St Paulinus Church

Now occupied by MTK Boxing Club how St Paulinus came into being is a very ordinary story. Two fields, adjoining the road leading from Tardy Gate corner to Brownedge, had been secured by Father Pozzi, O.S.B. the Rector of St. Mary’s Brownedge. Around and about, much scattered lived not quite two hundred Catholics – a sturdy band, never shirking the Sunday tramp, always found in their places in St. Mary’s, cherishing it as the home of their childhood years, within those hallowed walls they had received each Sacrament as youth ripened into adulthood.
They clung to St. Mary’s yet looking back at those plucky few, bolder because they did not realise the burden, thinking of the failing limbs of their older members, we cannot but admire their repeated appeals for a Church of their own at Tardy Gate, nor less the wonder at the generosity wherewith the Mother Church answered their appeal taking upon herself responsibility for over £2,000 debt.
The start was made in 1889, the contractor being Mr. C. Walker (R.I.P) of Preston. You must pardon us the fabulous stories yet current of the mighty foundations: they echo the rejoicings of the time. In due course came the foundation stone: un-inscribed, it bears a simple cross. Claiming to share the honest pride of their brethren, St. Mary’s silvery peal mingling with their joy, the flock at Brownedge swelled our little band; together they streamed forth from the Mother Church leading the Most Rev. Archbishop Scarisbrick, O.S.B., who laid the foundation stone. The walls rose too slowly for the impatient flock, yet by Christmas the simple and graceful designs of the Architect, Mr. C. Walker, of Newcastle-on-Tyne (now also of Liverpool), had taken material shape: a lofty main room 80ft by 80ft giving with a classroom a school accommodating 278 children, and they are surely coming. Artistic points are best noted by personal observation: guides will be in attendance on the 24th, 25th, 26th September. The opening was Lancashire, a feast and a merry reel: for the room was only a building, the school opened in the spring of 1890. To read more of St Paulinus, our first Church click here.