“Foundation stone laid for a £40,000 Catholic church”, c. 1961

Newspaper article, c. 1961.

The article reports that the new Christ the King Catholic Church, Kingstanding, “which will cost the Parish authorities more than £40,000 to complete”, was blessed by the Archbishop of Birmingham, the Most Rev. Francis Joseph Grimshaw, at the stone-laying ceremony. His deacons were Father C. Thornton, at the Warren Farm Road church from 1948 to 1953, and Father M. Byrne, at Christ the King from 1931 to 1941.

It recalls that Father Byrne first held services in a friend’s front room in College Road, then at the College Arms and at Cranbourne Road Schools, and arranged for the wooden church to be built on a site formerly owned by Holts Brewery. The new church was to have a sound-proofed “cry box” for 18 mothers with young children, and the old wooden building was to become the home of the Scouts and Guides, the Men’s Social Club and the Union of Catholic Mothers.

Notes

Voices of Kingstanding dates the cutting “ca 1961” in its caption and “ca 1962” in its list; the completed church is dated 1962 on the same page.

About this place: Christ the King Church