Our Lady Star Of The Sea Church, Lowestoft
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Our Lady Star of the Sea 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 ...
Parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...
in
Lowestoft Lowestoft ( ) is a coastal town and civil parish in the East Suffolk (district), East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer Map OL40: The Broads: (1:25 000) : . As the List of extreme points of the United Kingdom, most easterly UK se ...
,
Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...
. It is situated on Gordon Road in the centre of the town. It was founded by the Diocese of Northampton in 1881 and it is now administered by the
Diocese of East Anglia The Diocese of East Anglia () is a Latin diocese of the Catholic Church covering the counties of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Peterborough in eastern England. The diocese makes up part of the Catholic Association Pilgrimage. Statisti ...
. The church is in the
Arts and Crafts style The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the Decorative arts, decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and ...
. The architects were George Baines and F.W. Richards, and it is a Grade II listed building. It is the most easterly Catholic parish church in the British Isles.Our Lady Star of the Sea, Lowestoft
from SuffolkChurches.co.uk, retrieved 20 July 2018


History


Foundation

From 1867, the Catholic community in Lowestoft was served by a
Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...
mission Mission (from Latin 'the act of sending out'), Missions or The Mission may refer to: Geography Australia *Mission River (Queensland) Canada *Mission, British Columbia, a district municipality * Mission, Calgary, Alberta, a neighbourhood * ...
from St Mary's Church, Great Yarmouth. The small Catholic population worshipped in rooms hired in three different buildings in Lowestoft until a permanent chapel was established in a net loft in 1881, when the diocesan parish was founded under the leadership of Apostolic Missionary, Fr. Geoffrey Brennan. However, the chapel became too small to accommodate the increasing
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 ...
, and under a new priest Fr. Alexander Scott, fundraising was started in order that a larger location could be bought.History
from OurLadyLowestoft.com, retrieved 20 July 2018


Construction

Construction of the church began in August 1900 when the foundation stone was laid. The architects were from the local area: George Baines and F. W. Richards. They designed the church in the
Arts and Crafts style The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the Decorative arts, decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and ...
. George Baines was born in 1852 and started work in Great Yarmouth. Although most of the churches he designed were for the
Baptists Baptists are a Christian denomination, denomination within Protestant Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by complete Immersion baptism, immersion. Baptist churches ge ...
, he also designed churches for other denominations. F. W. Richards had his practice on Stanley Street, Lowestoft, and also designed the Primitive Methodist Chapel in
Oulton Broad Oulton Broad refers to both the lake and the suburb of Lowestoft, Suffolk, England. The suburb is located west of the centre of Lowestoft. It became a civil parish in 2017. It had an estimated population of 10,338 at the 2011 United Kingdom cen ...
, Suffolk. On 5 June 1902, the church was opened and it hosted its first
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 ...
.


Developments

On 13 March 1976 the Diocese of Northampton split into two dioceses, continuing in the west as Northampton and in the east as a new Diocese of East Anglia with Lowestoft still the easternmost parish in the land. In 2017, the church received £25,400 from the
Heritage Lottery Fund The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom. History The fund's predecessor bodies were ...
, this was to help repair the exterior of the church building.


Parish

St Nicholas' Church in
Pakefield Pakefield is a suburb of the town of Lowestoft, in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England. It is located around south of the centre of the town. It 2011 the ward had a population of 6,563. Pakefield has boundaries with Carlton Colvill ...
is in the same
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 ...
as Our Lady Star of the Sea Church and is a Grade II listed building.Roman Catholic Church of St Nicholas, Pakefield
from British Listed Buildings, retrieved 20 July 2018
From 1955, there was a
chapel of ease A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a church architecture, church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently, generally due to trav ...
to Our Lady Star of the Sea Church in a former billiards hall. However, in 1995, the church bought a disused
congregationalist church Congregationalism (also Congregational Churches or Congregationalist Churches) is a Reformed Christian (Calvinist) tradition of Protestant Christianity in which churches practice congregational government. Each congregation independently a ...
originally called South Cliff Congregational Church. The former congregationalist church was also designed by George Baines and F. W. Richards and in the Arts and Crafts style. The foundation stone of the church was laid on 8 May 1902, a month before Our Lady Star of the Sea Church opened, and construction was paid for by
Sir Jeremiah Colman ''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist in French only as part o ...
. Some time after 1961, when the church was renamed Pakefield United Reformed Church, the church closed. In 1995, the Catholic community in Lowestoft bought the church from the
United Reformed Church The United Reformed Church (URC) is a Protestant Christian church in the United Kingdom. As of 2024 it had approximately 44,000 members in around 1,250 congregations with 334 stipendiary ministers. The URC is a Trinitarian church whose theolog ...
. On 11 August 1995, an
ecumenical Ecumenism ( ; alternatively spelled oecumenism)also called interdenominationalism, or ecumenicalismis the concept and principle that Christians who belong to different Christian denominations should work together to develop closer relationships ...
ceremony took place that involved the handing over of a Gospel book from the United Reformed Church to the Catholic community.St Nicholas' Church
from SuffolkChurches.co.uk, retrieved 20 July 2018
Our Lady Star of the Sea Church has two Sunday Masses at 5:00pm on Saturday and at 10:30am on Sunday. St Nicholas' Church has its Sunday Mass at 9:00am.


See also

*
Society of Jesus The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rome. It was founded in 1540 ...
*
Diocese of East Anglia The Diocese of East Anglia () is a Latin diocese of the Catholic Church covering the counties of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Peterborough in eastern England. The diocese makes up part of the Catholic Association Pilgrimage. Statisti ...


References


External links

*
Our Lady Star of the Sea Parish site

Our Lady Star of the Sea Church
from Catholic Directory. {{Former Jesuit Places in Britain Our Lady Star of the Sea Roman Catholic churches in Suffolk Grade II listed churches in Suffolk Roman Catholic churches completed in 1902 Grade II listed Roman Catholic churches in England 1900 establishments in England Arts and Crafts architecture in England 20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United Kingdom Parishes of the Catholic Church in the United Kingdom