Our Lady and St Rose of Lima Birmingham West Midlands

Our Lady and St Rose of Lima welcomes Christians and those who seek to connect to Christianity in the Birmingham area.

We aim to make contact with and encourage others to join us in our life-changing Christian journey.

We are a friendly Christian community where we welcome others to join us in our worship and service to God.

Our vision is to make an impact for God, here in Birmingham, West Midlands by helping people understand the enriching messages of eternal hope given to us by Jesus Christ through His words and deeds.

Everyone is welcome, no matter your age, beliefs, or background. Come just as you are - we'd love to get to know you better.

 

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The creation of the parish of Our Lady and Saint Rose of Lima, Weoley Castle, was a direct result of the development of the Weoley Castle housing estate by Birmingham City Council between the first and second world wars. The site of the estate, which was to be a new home for families cleared from the slums of the city, was purchased for development in 1929. Four years later, in January 1933, a meeting was held at Princethorpe Road Council School to organise a new parish for the Catholic residents of Weoley Castle, many of whom had moved out of the city from Ladywood and from the parish of St. Peter’s, Broad Street. Convened by Father W. P. Bull of St. Edward’s, Selly Park, and supported by the St. Vincent de Paul (SVP) Conference from St. Edward’s parish, it was decided to hire a bus in order to transport Catholic children from Weoley Castle to St. Edward’s School in Raddlebarn Road, Selly Park. Furthermore, from April 1933, Father William F. Gardner, the first priest of the fledgling parish, began to say Mass each Sunday at Princethorpe Road Council School.

In September 1933, the foundation stone of a Catholic parish hall was laid in Weoley Park Road and the new building was in use as a Mass centre from Christmas 1933. The site had been donated by Colonel and Mrs. F. Smith, who also gave the site for a parish school to be built in Gregory Avenue, together with a donation of £2,000 - a sum that helped to cover the £1,800 needed to build the new parish hall.

Significantly, the Smiths were not Catholics, but they were wealthy and well-disposed, and were indebted to Father Gardner who had been most supportive during their daughter’s ill health and subsequent untimely death from tuberculosis. As a tribute to the Smiths, the new parish was named after Saint Rose of Lima, an unusual patron saint for an English parish, but it was the first name of the Smiths’ daughter, Rhoda (the Greek for Rose). To this day, no other parish church in the United Kingdom is dedicated to Saint Rose.

The rapid development of the parish continued apace. In October 1935, the building of a new and substantial school for more than 200 children commenced. Completed in 1936 at a cost of more than £6,000, the formal opening of the school in September ended the practice of bussing local children to schools in the adjoining parishes of St. Edward’s, Selly Park, and Ss. Joseph and Helen, Kings Norton. The new school was run by the Holy Child Sisters and its first headmistress was the capable, not to say formidable, Mother Maria Mercedes. Having already outgrown the parish hall in Weoley Park Road, the growing congregation was able to make use of the school hall as a temporary chapel, the hall being equipped with a sanctuary and sacristies. To complete the parochial infrastructure, work on a presbytery commenced in 1938 and was completed in 1940 (the first parish priest, Father Gardner, had been obliged to live in a local convent and, later, in private lodgings in the parish).

After the opening of the school, Father Gardner was replaced by Canon Hodgson (1938-41), whose successors were Father George Adams (1941-47), Father Guy Colman (1947-52), Father Charles O’Reilly (1952-1988), Father Gerard Kelly (1988-2000), Father Andrew Foster (2000-8), Father David Standen (2008-9), Father Patrick Udoma (2009-10 ) and, currently, Fr Gary Buckby (2010-).

Following the remarkable growth of the parish in its first twenty years, the need for a proper parish church was keenly felt. Therefore, with parish debt paid off by 1951, moves were made to remedy the deficiency and, in February 1952, Archbishop Joseph Masterson donated £200 towards a new church building fund at the parish’s bazaar. This event inaugurated several years of strenuous fundraising involving many outdoor collections. Although Father O’Reilly had in mind ‘a small church’ costing in the region of £50,000 and seating around 350, the new church, which was built adjacent to the school, transpired to be a much grander project. Built to accommodate nearly 500, it was designed by Adrian Gilbert Scott, one of the most famous architects of his day (in fact, at the time of its construction it was the only example of his work in the Midlands). Built of expensive Brockley brick and of several varieties of stone quarried near Banbury, with Italian marble used in the construction of the High Altar and the Lady Chapel Altar. Many of the wooden fixtures and fittings are of Burma teak. The cost on completion eventually ran to nearly £75,000 - a far cry from the early parish hall on Weoley Park Road. However, early visitors were suitably impressed, remarking how the church had been ‘designed to look attractive from every angle’ and how, situated ‘at a corner of a tree-lined village green’ it possessed ‘something of the spirit of old England’. The foundation stone was laid on 18th July 1959, and the new church was solemnly blessed by Archbishop Francis Grimshaw on Whit Monday, 1961.

It should be remembered that in 1954 Mass was also celebrated by Father Charles O’Reilly at Adams Hill School, Bartley Green, prior to his founding St. Peter’s parish in that district. Fifty years later, the two parishes were united again when Father Andrew Foster was asked to serve both Our Lady & St. Rose of Lima and St. Peter’s parishes.

Despite its modest beginnings and limited means, since 1933 the parish of Our Lady and Saint Rose of Lima, Weoley Castle, has been the home of a vibrant Catholic community, recently enriched by an infusion of parishioners from Africa, India and the Philippines. In addition to maintaining a thriving and successful Catholic school, it has produced several vocations to the priesthood, and a number of Catholic organisations have all taken root in the parish, including an SVP conference, a branch of the Legion of Mary, and the Guild of St. Stephen. Furthermore, events such as parish dances, pilgrimages, and the summer and Christmas fairs remain popular fixtures in the parish calendar. Over the decades, the success of these and similar events financed the building of a new parish hall during Father Kelly’s time as parish priest, and the substantial reduction of what was once a vast building debt. These achievements mark the perseverance, generosity, and faith, of generations of parishioners in Weoley Castle.