Roots

Roots Part. 1

Although this booklet specifically celebrates the first 25 years of Bushey and Oxhey’s first permanent Catholic church, this period cannot be separated from the previous 100 years during which a thriving Catholic community grew up in the area — a community which has provided the strong roots and firm foundation of the present church.

The parish of Bushey and Oxhey is claimed by some to be the mother’ church in the area. There is evidence, however, to show that the first efforts to polarise the Catholic community were centred in Watford and came from one Father George Bampfield, founder of the St Andrew’s Institute at Barnet. In a letter to the ‘Tablet” of 21 March 1863, he stated that ‘at Epping and at Watford … where Mass is said on weekdays, I wish to buy ground and have a Station Chapel. The cost of so opening each Mission need be at first only £300 or even less.” The following month, appealing for Catholics in the Watford area to come forward, he wrote in the same journal. “On my first two visits to Watford I discovered only 4 or 5 Catholics; on my third I hit upon the Catholic court in which were several families, but all so poor that I could not find a room sufficiently decent for the celebration of Mass. Since then others of a higher rank, seeing my circular in the papers, have written to me and hope shortly to renew the offering of the Holy Sacrifice in Watford.”

Roots Part. 2

By late September of the same year, Father Bampfield had made a significant achievement. He writes (again in the “Tablet) “I scarce know how to record with sufficient thankfulness that the efforts made to open a Mission at Watford have at last, by God’s blessing, proved successful. After many failures, we have been enabled to hire a house in which to celebrate the Holy Mysteries. I. hope to recommence the offering of the Holy Sacrifice, so long interrupted, on Sunday October 11th, the Feast of Our Lady’s Maternity, and in honour of her two-fold Maternity the Mission will be dedicated to the Sacred Heart of her child at Bethlehem and to the brother of the Sacred Heart, the son whom she bore in her painful travail at Calvary. . . The House is in Carey Place, about the centre of the High Street.”

The first Mass was duly celebrated on October 11 1863. A reporter recorded the occasion in the “Tablet”, claiming that this was the first Mass in the area for three hundred years. Referring to the opening of the Mission he says, “Various attempts have recently been made to procure a room at Watford, but until recently difficulties have arisen through the religious intolerance of the locality. At length, however, through the exertions of Mr Conlon, a Catholic gentleman, a house has been secured and the work commenced. There were above 60 persons present all, with one or two exceptions, being residents, a fact which shows the great necessity for providing church accommodation there.” The Catholic Directory of the following year lists for Watford “The Sacred Heart and St John the Evangelist, Carey Place (1863). Served from Waltham Cross.”

Roots Part. 3

A Jubilee edition of the West Herts and Watford Observer printed (in 1913) a feature entitled ‘Fifty Years of Catholicism in West Herts” by Dean Keating. The reprinted booklet of this article gives 1863 as the year in which Father Bampfield erected a small wooden chapel in Upper Paddock Road, Bushey, and claims this as the only place of worship for Catholics in Watford and West Herts for the 18 years that followed. Although the extracts from the “Tablet” quoted earlier appear to contradict this, it is certain that the chapel in Upper Paddock Road, the forerunner of Bushey’s present church, was in existence prior to 1887.

Tablets in that chapel show that Father Samuel Swanston ministered there he was rector/priest in charge at Watford in 1883 and he died in 1887. The chapel in Upper Paddock Road was built largely through the generosity of builder Mr Stephen Taprell Holland of Otterspool, a convert to Catholicism (he also endowed and built Holy Rood Church in Watford). The Upper Paddock Road chapel was of humble proportions. Known affectionately as “the little tin church” it is remembered as being cold in winter and hot in summer. It would seem that the chapel was originally served from Barnet, as was the private chapel in the Old House in the Rutts on Bushey Heath which was also available for worship to Catholics in Bushey during this period.

Roots Part. 4

By 1912, however, a resident priest, Father James Ryder, was appointed to Upper Paddock Road — ‘resident’ in this case appears to mean that he lived in ‘digs’ close to the chapel as there was no presbytery. Father Ryder enlarged the chapel and renewed the entrance and he was responsible for purchasing the original site on which the present Church is built, borrowing the money through Archbishop’s House.

In 1924 Father James O’Rafferty, described by parishioners as ‘an ebullient Irishman”, took over what was by then regarded as the temporary church in Upper Paddock Road. With great enthusiasm he set about raising funds to pay off the land-purchase debt and have the church building reconstructed and re-roofed (it leaked). He added an entrance porch and installed electricity to replace the paraffin lamps and provide a more efficient heating system. He installed three wooden altars and acquired an organ. Much of the church furniture, linen and accoutrements were refurbished, replaced or purchased for the first time by Father O’Rafferty, and many are still in use in the ‘new’ church the cruifix from the altar is used every Good Friday for the veneration of the Cross; the statue in the Lady Chapel is the one from the old church which had been brought back from Lourdes for the church by Mrs Mount.

One of Father O’Rafferty’s greatest allies in securing the necessary funds for his church was his good friend, singer John McCormack, who promised to match the contributions made by Father O’Rafferty’s parishioners.

Roots Part. 5

Writing in later years to his successor, Father Rigby, just before the present church was built, Father O’Rafferty recalls his reconditioning of Upper Paddock Road and the work he himself put into making the most of what he had. “I varnished and stained the wood interior walls of that church myself. . . I repainted again and again the three altars and their pedestals.”

Although he worked so hard to make his temporary church a worthy place of worship, Father O’Rafferty never tired of reminding his congregation that it mattered not at all whether they worshipped in “a bamboo hut in an African swamp or a cathedral”. During these years the parish priests continued to live — often very uncomfortably — in ‘digs’, visiting their congregation in their homes to undertake instruction and other functions of this kind. Father O’Rafferty later retired to Ireland where he celebrated his Diamond Jubilee in 1960.

In 1941 Father O’Rafferty was succeeded in Bushey by Father Stephen Rigby, who played a key role in the building of the present, permanent church detailed earlier in this booklet.

That church, as it celebrates its first 25 years, must recognise the tremendous debt of gratitude it owes to the dedication, enterprise. endeavour and generosity of those priests and parishioners of an earlier time whose work and sacrifices have made the present celebration possible

For further information about early Catholicism in Watford and the ” the little tin church” please see the history page of Holy Rood Church.

“I Remember…”

…. I will always remember the lovely parish community of Bushey, for they touched me and I have grown.
Freddie Frost, who worshipped at Upper Paddock Road. He died in 1915 at the age of 20 while on active service with the City of London Rifles.

…. Going to Benediction at the little tin church on Sunday afternoon after playing tennis we young girls were in our tennis things and it was not unknown for tennis balls to go rolling over the floor.

…. Father Rigby asking the sidesmen to escort from his church the parishioner who had loudly voiced his disagreement with the sermon.

…. Tramping over the fields in our Wellington boots and leaving them in the hedge before going into the little tin church.

…. The old stove which heated the church in Upper Paddock Road a huge black monster that had a chimney going up through the middle of the roof.

…. Singing Adeste Fidelis at Christmas in the little tin church that was bursting at the seams. celebrating the first Midnight Mass in the new church — without heating!

…. Mr Stephen Taprell Holland coming to Mass in the little tin church on Sundays in his groom-driven pony and trap. He sat in the front row on the right hand side and we children were amazed when he put a £1 note (a lot of money then) on the plate.

…. When Father Turner received a new Member into our present church one 10 o’clock Mass. The building was bursting with love that day.

…. Father O’Rafferty telling his parishioners it didn’t matter if you were baptised in a bowl or a Bentley (Bentley’ being the famous sculptor who has fashioned the new font at Holy Rood Church).

…. Wonderful mix of anticipation, belonging and contentment orchestrated under Father Turner’