Introduction
Introduction, Foundation of the parish, The church, The presbytery, The clergy, Parish, Congregation, Spiritual, Education, Social and economic, Some notable events, Acknowledgements
When my wife, family and I moved from Surrey to County Durham some 20 years ago, we were fortunate to come to live in the village of Gainford. Not least among its many attractions is that, for the first time in our married life, we live within two or three minutes’ walk of a Catholic church, and a beautiful church at that.
In recent years, two things stirred my curiosity about the history of the church and parish which, although large in area, is numerically one of the smallest in the Diocese. When the presbytery was left empty in 1987, at the request of Mgr Nichols I took into safe custody anything of an archival nature, the perusal of which I found extremely interesting. Also, being closely involved with the work carried out to the church in 1990, I was intrigued by physical evidence of earlier changes and the realisation of how wrong is the impression so many of us have, particularly of the interior of churches, of a feeling of changelessness and that “as things have been, they should remain”.
These factors set me off delving into the background of the church and parish and, though neither historian nor author, I thought it might be appropriate to put into print for the benefit of others the outcome of my research. In so doing I have attempted to extend the history beyond the limits of church and clergy to which so many parish histories are confined, and to include elements of and, I hope, a ‘feel’ for the religious, parochial, social and economic life of the times. In the course of this, conclusions have been drawn and trends suggested on what is sometimes scanty evidence. Hopefully these are broadly correct, but I would not ‘go bail’ on the accuracy of every single one.
I hope that those who read this history will find as much interest in and as much pleasure from it as I have had in its preparation.
C J Towers, Gainford, March 1992
