Excellent start: rent-free house and gardens; sites for Aldeburgh & Leiston chapels secured. Need to check on conveyance restrictions and re-convey the buildings to Diocesan Trustees (suggested names: Bishop, Fr Delaney, Fr Hugh Parker, Fr Austin O'Sullivan), take your solicitor's advice. Model Trust Deed available. Leiston chapel seems cheap - but need to consider extension in the future, hence make the walls higher to avoid tunnel appearance. For maintenance, use Mission receipts, but in the intervening months Bishop would provide funds through the Poor Mission Fund (Canon Ashmole will send an application form).
Keating, William Frederick Rev (1859-1928)Leiston
6 Archive Record results for Leiston
Application for Poor Mission Fund, make it payable from 1st Jan. but not it is retrospective so first instalment will be April 1st. Restrictions on plots: Trust deeds to be kept in Diocesan safe. Cannot start building until you have half the money, Bishop will give a substantial donation. Hire Town Hall or similar to obtain a breathing space? Talk to your friend about his intentions for the house - do not risk reversion by being too precipitate - could make use of the chapel as a school or parochial hall.
Keating, William Frederick Rev (1859-1928)Possible pressure to be brought on the (wealthy) Chatham nuns to buy the property in Strood. Cannot guarantee attendance numbers but the Ursulines (still missed by people here) drew on Saxmundham, Leiston, Thorpe and Orford - so there could be between 20 and 50.
Davidson, Charles Madgwick Rev DD BAAs a new church has opened in Leiston, and, she is retiring to Norfolk, she wants a small cottage near a church. £700 offered for a small place near the sea, freehold, low rates, good chalet. Can the father help?
Hartley, K MrsHeaded "Short Report"
Aug 3 1919: Reading of Bishop's Letter
Sept 21: House Ellandene & land
Sept 22: Novena to the Little Flower to Sept 30
Sept 26: money for purchase of house & land; friend advancing money; rent-free; establish oratory?; house ceding to me in 3 years; workmen started
Sept 28: Land in Leiston (40ftx120ft); parishioners respond with funds; land conveyed Nov 7 1919
Oct 5: Leiston Altar Society started; Leiston Building Fund started (£37-7-6); Catechism Class to be held every Tuesday - Morelli letting room for class rent & light free. Aldeburgh: Appeal for Building Fund; Altar Society reorganised (£100-1-6); Children of Mary reorganised as parish sodality (12 members); Sunday school & choir practices instituted; Foundation of Guild of St Steven (10 members)
Oct 15: £60 given towards motorcycle for between Aldeburgh & Leiston
Nov 9: Norwich appeal
Nov 12: Promise for Leiston of vestments, ciborium, monstrance, Crib figures.
Text is:
Dear Friends, I an honoured and deeply grateful for having been invited to make this contribution to the "Church in Aldeburgh" on behalf of the Roman Catholic population. A feature of my stay in Aldeburgh apart from having many rather wonderful parishioners, is the kindness and friendliness of so many members of other churches, and a truly ecumenical situation.
We clergy too, enjoy a relationship proper to brothers in Christ. And now a few details of the Roman Catholic parish of Our Lady & St. Peter. It covers over 100 square miles and includes, Leiston, Saxmundham, Thorpness, Sizewell, Snape (part) and Yoxford. The parish was established in 1906. No doubt at that time Mass would be celebrated in private houses. Later the Oblate nuns established a convent school here in Suffolk House with a public chapel and later they were replaced by Sisters of Mercy at Eton House. According to our records in 1906 there were 24 Catholics and Sunday Mass attendance was 12. In 1914 it was 63 plus 42 Belgian refugees. In 1917 46 and 53 soldiers. At this time the Sunday collection averaged 9s 9d in Aldeburgh and l3s 5d in Leiston. The priest must have had a slender diet.
In 1924 the foundation stone of the present church on the Terrace was laid. The contract price was £2,298 - cash in hand £1,200. The first Mass was celebrated in the church in 1925.
In 1930 owing to seemingly incurable dampness, the altar was moved to the opposite end of the church. Towards the end of the war a bomb was dropped near the church blasting the presbytery and making a good excuse for the church tower to be demolished, as unsafe, Two extra bays were built and a side chapel opened in 1955; cost £4,000. Leiston has its own church All Saints, Seaward Avenue and a thriving community. It was built just over 25 years ago. Last year we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the laying of the foundation stone. A very welcome guest was Father Mcarten. He was chaplain to a very large number of Irish Catholics employed in building Sizewell A. He mustered a large contingent to help in building the church.