Our Lady of Lourdes, Haworth

Our Lady of Lourdes, the first Catholic church in Haworth, was built in 1925 and is a relative newcomer to church scene in the worth valley. Prior to this date Catholics would travel to the older churches in Keighley to attend mass. During the first world war when fuel was rationed it made more sense for the priest to travel to his flock and mass was regularly conducted in an upstairs room of a draper’s shop on Mill Hey, belonging to the Pedley family. In 1922 the Haworth parish was founded and Haworth gained its first resident priest, Father Jeremiah Twomey who moved into the newly acquired presbytery, a former gentleman’s residence on Ebor Lane (next door to the church). An appeal for funds quickly raised enough money to build a church and in 1924 the foundation stones were laid by the Bishop of Leeds and a local donor.

Inside it is hard to imagine the church is less than a century old. Wooden pews face a stained glass window beneath which is the altar, donated from St Paulinus in Dewsbury, so may have links with EW Pugin, the well known ecclesiastical architect who designed that church. There is a beautiful 1920’s hand carved statue of the immaculate conception commissioned from a company in the Tyrol. The church has generous grounds (formally the tennis courts of the gentlemen’s residence) which it uses for summer events and barbecues. The Our Lady of Lourdes grotto was created in the 1950’s and dedicated in a grand open air service lead by Bishop Heenan, who later became the Archbishop of Westminster.

Our Lady of Lourdes is the Catholic parish church for an area stretching up to Cullingworth and Denholme. The congregation grew in the middle of the twentieth century as Irish girls were enticed over to England to work in the mills and factories. Living away from their families in hostels, the parish provided sporting events and parties to keep them entertained, as well as a minibus to bring them to mass on Sundays. Today Our Lady of Lourdes has a thriving congregation, some of whom are second and third generation offspring of these young girls who married local men and stayed in the area.

The Parish is twinned with the Parish of St Joseph, Matli in Pakistan and supports a TB outreach programme there.