St. Mary's Catholic Church is a historic church at 159 Washington Street in
Winchester, Massachusetts
Winchester is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, located 8.2 miles (13.2 km) north of downtown Boston as part of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. It is also one of the List of Massachusetts locations by per capita income, wealt ...
. The church is part of St Mary's Parish, which includes
St Mary's School. Both are part of
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston
The Archdiocese of Boston ( la, Archidiœcesis Bostoniensis) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church located in the New England region of the United States. Its territorial remit encompasses the whole of ...
.
Architecture and history
St. Mary's is located at the southeast corner of Washington and Bridge Streets, just northeast of Winchester center. The church building was built in 1876, replacing Winchester's first Roman Catholic place of worship, a chapel built on the same site in 1874.
The area at the time was a center of a growing Irish-American population.
Originally clad in wood, this church underwent major renovations in 1897 under the direction of architect
Patrick W. Ford, a noted area designer of churches, at which time it was clad in brick. It resembles older Federal period New England churches, with the nave set parallel to the roof gable. The building is richly decorated, with corbelled cornices and decorative buttresses. The square tower is offset at the northwestern corner, with a Gothic-arched entrance and a belfry with louvered pairs of Gothic-arched openings. A small baptistry and meeting, added c. 1900 to originally house a library, stands just south of the main building. The building was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
in 1989,
reflecting the church's important role in the local Irish Catholic community.
See also
*
References
External links
St Mary's ParishThe History of St Mary's Parish
{{Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, state=show
Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts
Churches in Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Buildings and structures in Winchester, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places in Winchester, Massachusetts
1876 establishments in Massachusetts