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Southwell Diocesan Magazine


SHERWOOD’S NEW CHURCH

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Considerable interest was attached to the opening of the new church of St. Martin’s, Sherwood, Nottingham, which was consecrated by the Bishop of Southwell on February 7th 1937.


Assisting in the service, which was attended in civic state by the Lord Mayor of Nottingham, Mr. Ernest Purser; the Sheriff Mr. A. E. Savage, and the Town Clerk, Mr. J. E. Richards, robed and preceded by the city’s mace-bearers, were Bishop Neville S. Talbot; the Provost of Southwell, the Very W. J. Conybeare; the Archdeacon of Nottingham, the Venerable H. V. Turner; the Rev. Canon H. B. Lee, and the vicars of the mother churches of St. John the Evangelist, Carrington, and St. Paul Daybrook, the Rev. Canon Dudley Hart and the Rev. H. Bushell.

The Bishop of Southwell knocking for admission to the building


The Bishop was vested in cope and mitre and Chancellor H. B. Lee acted as his chaplain. There were about thirty clergy present, including the Canons who wore their almuces. After blessing the various furnishings of the church, the Bishop blessed the Chapel of Transfiguration, where he prayed for the departed souls of those who had worshiped at its alter, which was the original mission church at Sherwood. The new Church of St. Martin serves the Sherwood housing estate, and its parish was carved out of three others, Carrington, Daybrook and St. Jude’s Mapperley.


The building will seat 700 when completed but now only half the nave to accommodate 400. It is a brick building, based on the work of the Early Church builders, chiefly of the Romanesque period, but modified to suite brick construction and modern requirements. An unusual of the roof as seen from inside is the lofty semi-circular concrete vault, the surface of which is relieved by the flat ribs.


THE BISHOP’S TRIBUTE


The Bishop of Southwell’s sermon which immediately followed the consecration was from the text “Give unto the Lord in the beauty of holiness.”


The consecration of this church, he said, was indeed a great event in the life of the parish and congregation. It was an important event in the story of the city of Nottingham as shown by the presence of the the Lord Mayor and the representative of Parliament for the division. It was a great event , too, in the history of the Church in Nottingham, and looking back over the past eight years since he had been in the diocese he doubted whether any congregation had shown such unity of purpose, such kindness, such devotion as had been shown by the congregation of St. Martin’s under the fine leadership of he who that day became the first vicar of the parish, the Rev. E. Lysons.


DIRECT GIVING


In the building of their church they had not had any outstanding benefactor who had paid most of the cost.


“No,” said Bishop Mosley, “the building of this church and all that it means and all that it stands for, is an example to the whole diocese of what can be done by prayer and by the direct giving of each and all to the cause they have at heart.


“I do congratulate you and your people on this wonderful achievement,” said the Bishop, who later had a word of praise for the architect, Mr. E. H. Heazell on the sheer beauty of the design.


St. Martin’s, said the Bishop of Southwell, was not merely a slavish copy of the past but a building that made a distinct contribution to the architecture of our time and of the diocese.


“It is indeed a church in which you may be thankful. It is indeed a church of which you may be proud,” he told the the people of St. Martin’s, whom he congratulated upon having become a real family during the ten or twelve years or so they had gathered together, first in a tin mission church, then in the Church Hall at the back of the new church.


A pathetic incident was attached to the completion of this great task at Sherwood, for Mr. John Bradley who had been verger of the temporary church for several years collapsed and died on the following morning after making his Communion. His wife Mrs. Bradley also a devoted worker at St. Martin’s died on the previous day.

Diocesan dignitaries heading the procession to St. Martin’s Church Consecration


A section of the choir Procession arriving at St. Martin’s Church, Sherwood, for the consecration by the Bishop of Southwell