St Paul's Church is a

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

Dover, Kent Dover ( ) is a town and major ferry port in Kent, southeast England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies southeast of Canterbury and east of Maidstone. ...

, England. It was built from 1867 to 1868. It is situated on Maison Dieu Road, north of Pencester Gardens in the centre of the town. It is a Gothic Revival church designed by

E.W. Pugin Edward Welby Pugin (11 March 1834 – 5 June 1875) was an English architect, the eldest son of architect Augustus Pugin, Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin and Louisa Barton. His father was an architect in the Gothic Revival architecture, Gothic R ...

.Dover - St Paul
from

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Lis ...

, retrieved 20 July 2018

History

Origin

In 1822, a mission started in the town that ministered to Catholics in the area and

Mass Mass is an Intrinsic and extrinsic properties, intrinsic property of a physical body, body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the physical quantity, quantity of matter in a body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physi ...

was said in a house, 45 Snargate Street.Old Dover in Words & Pictures
retrieved 20 July 2018 In 1834, a location had to be bought, because Mass was being said in the loft of a house on St James' Street, and it was not large to hold everybody there. A former Wesleyan chapel in Elizabeth Street was bought for the Catholics to worship in. It was bought for £425 and it cost £400 to renovate. A further £350 was paid for an adjacent presbytery. In May 1935, new chapel was opened. Yet, less than 30 years later, with the increasing population in the area, a new site needed to be found to accommodate the larger Catholic

congregation Congregation may refer to: Religion *Church (congregation), a religious organization that meets in a particular location *Congregation (Roman Curia), an administrative body of the Catholic Church *Religious congregation, a type of religious instit ...

Construction

In 1864, the present site on Maison Dieu Road was bought for £450. In 1867, construction of the church began. Construction of the church started in 1867 and cost £2300. Much of the money for the new building came from an endowment from the estate of Mary Winifred St Martin, Countess de Front (died 1830). She was the wife of Philip St Martin, Count de Front (died 1812), an ambassador of the

Kingdom of Sardinia The Kingdom of Sardinia, also referred to as the Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica among other names, was a State (polity), country in Southern Europe from the late 13th until the mid-19th century, and from 1297 to 1768 for the Corsican part of ...

to the

Court of St James's The Court of St James's serves as the official royal court for the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. The court formally receives all ambassadors accredited to the United Kingdom. Likewise, ambassadors representing the United Kingdom are formally ...

. On 15 May 1868, Thomas Grant the Bishop of Southwark opened the church. In 1872, a school was built next to the church and a year later, in 1873, an

apse In architecture, an apse (: apses; from Latin , 'arch, vault'; from Ancient Greek , , 'arch'; sometimes written apsis; : apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical Vault (architecture), vault or semi-dome, also known as an ' ...

was added to the church.

Developments

In 1959, the church was repaired. This was done by lowering the

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...

and bringing forward the altar, closer to the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

of the church. In 1964, the nave was renovated, new pews were added and the pulpit was removed. On 23 October 1987, an arsonist set fire to the church. The fire destroyed the church roof and organ. After setting fire to the church, the arsonist went to Canterbury to rob St Thomas of Canterbury Church there. A few days later, he was arrested by the police.History
from StPaulsDover.org.uk, retrieved 20 July 2018 Repair work to the church started on 1 June 1988 and on 28 October the church was reopened. Mass was celebrated that day by the Archbishop of Southwark, Michael Bowen.

Parish

Very close to the church is St Edmund's Chapel, it was built in 1262, but was dissolved in 1544. In the 1960s, efforts were made to restore it, achieved primarily through the efforts of Fr Terrence Tanner, parish priest of St Paul's Church from 1958 to 1970. The chapel is owned by The St Edmund of Abingdon Memorial Trust. In 2015, together with St Finbarr's Church in

Aylesham Aylesham is a village and civil parish in the Dover district of Kent, England. The village is 6.5 miles (10.5 km) south-east of the cathedral city of Canterbury, and 8.5 miles (13.7 km) north-west of the town and port of Dover. Ac ...

, the church became part of the

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

of the Good Shepherd.History of St Finbarr's Church
from Parishofthegoodshepherd.co.uk, retrieved 2 November 2019 St Paul's Church has two Sunday Masses, they are at 6:00pm on Saturday and 9:15am on Sunday.

References

External links

Official Parish site

on Archdiocese of Southwark {{DEFAULTSORT:Dover, Saint Paul Churches in Dover, Kent Roman Catholic churches in Kent Gothic Revival church buildings in England Gothic Revival architecture in Kent Roman Catholic churches completed in 1868 1867 establishments in England 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United Kingdom E. W. Pugin church buildings