St Paul's Church is a

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...

Dover, Kent Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East 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 south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidston ...

, 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 Welby Northmore Pugin and Louisa Barton and part of the Pugin & Pugin family of church architects. His father was an architect a ...

.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, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

, retrieved 20 July 2018

History

Origin

In 1822, a

mission Mission (from Latin ''missio'' "the act of sending out") may refer to: Organised activities Religion *Christian mission, an organized effort to spread Christianity *Mission (LDS Church), an administrative area of The Church of Jesus Christ of ...

started in the town that ministered to Catholics in the area and

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

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 A congregation is a large gathering of people, often for the purpose of worship. Congregation may also refer to: *Church (congregation), a Christian organization meeting in a particular place for worship *Congregation (Roman Curia), an administra ...

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,The name of the state was originally Latin: , or when the kingdom was still considered to include Corsica. In Italian it is , in French , in Sardinian , and in Piedmontese . also referred to as the Kingdom of Savoy-S ...

to the

Court of St James's The Court of St James's is the royal court for the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. All ambassadors to the United Kingdom are formally received by the court. All ambassadors from the United Kingdom are formally accredited from the court – & ...

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

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 and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

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 The Archbishop of Southwark (''Br'' �sʌðɨk is the Ordinary of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Southwark in England. As such he is the Metropolitan Archbishop of the Province of Southwark. The archdiocese has an area of and covers the Lon ...

, 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 located around 6.5 miles (10.5 km) southeast of the cathedral city of Canterbury, and around 8.5 miles (13.7 km) northwest of the town an ...

, the church became part of the

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

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