Mansfield Woodhouse St Catherine’s Mission Church

History

Foundation stone

St. Catherine’s Mission was a daughter church of the church of St Edmund King and Martyr, located on Priory Road, Mansfield Woodhouse. The need for the church was the opening of new collieries in the area, increasing the number of residents and housing provision. A plot of undeveloped land was purchased and building work commenced early in 1911, with the foundation stone ceremony taking place on 12 August 1911. Mrs F N Ellis performed the ceremony. The stone is sited below the east window at the east end of the building fronting onto Sherwood Street.

The building was designed by a local firm of architects, Messrs. Cook & Lane of Mansfield. The total cost was £1,150 and there were contributions of £100 each from the Duke of Portland and the Sherwood Colliery Company. The company owned several coal mines in the area.

Bishop Edwyn Hoskins visited the new church late in 1911.

In 1959 the decision to close St. Catherine’s was announced. It did not go unchallenged by part of the congregation who corresponded with the vicar of St. Edmund, pointing out the work for which they had recently raised funding, including new carpets and other facilities; and that the Holy Communion service regularly attracted twenty-five parishioners, plus the fact that the Sunday School and several other groups used the building. This was to no avail, and the church was deconsecrated and sold to a commercial venture for the sum of £2,500. The interior is now unrecognisable as ever having been a church.