The St Marie’s Heritage Group are pleased to announce that, by popular demand, we will be making available the St Marie’s Parish “Notice Books” once again for inspection and discussion.

The notices were read out to the congregation at the end of Mass and are in effect the modern equivalent of a parish newsletter. These books are a rich source of parish and social history, particularly during the war years and significant events in the churches history. You’ll also find Marriage Banns and notices of parishioners who are sick, lately dead and anniversaries. No doubt, you will find references to your family if they belonged to St Marie’s Parish. The periods that we have available are 1865 – 1867; 1870 – 1873; 1890 -1927 and 1940 – 1980.

In addition to the church notice books we are also very excited to be unveiling the newly restored Pieta at 2.15pm. We hope you can join us.

I’m sure everyone will be pleased to know that the repair to the Pieta is coming along. The statue is being repaired by a long established company called Lewis & Lewis and they have also recently carried out work at St Bede’s church in Widnes. Jeanette and David, who are carrying out the work have been kind enough to send photographs showing the progress that is being made. The first photo is interesting as it shows the original colour of Mary’s gown as the statue has been rubbed down to reveal this darker colour.

We will be holding an event in St Marie’s on Saturday 14th June at 2.00pm to 4.00pm where we will be displaying the church notice books and also unveiling the restored Pieta. All are welcome to attend and there will be the usual free tea, coffee and biscuits. We hope you can join us.

We recently had some bad news when the Pieta (the statue of Mary holding Christ when he is brought down from the cross) took a tumble from its wooden plinth and was very badly damaged (see photos below)

As you can imagine we were devastated at the extent of the damage and feared we wouldn’t find the expertise locally to have it repaired or to pay for such a repair.

After a number of weeks had passed, Dennis O’Connor and his wife Doreen, who come into St Marie’s on a regular basis, made the very generous offer to pay for the repair. What followed was some extensive research to try and source a reputable statue repairer and eventually we found a company who agreed to undertake the work. They asked whether we would like the Pieta to be restored to its original colours as we know it was repainted for the Centenary Celebrations of St Marie’s in the mid 1960’s and it was agreed we should do that.

The company have started the work and we expect to have the Pieta back in its place for our next St Marie’s Heritage Group event, which we hope will be in June.

St Marie’s Heritage Group would like to thank Dennis and Doreen for their amazing generosity.