Dennis Williams
Gone but not forgotten
Re: Some great men of Birmingham..
Continuing on...and with grateful thanks for Aidan and the Thylacine once more for reprinting THEIR research and text...
Well having had had a good glimpse of the second Roman Catholic church built in Brum after the Reformation: St Peter's "near Broad Street" ...
St Mary Magdalene's church was built in Masshouse Lane (Dale End) by Father Leo Randolph OFM in 1687. The establishment was not only permitted by King James II's Declaration of Indulgence (1687), but also directly supported by the king's donation of 125 tuns of timber (worth £180) from Needwood Forest. Other generous donors included Mrs Anne Gregg (£250), Sir John Gage (£140 worth of timber) and the Dowager Queen Catherine (£10 5s). A cash equivalent of over £1,300 was raised from 342 subscribers. The cruciform chapel was 95 feet long by 33 feet wide, with a side isle dedicated to St Francis. It is described as follows: "built in neo-classical style [with] three altars, the high altar being adorned by four large pillars carved with Corinthian capitals". [Dargue] The foundation stone was laid by Fr Randolph on 23 March 1687, and an adjoining Franciscan convent was begun on 16 August 1688. The church was consecrated on 4 September 1688 by Bishop Bonaventure Giffard (1642-1734), Vicar Apostolic of the Midland District.
Unfortunately Fr Randolph's new church was destined to be the victim of British dynastic and religious politics. Catholic King James II was in the process of being replaced by his protestant nephew and son-in-law William of Orange, who would be installed as King William III. On 26 November 1688, just twelve weeks after its consecration, St Mary Magdalene's church in Masshouse Lane was destroyed by local protestant zealots. Let us read Fr Randolph's own account:
["Henry Booth, 1st Earl of Warrington" by John Smith after Sir Godfrey Kneller (circa 1684) NPG D30864]
Leo Randolph (circa 1620-1699) was of the Warwickshire landed gentry: the son of Ferrers Randolph, squire of Wood-Bevington. He entered the Franciscan order and was trained as a priest at the English College in Douai (Northern France). His religious name was Leo of St Mary Magdalene. His mission in the English Midlands began in 1657. These were dangerous times for Catholic priests in England. His colleague and associate Saint John Wall (1620-1679) was hanged, drawn and quartered at Red Hill near Worcester just for being a priest. Fr Randolph was given custody of the martyr's head, with the duty of ensuring its return to their alma mater in Douai. Fr Randolph kept a register of Catholic baptisms, marriages and deaths from the beginning of his mission. This register (described by nineteenth-century Catholic historian George Oliver as "the very best that I have seen") survives at the Oscott College Museum. Fr Randolph was later appointed Guardian of Coventry, a position he held until his death.
Can anyone find a good biography of this remarkable man ... a picture of him ...and I suppose a picture of St Mary Magdalene's in Masshouse Lane is out of the question ..?
Sources and Further Reading:
Links in text.
After the "rabble" did their deeds, "the poor priests found shelter at Harborne, where there is another Masshouse Lane, their "Masshouse" being a little further on in Pritchett's Lane, where for nearly a century the double work of conducting a school and ministering to their scattered Catholic flock was carried on, the next local place of worship built here being "St. Peters's Chapel," off Broad Street, erected about 1786. It is believed that St. Bartholomew's Church covers the site of the short-lived "Mass House." [Showell]
An acre of Birmingham's rural past is on offer with one of Edgbaston's oldest and most interesting houses, Masshouse at Pritchatts Road.
At the heart of the Calthorpe Estate, two miles from the city core, the property was at the centre of religious intrigue in the 17th century.
They were difficult times for local Catholics, no better for Prince Rupert's assault on Birmingham in 1643 when his 'devilish cavaliers' and 'popish traytors' repaid their cool welcome with some long-remembered rape and pillage.
After the Chapel of St Mary Magdalene in Masshouse Lane, Birmingham was destroyed in 1688, the Catholic refugees of the Franciscan mission needed shelter elsewhere. In the countryside just outside town at Edgbaston, they were offered sanctuary at a farm, recorded in the William Deeley map of 1701 as owned by a Richard Reeve. Clues to the original farm role lie in the Barn House of today, still part of the property and now redeveloped as a separate three bedroom home.
And a reminder of past secrecy is an old, curving, garden wall enclosing a courtyard close by. This tall structure is said to have been reduced in height by around five feet in 1932, meaning that the original was unusually high - ideal for protecting the activities at Masshouse Farm from prying eyes. It is said that the property was used for the undercover celebration of Mass for around 100 years before greater tolerance allowed the place to be openly referred to as Masshouse Farm.
The house holds on to many old features dating back to these interesting days, thanks to careful modernisation by successive owners. There is an inglenook in the dining room, some good fireplaces, panelled oak doors, exposed timbers and original cruck trusses, still visible on the second floor. The 18th century brought significant alteration of the older building to include some smart sash windows and a handsome frontage facing onto what is now Pritchatts Road. Standing in nearly an acre of private and properly mature gardens, the setting is much more country house than city living. And coupled with its rare historic provenance, the package on offer is not an everyday find. Newly on the market with Knight Frank's Birmingham office, Masshouse is available with its Barn House neighbour, outbuildings and grounds for around pounds 760,000. For another pounds 175,000, a buyer could secure the adjacent building plot of a quarter of an acre in the south west corner of the gardens and the chance to either develop or preserve. The main house has a three storey layout, its principal rooms at the front of the house with an interesting library at the rear, converted from original stabling. The former farm building that is now Barn House provides a three bedroom home with enough adjacent space for garaging, workshop, store and a private squash court. Interesting parts of the main house include a hall with chequer pattern stone floor and an oak staircase, a dining room featuring an internal window with old glass and doored recesses that were once bread ovens. The Long Hall links with the domestic areas and the library, more than 26ft by 14ft, open through two storeys to the roof trusses and now fitted with oak panelling, a fireplace and a tall arched window in the gable end. There is a drawing room with bay window and French door, a study with a period fireplace, cellars, cloakroom, larder and a well fitted kitchen breakfast room with an Aga cooker. Upstairs are five bedrooms, three bathrooms and a laundry room with big pottery sink. The former barn has been designed 'upside down' with sitting room and dining kitchen on the first floor off a galleried landing with iron balustrade. There is also a cloakroom and study bedroom on the upper level, two bedrooms and two bathrooms on the ground floor. The full size squash court has a viewing gallery, shower room, wc and even an electric squash ball warmer. The gardens are a leafy haven with courtyard, shrubberies, climbing plants including wisteria, a fish pool, lawns, summerhouse and mature trees including chestnut and hornbeam. " [Birmingham Post 2000]
Masshouse Farm, is here https://g.co/maps/3yeft and is usually given as No.6 but appears now to be No.5 as has probably been renumbered
PRITCHATTS ROAD 1. 5104 Edgbaston B15 No 6 (Mass Home) SP 08 SW 11/38 12.5.81 II GV 2. Late C17, altered. Timber-framed; brick; tiled hipped roof. Two storeys plus attic; 3 bays, the central one advance. Ground floor with central late C18 pedimented dooroaoe and single window left and right. Moulded brick band at first floor level. First floor with 3 windows. All windows sashes with glazing bars, but the windows on the right false. Dentilled eaves cornice. Later central attic window. On the right-hand return a modem canted bay window at ground floor level and a hipped dormer window in the roof. To the rear modern additions incorporating old material.
6 PRITCHATTS ROAD, Edgbastn B15 Outbuilding to the rear of No 6 (Mass House) SP 08 SW 11/39 18.5.81 II GV 1. C18. Timber-framed; brick; tiled roof with dentilled eaves cornice. Central broad, now blocked, ause de panier arch and a flight of steps to upper floor.
Does anyone have a copy of Deeley's 1701 map handy by any chance or a painting or some such when it was a functioning masshouse?
Continuing on...and with grateful thanks for Aidan and the Thylacine once more for reprinting THEIR research and text...
Well having had had a good glimpse of the second Roman Catholic church built in Brum after the Reformation: St Peter's "near Broad Street" ...
St Mary Magdalene's church was built in Masshouse Lane (Dale End) by Father Leo Randolph OFM in 1687. The establishment was not only permitted by King James II's Declaration of Indulgence (1687), but also directly supported by the king's donation of 125 tuns of timber (worth £180) from Needwood Forest. Other generous donors included Mrs Anne Gregg (£250), Sir John Gage (£140 worth of timber) and the Dowager Queen Catherine (£10 5s). A cash equivalent of over £1,300 was raised from 342 subscribers. The cruciform chapel was 95 feet long by 33 feet wide, with a side isle dedicated to St Francis. It is described as follows: "built in neo-classical style [with] three altars, the high altar being adorned by four large pillars carved with Corinthian capitals". [Dargue] The foundation stone was laid by Fr Randolph on 23 March 1687, and an adjoining Franciscan convent was begun on 16 August 1688. The church was consecrated on 4 September 1688 by Bishop Bonaventure Giffard (1642-1734), Vicar Apostolic of the Midland District.
Unfortunately Fr Randolph's new church was destined to be the victim of British dynastic and religious politics. Catholic King James II was in the process of being replaced by his protestant nephew and son-in-law William of Orange, who would be installed as King William III. On 26 November 1688, just twelve weeks after its consecration, St Mary Magdalene's church in Masshouse Lane was destroyed by local protestant zealots. Let us read Fr Randolph's own account:
- [The church] was first defaced, and most of it burnt within to near the value of £400, by the Lord Dellamer's order upon the 26 of November 1688, and the day sevennight following the rabble of Birmingham began to pull the Church and Convent down, and ceased not until they had pulled up the foundations. They sold the materials, of which many houses and parts of houses are built in the town of Birmingham, the townsmen of the better sort not resisting the rabble, but quietly permitting, if not prompting them to do it. [Showell (spelling modernised)]
["Henry Booth, 1st Earl of Warrington" by John Smith after Sir Godfrey Kneller (circa 1684) NPG D30864]
Leo Randolph (circa 1620-1699) was of the Warwickshire landed gentry: the son of Ferrers Randolph, squire of Wood-Bevington. He entered the Franciscan order and was trained as a priest at the English College in Douai (Northern France). His religious name was Leo of St Mary Magdalene. His mission in the English Midlands began in 1657. These were dangerous times for Catholic priests in England. His colleague and associate Saint John Wall (1620-1679) was hanged, drawn and quartered at Red Hill near Worcester just for being a priest. Fr Randolph was given custody of the martyr's head, with the duty of ensuring its return to their alma mater in Douai. Fr Randolph kept a register of Catholic baptisms, marriages and deaths from the beginning of his mission. This register (described by nineteenth-century Catholic historian George Oliver as "the very best that I have seen") survives at the Oscott College Museum. Fr Randolph was later appointed Guardian of Coventry, a position he held until his death.
Can anyone find a good biography of this remarkable man ... a picture of him ...and I suppose a picture of St Mary Magdalene's in Masshouse Lane is out of the question ..?
Sources and Further Reading:
Links in text.
- Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham s v "Masshouse Lane".
"Religious History: Roman Catholicism" in A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 7: The City of Birmingham (1964) pp 397-402.
William Dargue's History of Birmingham on Your Doorstep (pgdiparchitecture09-10.wikispaces.com/file/view/BhamHistory.doc downloads a 4.5 Mb MS Word file).
Dom Bede Camm's Forgotten Shrines (London: MacDonald and Evans, 1910) Chapter 10 "A Franciscan Apostle, His Home and His Flock" on John Wall and his milieu.
George Oliver's Collections, Illustrating the History of the Catholic Religion (London: Dolman, 1857) page 564 (footnote).
After the "rabble" did their deeds, "the poor priests found shelter at Harborne, where there is another Masshouse Lane, their "Masshouse" being a little further on in Pritchett's Lane, where for nearly a century the double work of conducting a school and ministering to their scattered Catholic flock was carried on, the next local place of worship built here being "St. Peters's Chapel," off Broad Street, erected about 1786. It is believed that St. Bartholomew's Church covers the site of the short-lived "Mass House." [Showell]
An acre of Birmingham's rural past is on offer with one of Edgbaston's oldest and most interesting houses, Masshouse at Pritchatts Road.
At the heart of the Calthorpe Estate, two miles from the city core, the property was at the centre of religious intrigue in the 17th century.
They were difficult times for local Catholics, no better for Prince Rupert's assault on Birmingham in 1643 when his 'devilish cavaliers' and 'popish traytors' repaid their cool welcome with some long-remembered rape and pillage.
After the Chapel of St Mary Magdalene in Masshouse Lane, Birmingham was destroyed in 1688, the Catholic refugees of the Franciscan mission needed shelter elsewhere. In the countryside just outside town at Edgbaston, they were offered sanctuary at a farm, recorded in the William Deeley map of 1701 as owned by a Richard Reeve. Clues to the original farm role lie in the Barn House of today, still part of the property and now redeveloped as a separate three bedroom home.
And a reminder of past secrecy is an old, curving, garden wall enclosing a courtyard close by. This tall structure is said to have been reduced in height by around five feet in 1932, meaning that the original was unusually high - ideal for protecting the activities at Masshouse Farm from prying eyes. It is said that the property was used for the undercover celebration of Mass for around 100 years before greater tolerance allowed the place to be openly referred to as Masshouse Farm.
The house holds on to many old features dating back to these interesting days, thanks to careful modernisation by successive owners. There is an inglenook in the dining room, some good fireplaces, panelled oak doors, exposed timbers and original cruck trusses, still visible on the second floor. The 18th century brought significant alteration of the older building to include some smart sash windows and a handsome frontage facing onto what is now Pritchatts Road. Standing in nearly an acre of private and properly mature gardens, the setting is much more country house than city living. And coupled with its rare historic provenance, the package on offer is not an everyday find. Newly on the market with Knight Frank's Birmingham office, Masshouse is available with its Barn House neighbour, outbuildings and grounds for around pounds 760,000. For another pounds 175,000, a buyer could secure the adjacent building plot of a quarter of an acre in the south west corner of the gardens and the chance to either develop or preserve. The main house has a three storey layout, its principal rooms at the front of the house with an interesting library at the rear, converted from original stabling. The former farm building that is now Barn House provides a three bedroom home with enough adjacent space for garaging, workshop, store and a private squash court. Interesting parts of the main house include a hall with chequer pattern stone floor and an oak staircase, a dining room featuring an internal window with old glass and doored recesses that were once bread ovens. The Long Hall links with the domestic areas and the library, more than 26ft by 14ft, open through two storeys to the roof trusses and now fitted with oak panelling, a fireplace and a tall arched window in the gable end. There is a drawing room with bay window and French door, a study with a period fireplace, cellars, cloakroom, larder and a well fitted kitchen breakfast room with an Aga cooker. Upstairs are five bedrooms, three bathrooms and a laundry room with big pottery sink. The former barn has been designed 'upside down' with sitting room and dining kitchen on the first floor off a galleried landing with iron balustrade. There is also a cloakroom and study bedroom on the upper level, two bedrooms and two bathrooms on the ground floor. The full size squash court has a viewing gallery, shower room, wc and even an electric squash ball warmer. The gardens are a leafy haven with courtyard, shrubberies, climbing plants including wisteria, a fish pool, lawns, summerhouse and mature trees including chestnut and hornbeam. " [Birmingham Post 2000]
Masshouse Farm, is here https://g.co/maps/3yeft and is usually given as No.6 but appears now to be No.5 as has probably been renumbered
PRITCHATTS ROAD 1. 5104 Edgbaston B15 No 6 (Mass Home) SP 08 SW 11/38 12.5.81 II GV 2. Late C17, altered. Timber-framed; brick; tiled hipped roof. Two storeys plus attic; 3 bays, the central one advance. Ground floor with central late C18 pedimented dooroaoe and single window left and right. Moulded brick band at first floor level. First floor with 3 windows. All windows sashes with glazing bars, but the windows on the right false. Dentilled eaves cornice. Later central attic window. On the right-hand return a modem canted bay window at ground floor level and a hipped dormer window in the roof. To the rear modern additions incorporating old material.
6 PRITCHATTS ROAD, Edgbastn B15 Outbuilding to the rear of No 6 (Mass House) SP 08 SW 11/39 18.5.81 II GV 1. C18. Timber-framed; brick; tiled roof with dentilled eaves cornice. Central broad, now blocked, ause de panier arch and a flight of steps to upper floor.
Does anyone have a copy of Deeley's 1701 map handy by any chance or a painting or some such when it was a functioning masshouse?
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