If anyone would like to contribute to this project why not drop in to St Marie’s on Tuesday 25th November between 1pm and 4pm to share stories, memories or photographs of Widnes Town Centre. See details below

A new piece of art is coming to Widnes

The mural will be appearing on New Street and we want your opinion on what you feel should appear. We will be holding consultation sessions throughout the end of November.

• New Street, Widnes Shopping Park, Widnes. WA8 7TN – Wednesday 19th November, 10am-2pm.
• St Luke’s Church, Pit Lane, Farnworth, Widnes. WA8 9HU – Monday 24th November, 1-4pm.
• St Maries, Lugsdale Road, Widnes. WA8 6DB – Tuesday 25th November, 1-4pm.

Please note that all available places for our upcoming Christmas Carol Concert with the Parish Choir of St Wilfrid have now been reserved. Places have been distributed on a first come first served basis. We apologise to anyone who was hoping to attend the event but had not yet booked a place. If you would like to be placed on the reserve list please contact us as below with a phone number.

If you have booked a place but can no longer attend please let us know by calling 01928 592405 or by emailing heritage@haltonsthelensvca.org.uk

Huge thanks to everyone who has booked their place. We look forward to welcoming you to St Marie’s on Tuesday 9th December. The first Carol will be sung at 7pm. The building will be open from 6pm.

Tuesday 9th December 7pm at St Marie’s Church, Lugsdale Rd, Widnes, WA8 6DB

The St Marie’s Heritage Group are delighted to welcome back the wonderful Parish Choir of St Wilfrid who will be leading us all in Christmas Carols and Songs at St Marie’s on Tuesday 9th December at 7pm. There will also be St Marie’s Christmas Cards on sale £5 per pack of 5. It’s free to attend, to reserve your place please call 01928 592405 or email heritage@haltonsthelensvca.org.uk

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.

Thanks to everyone who attended the Easter Bingo last week, it was a great success and everyone enjoyed themselves. We raised £97.00 through the raffle and your generous donations for drinks and biscuits. Big thanks to Christine for “calling” the bingo. We hope to display the “church notice books” in June or July so look out for this date when it’s finally confirmed.

All are welcome to join us for our first event of 2025. This promises to be a fun afternoon catching up with friends old and new with free hot drinks and biscuits. You never know, you might win an Easter Egg or two as well. Email heritage@haltonsthelensvca.org.uk or call 01928 592405 to let us know you’ll be coming along.

We look forward to seeing you.

We had the most wonderful evening at St Marie’s last week for the St Marie’s Christmas Concert. We welcomed 170 visitors to listen and participate with the brilliant St Wilfrid’s Parish Choir led by Frances Atherton at the piano.

Guests enjoyed free mulled wine, hot drinks and mince pies, kindly donated by Tesco.

We are incredibly grateful to everyone who attended, donated raffle prizes and helped raise over £700 through the raffle and sale of St Marie’s Timeline booklets. We plan to donate that money toward the re- decoration of the church. Thanks to your generosity in previous years we were able to donate over £2,200 this month toward the cost of upgrading the lighting in the church.

The St Marie’s Heritage Group did a fabulous job decorating the Altar & tree and the event couldn’t have taken place without the help and support of the staff of Halton and St Helens VCA.

We hope you enjoyed the evening as much as we did. Finally on behalf of St Marie’s Heritage Group we would like to wish everyone a Happy Christmas and prosperous and peaceful 2025.

We recently received the news that Sr. Eileen, of the Sisters of St. Clare, died peacefully back home in Ireland on Wednesday 20th November. Sister is fondly remembered for her pastoral work in the former parishes of St John Fisher and St Marie’s alongside Fr Peter Fox. Her funeral took place on Friday 29th of November. Please pray for the repose of Sr. Eileen’s soul and for the consolation of her loved ones.