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Welcome to the “Hallam News” Website of the Diocese of Hallam

The “Hallam News” is the official newspaper of the Diocese of Hallam.  It is published monthly and contains news and views from around the area. 

It is delivered to every parish and is available free of charge, usually on the fourth Sunday of the month. 

On this site you will find details of who’s who, how to send in news of your events or stories of local people.  There are also details of how to contact us, our deadlines and a form to help you send in details electronically.  If you need help in writing there are a set of guidelines on how to write a press release.

Additional Articles, not published in Hallam News

A HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHAPEL AT HATHERSAGE 

The celebratory Mass held at St Michael the Archangel Church, Hathersage on 25th June, 2006 was to mark the 200th anniversary of the building of the second chapel in 1806.  Bishop John and Bishop McMann, together with Fr Bessler, Fr Jeffrey and parish priest, Fr Anthony Burke, concelebrated the Mass. 

Some of the parishioners suggested to Fr Burke that it might be a nice idea to present a short history of the church during the Mass.  The text draws heavily on work published by Mrs Barbara Smith on the history of St Michael’s.  It was read by six parishioners.

Today we are celebrating the two hundredth anniversary of the Catholic Chapel at Hathersage, or as we know it now, the Church of St Michael the Archangel.  Yet, the building we see now rose out of the ashes of a previous church built 115 years before. So, what went wrong?  

To be a Catholic, or a recusant, as they were known after the Reformation, was a dangerous thing.  People would carry their faith quietly in their hearts, meet and pray secretly with trusted fellow Catholics, and, most dangerously of all, lodge and hide priests, usually trained and ordained in France, in their homes.  They would baptise their children and bury their dead at night, for it was safer to do so then. 

We know the price one family had to pay for harbouring priests.  John Fitzherbert of Padley Manor just a few miles from here, was found to be housing 2 priests.  The priests, Nicholas Garlick and Robert Ludlam, were hanged, drawn and quartered at Derby in 1588.  John was imprisoned for the rest of his life, as was his brother Sir Thomas, and for a while, John’s daughter, Matilda. 

Matilda returned to her family and beloved High Peak.  She and her husband, Thomas Barley, lived at their farm Nether Hirst, not far from here on the way to Sheffield.  The Barley’s house became a Mass Centre for Hathersage and the surrounding area, especially after the closure of Padley.  What a brave woman Matilda was, how strong her faith, being prepared to risk it all a second time, and then to be buried on a cold February night in 1630 with no stone to mark her final resting place. 

There must have been great joy amongst the Catholic community when their champion King James II came to the throne in 1685.  At last they could raise their heads above the parapet so to speak, and it was at this time that a local man, Adam Furniss, gave, in trust, the land for the building of the Catholic Chapel.  The deeds were signed in 1691 by Adam, William and Thomas Furniss; father, son and grandson, and the Catholic Chapel opened its doors on June 24th 1692.  What a joyful occasion that must have been.  The community even had a priest, Bueno Anderton.  We are uncertain where he lived, as at that time there was no building other than the Chapel.  He obviously cared enough about his community to stay on until his death some 32 years later, having witnessed the tragic destruction of the Chapel some 3 months after it was built.  What had happened? 

In 1688 King James had been deposed from his throne and fled to France after his short reign, and the Hathersage Catholic community had lost its protector amongst all the political, social and religious upheaval of that time.  A letter written by Jane Hobson, the grand-daughter of Adam Furniss describes the event.  I quote, “During the time Bueno Anderton was priest, the Chapel was attacked and partly demolished by a Protestant mob, leaving only ruined walls standing in the Furniss field.” 

So, the Chapel was gone, and the Catholics had to lie low for another 100 years before their Chapel could be re-built and rise out of the ashes like the phoenix.  What happened during those 100 years? 

Barbara Smith, in her “History of the Catholic Chapel at Hathersage”, called these 100 years “The Middle Years”.  Penal laws against Catholics were still in force, and priests had to move about incognito, though they were not as vigorously pursued as before.  Everyone knew that priests were holding services in Hathersage, even though they may not have been living in the village, but by-and-large they were left alone in the protection of their parishioners.  So it was for Thomas Wilson who left France in 1738 for the English Mission as it was called, to serve the Hathersage community for 40 years.  But his ministry was not always a quiet and safe one.  When all Catholics were suspected of being sympathetic to the Jacobite Cause during all the political upheavals of the 18th Century, he and some other Catholics were imprisoned for 14 months in 1745, the time of the Jacobite Rising, in York Castle on suspicion of high treason.

We have a record of only 4 priests who were in charge of our Chapel during those 100 years, but what happened in the years when there was no-one?  Did the Catholics of Hathersage meet in secret and say their prayers and sing their hymns without any priest to officiate?  At times this was probably so, but there were Pedlar Priests who travelled the country incognito.  We do not know their names or how long they stayed but we do know that the flame of the faith of the Hathersage Chapel did not go out. 

It fell upon William Southworth to see in the new dawning of our Chapel after the Act of Relief of 1791 during the reign of King George 111 which removed certain disabilities for Catholics.  William arrived a few years before the Act and lived in a “common lodging house” at the bottom of the Dale, where Mass was said.  He did not waste any time and in the same year went to the Quarter Sessions at Bakewell and petitioned the court to make record of his name and register two Chapels, one at Whiston near Tideswell in the house of Elizabeth Charlton, and the other at Hathersage. 

The legislation of 1791 was a watershed for Catholic life in England and made a new beginning possible.  A start had to be made with providing a Church at Hathersage and a house for the priest.  Work commenced on the Church in 1798, and the priest’s house a year later, and it fell to the priest Edward Eyre to co-ordinate the work for the next 20 years.  The land on which it was built was a gift of the Furniss family as we have seen and its reappearance from the ruins of the original Chapel was made possible by a legacy in the will of Thomas Eyre, the wealthy squire of Hassop.  The Chapel was re-opened on the 24th July 1806.  What sort of occasion would it have been? 

It was one of great joy for the people of Hathersage and surrounding area.  Edward Eyre had been officially appointed as parish priest in 1804 and he received a letter from his brother, Thomas, two months before the official opening.  He wrote, “I most earnestly request dear brother Edward that you have no carousing at your opening of your Chapel.  I cannot but view it in a very indecent light if any invitations are made; it had better be to come and spend a forty hours prayer before the Blessed Sacrament: besides you little know how those very people you injudiciously invite from Sheffield make you the subject of their laughter and contempt.”  This very same Thomas Eyre was the first President of Ushaw College. 

Interestingly the bell turret was only added on some 75 years later and we still have the receipt for £14.1s.3d from the Bell Foundry at Loughborough. 

Edward Eyre was a “gentleman” in a very Victorian sort of way.  He was a well-bred and educated man.  His father was steward to the Duke of Norfolk, and after his education in France he became chaplain to the Bishop in Staffordshire and eventually returned to his home ground.  He obviously made a great impression on a certain Mary Sterndale who wrote about him in her book, “Vignettes of Derbyshire”.  While walking in Hathersage curiosity got the better of her and a companion and they walked up the path towards the church just as you would have done today.  I quote from Mary’s book, “a venerable figure was standing with a large open book in his hand.  He advanced to meet us and showed us the interior of his Chapel and then his garden.  He permitted the good women of the village to fill their tea kettles because there is no water else that makes such good tea, besides it being more wholesome.  From the garden he took us into his house … where we unhesitatingly accepted his truly hospitable fare.  It is well he did not persuade us to become Catholics for his manners and address were irresistible”. 

George Jinks was the assistant to Edward Eyre and eventually took over as parish priest and felt very strongly about Catholic education.  He had the stone building against the outer wall of the church grounds built as a Sunday School and Library, in addition to the coach house which is now the garage.  The year was 1825.  The school rules were enlightened and frightening at the same time. 

Rule 3 said, “As kind and gentle treatment is the best method of instilling good and religious principles into the tender minds of young children, all corporal punishment and unfeeling degradation shall be discarded; except on the most urgent occasions, when the parents shall be consulted”. 

However Rule 4 stated, “If any child after two or three severe castigations should prove incorrigible, he shall be dismissed; and never again admitted, until he shall have repaired the scandal by a marked reformation of conduct, and begged public pardon before all the children on his knees”. 

The school also functioned as a library which was to house “books of a pious and religious tendency”, and Heaven help anyone who broke the rules!!! 

Out of this very simple school building developed a day school some 21 years later which moved into a new building in Jaggers Lane in 1864.  It took another 90 years before the school moved once again into another converted building, just across the road.  The building had been a Wesleyan Chapel, a military base in the last war and a small factory for tool makers.  The Catholic school eventually closed in 1984 and became the Field Study Centre we now know.

What else might you have wondered as you walked about this church in its lovely setting?  The church bell, which had remained silent for many years, rang once more 14 years ago when we celebrated the 300th anniversary of the building of the first chapel.  The replacement flag pole was erected for the same occasion. 

The Wayside Shrine in memory of the war dead was erected on the site of the old purgatory cross.  The remains of the old purgatory cross were discovered in 1909 by Canon Busch while clearing up the neglected garden.  He wrote in his diary, “in the churchyard I found the remains of a stone cross around which it was customary in penal times …. to take the corpse of the deceased before its interment, in order to its more speedy release from Purgatory”.  A handsome wrought iron lamp was first installed there. 

And finally the name.  This church was known as the Catholic Chapel at Hathersage until 1852 when it fell under the jurisdiction of the newly formed Diocese of Nottingham, and was henceforth called the Church of St Michael the Archangel. 

So much for the Church and its surrounds that we can see, but the memory of the hopes and dreams, the pains and joys, the prayers and sacrifices of so many people gone before us, for whom this small church meant so much, fills the air around us, and leads us on our own heaven-ward journey.