The Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes, Blackpool, stands in Whinney Heys Road,

Blackpool Blackpool is a seaside resort in Lancashire, England. Located on the northwest coast of England, it is the main settlement within the borough also called Blackpool. The town is by the Irish Sea, between the Ribble and Wyre rivers, and is ...

, Lancashire, England (). It is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, a ...

as a designated Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

, and now owned by

Historic Chapels Trust The Historic Chapels Trust is a British Registered Charity set up to care for redundant non-Anglican churches, chapels, and places of worship in England. To date, its holdings encompass various nonconformist Christian denominations and Roma ...

. Locally it is simply known as 'The Shrine' or the 'Bishop's folly'. The 'White Church' is another Church building in Ansdell.

History

The Blackpool

shrine A shrine ( la, scrinium "case or chest for books or papers"; Old French: ''escrin'' "box or case") is a sacred or holy space dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, daemon, or similar figure of respect, wherein they ...

was built between 1955 and 1957 to a design by F. X. Velarde. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

Bishop Thomas E. Flynn, the bishop of the

Roman Catholic Diocese of Lancaster The Roman Catholic Diocese of Lancaster is a Latin Church Roman Catholic diocese centred on Lancaster Cathedral in the city of Lancaster in Lancashire, England. History The diocese was erected in 1924, taking areas and parishes from the Archdi ...

, prayed to

Our Lady of Lourdes Our Lady of Lourdes (french: Notre-Dame de Lourdes) is a title of the Virgin Mary. She is venerated under this title by the Roman Catholic church due to her apparitions that occurred in Lourdes, France. The first apparition of 11 February 1858, ...

, the

patron saint A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholicism, Anglicanism, or Eastern Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or perso ...

of the

diocese In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associ ...

, to protect the diocese from war damage. By the end of the war, Blackpool was indeed relatively undamaged, and the bishop conceived the idea of building a thanksgiving chapel to commemorate this. It cost £50,000 (equivalent to £ in ), and many of the parishes in the diocese made a subscription. The land on which it is sited was given by William Eaves, a local builder, who left the plot of land between the Shrine and the Whinney Hays roundabout undeveloped to give the Shrine prominence on that approach to the town. Until the 1990s the Shrine was looked after by successive orders of

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 let ...

monks and nuns, among them the nuns of the Congregation of Adoration of Marie Reparatrice, and the Blessed Sacrament Fathers.

Architecture

The chapel is constructed in brick and concrete with a

Portland stone Portland stone is a limestone from the Tithonian stage of the Jurassic period quarried on the Isle of Portland, Dorset. The quarries are cut in beds of white-grey limestone separated by chert beds. It has been used extensively as a building ...

covering and has copper cladding to the roof and

flèche Flèche or Fleche may refer to: *Flèche (architecture), a type of church spire *Flèche (cycling), a team cycling competition *Flèche (fencing) The flèche is an aggressive offensive fencing technique used with foil and épée. Background ...

. The wide nave has four

bays A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a na ...

. At the west end there is a single-bay

narthex The narthex is an architectural element typical of early Christian and Byzantine basilicas and churches consisting of the entrance or lobby area, located at the west end of the nave, opposite the church's main altar. Traditionally the narth ...

, and at the east end is 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''. ...

forming the

sanctuary A sanctuary, in its original meaning, is a sacred place, such as a shrine. By the use of such places as a haven, by extension the term has come to be used for any place of safety. This secondary use can be categorized into human sanctuary, a sa ...

, and projecting

vestries A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquially ...

. In the west front are double doors, over which is a

low relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''wikt:relief, relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impres ...

of the

Holy Trinity The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God th ...

carved by David John. David John also designed the

pinnacle A pinnacle is an architectural element originally forming the cap or crown of a buttress or small turret, but afterwards used on parapets at the corners of towers and in many other situations. The pinnacle looks like a small spire. It was mainly ...

s at the corners of the building; these depict Our Lady of Lourdes appearing to

Saint Bernadette Bernadette Soubirous (; ; oc, Bernadeta Sobirós ; 7 January 184416 April 1879), also known as Saint Bernadette of Lourdes, was the firstborn daughter of a miller from Lourdes (''Lorda'' in Occitan), in the department of Hautes-Pyrénées in F ...

, Christ appearing to Saint Margaret Mary,

Saint Thomas of Canterbury Thomas Becket (), also known as Saint Thomas of Canterbury, Thomas of London and later Thomas à Becket (21 December 1119 or 1120 – 29 December 1170), was an English nobleman who served as Lord Chancellor from 1155 to 1162, and then ...

, and

Saint Edward the Confessor Edward the Confessor ; la, Eduardus Confessor , ; ( 1003 – 5 January 1066) was one of the last Anglo-Saxon English kings. Usually considered the last king of the House of Wessex, he ruled from 1042 to 1066. Edward was the son of Æthel ...

. On the sides rectangular panels of cast concrete glazing are filled with geometric patterns, their pink and pale blue glass giving good light to the interior. At the entrance to the building are York stone steps with splayed flanking walls. The interior arcades columns are clad in gold

mosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

. The ceiling is coloured blue, red and gold, with deep

coffering A coffer (or coffering) in architecture is a series of sunken panels in the shape of a square, rectangle, or octagon in a ceiling, soffit or vault. A series of these sunken panels was often used as decoration for a ceiling or a vault, also ...

around the light fittings and the floor of the body of the shrine is tiled. The

is raised and approached on

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite. Marble is typically not foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the term ''marble'' refers to metamorphose ...

steps through a round arch; its floor is travertine with mosaic panels. The altar rails are

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids suc ...

with an

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unit ...

design. The altar

reredos A reredos ( , , ) is a large altarpiece, a screen, or decoration placed behind the altar in a church. It often includes religious images. The term ''reredos'' may also be used for similar structures, if elaborate, in secular architecture, for e ...

was carved by David John.

Repair and future use

The shrine was

deconsecrated Deconsecration, also called secularization, is the act of removing a religious blessing from something that had been previously consecrated by a minister or priest of that religion. The practice is usually performed on churches or synagogues to ...

in 1993, and passed into the ownership of the

, a secular charity, in 2000, in a poor state and without an endowment. A £100,000 grant awarded by English Heritage assisted with urgent rescue repairs, completed in April 2008, dealing with the leaking copper roof and improving the rainwater disposal system. A larger sum will be needed to convert the building into a community centre and current fund-raising is focussed on re-installing electrical supplies, rendered unsafe by water ingress, and modern facilities. The

is actively seeking partners to use the space for events once repairs are complete.

References

External links

Twentieth Century Society
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blackpool, Our Lady of Lourdes Grade II* listed churches in Lancashire 20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United Kingdom Our Lady Churches preserved by the Historic Chapels Trust Structures on the Heritage at Risk register Roman Catholic shrines in the United Kingdom Roman Catholic churches completed in 1957 F. X. Velarde buildings

History

Architecture

Repair and future use

See also

References

Further reading

External links