) sub-officiating priest. The altar was decked with beautiful flowers and the musical portion of the service was ordered with great taste by the choir of St. Edmund’s, Southampton (Miss Gudgeon presiding at the organ), and composed of :- “Ecce Sacerdos” (Elgar); “Kyrie and Gloria” (Perosi); “Credo” (Tarsio); and “Benedictus” and “Agnus Dei” (Gounod).

In the course of his address, the Bishop who was attired in gorgeous robes, with mitre and holding the crozier of his high office, dealt with the ecclesiastical year as denoting the life of man … Twenty five years ago in the town of Southampton, he said, there was but one single place where that sacrifice [of the Mass] was offered on Sunday. Later a new diocese was formed and a new place was started where St Edmunds Church was now built. It began in a very humble way, with a temporary iron church, but now there was a beautiful church and well frequented.

Then it seemed that one who had the interest of God at heart thought that there was a section of people at Shirley who could not get a chance to hear Mass, and gave a sum of money to acquire a site. That was what made a start and it was his privilege to say the first Mass in a cottage. At first the number was very few. He blessed God for that help and for the holy thought put into the mind of that person and asked them to pray that his reward might be everlasting with God. They had advanced a step further and now had that temporary iron church. It was not the sort of thing they wanted to be permanent for the devotion of God. He congratulated them upon having made a step further and hope they would not stop until they had got a beautiful church built there. The offertory was on behalf of the expenses of the new church.

In the evening solemn Benediction was given by the Rev. Fr. Breslin, assisted by Fathers O’Mahony and Daly, the church being again crowded. An appropriate sermon was preached by Father O’Mahony, Rector of St. Edmund’s Southampton.”

To Shirley Road

Fr John Shanahan, an American, took over and served the Mission until January 1923. In 1919 priest and parishioners had managed to buy land on Shirley Road for a permanent church at a cost of £1,200 – a huge sum in those days!

Fr Thomas Byrne then succeeded Fr Shanahan as Parish Priest. Both the Tin Church and Wilton Lodge had sprung leaking roofs by this time. We know that at one stage Fr Byrne had to seek shelter under an umbrella while he was ill in bed – such was the state of the house that water poured through the ceiling!

Fortunately both he and his congregation moved to the present St Boniface’s Church, which was funded most generously by Archibald Dunlop in his will.

The Tin Church was sold and became the Freemantle Adult School. The Lodge was demolished in 1929 and the School was destroyed by enemy action in World War II.

With grateful thanks to Maureen Guly for information from her book ‘Parish Memoirs’.