SACRED HEART AND ST ALDHELM, SHERBORNE

Please click on this link to email us:  [email protected]

A GUIDE TO OUR PARISH

Clergy

Mgr Canon Robert Draper 

Deacon Jonathan Simon

Mass Times

Saturday Vigil    6.00pm

Sunday              10.30 am

Confessions: Saturdays 5.00 - 5.45pm or on request

For Masses during the week please see the newsletter.

Holy Communion Please be guided by the stewards. The Communion procession (as the missal calls it) is a procession (not a queue) and so should be orderly and dignified: the ordering of people processing from the back, one side after another also helps avoid people colliding in our congested aisles.

Live Streaming of Mass

Mass are streamed daily at 10.00am from Plymouth Cathedral (You Tube)

www.plymouth-diocese.org.uk 

Other venues can be found at: www.churchservices.tv

Natonal Catholic website cbcew.org.uk 

The Church Office is open on Wednesday & Friday mornings 9.20 - 12.30 but phone messages can be accessed  Telephone: 01935 812021. 

Offertory Collections

If you would like to make your donations by Standing Order please complete the attached form and send back to the office.

Standing Order/Gift Aid Form

Newsletter

A weekly newsletter is prepared by the Church Office. It includes forthcoming events in the Parish. Any notices should be given to the Parish Office before noon on Wednesdays.

Click here to read our newsletter for week commencing 1 October 2023

 Synodal Newsletter September 2023 To read the latest Synod update from the Diocese, please click the link here

Diocesan wide newsletter may be found here 

USEFUL CONTACT NUMBERS :

Choir - Nick Bathurst:- 01935 812840
Gift Aid - Please contact the Office or email [email protected]
Church Hall Bookings - Please contact the Office
RCIA - Deacon Jonathan:- 01935 873100
Safeguarding - Kristine Mountain - 01935 873427; Jennie Haynes 
Sick & Housebound - Fr Robert Draper 01935 816420                                            

Mass intentions - There are special envelopes in the Narthex and side lobby or you may wish to use your own.  Please indicate who the Mass iis for, the day required and who is making the request, together with a telephone number for confirmation.  It is customary to give a donation, suggested £5, this can also be paid via the card machine in the narthex.  Please give the envelope to one of the Sisters or a sacristan.

For Information regarding Baptism, Weddings, Funerals or Becoming a Catholic; please click for the relevant leaflet below:

Information for Baptism

Information for Being a Godparent

Information for Marriage

Information for Funerals

Information on Becoming a Catholic

Car Parking

When attending church services cars may be parked

• In the car park at the rear of the church, but only in the enclosed area. It is helpful if cars are parked nose into the church or the wall opposite i.e. not long-ways.  Ideally for those less able (blue badge holders) only.
• Against the hedge only (parallel to the road) at the front of St Antony's School House

Also on Saturdays and Sundays - In the road on the South side of Westbury i.e. opposite the church. Bill Butters in the SW Business Park also kindly allows use of his spaces there; access is near the railway station, with the parking itself but a moment’s walk from the church.

Please be considerate, when parking not to block driveways in Westbury.

HISTORY OF THE PARISH

The story begins with the arrival in Sherborne in 1891, via Bridport and the railway station, of The Religious of Christian Instruction from Ghent. Prior to that, Mass had been celebrated in Cliffe House at the junction of Marston Road; this house, set back into the rock face, still exists. The Mass was celebrated by a priest from Marnhull, where the church dates from 1830. Marnhull’s post Reformation Catholic presence goes back long before these Sisters came to Sherborne.

In 1891, the Sisters acquired a large property in Westbury through the agency of a Catholic doctor, Doctor William McEnery. The building was a Sherborne Boy’s School boarding house, though independently owned. Sherborne School was not thriving at the time, so the owner of the house sold it without informing the Headmaster. Details can be found in the official history of Sherborne School. The Sisters also have photographs from this time, and some of the stone tablets in the Church also give details.

Immediately on arrival, the Sisters began to build a church that was completed in 1894. The architect was a priest, Canon Scholes, who built many churches in the South of England, including the Holy Ghost Church in Yeovil. Thus the Sisters created a new parish that, for many years, would remain dependent on them. They carried out most of the work associated with the church; cleaning, preparation for services, flowers, music, preparation of children for the Sacraments and moreover paid all the bills! The church was constructed in two parts, the nave for the parishioners and a side chapel for the Sisters. The organ loft was built to be open to both spaces. Originally the church was physically joined to the Convent.

The Sisters then set up a school which proved very successful. At the time there was not a lot of competition in providing education for girls in Sherborne. As numbers grew, provision was made for both day and boarding pupils, and annexes were added to the Convent.  Part of the Convent itself was also used for boarding pupils.  In 1948, Leweston Manor was purchased from Mrs. Rose who kindly offered it at a very reasonable price, and the senior pupils were moved there. In 1991 the Parish and School celebrated the Centenary of the arrival in Sherborne of the Religious of Christian Instruction. The Sisters then generously gave both the church and the priest’s house to the Diocese.  St. Antony’s Preparatory School in Sherborne was closed in 1993 and a new Preparatory School was opened at Leweston.

Subsequently, the convent and the school buildings were sold to the Diocese, and the Sisters moved into terraced houses in West Terrace, Westbury. Other Sisters later moved from Effingham in Surrey, joining them in 2010. The Diocese resold properties in the 1990s to enable the Parish to build a much-needed hall (1998) and to re-order the church (2000).

The early members of the Community who died in Sherborne are buried in the Catholic area of Sherborne cemetery, where there is a monument to their memory. In 1956, a burial ground was provided at Leweston.