St Vincent's Church, Sheffield facts for kids
St Vincent's Church is an old Roman Catholic church located in the city centre of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. It's on Solly Street, where it meets Hollis Croft. This church is no longer used for regular services, which means it's "redundant."
After it closed, the church building started to fall apart. However, the area around it, including the church site, was redeveloped a few years ago. Now, the church building has a new purpose.
Contents
Irish People Come to Sheffield
Between 1845 and 1849, a terrible event called the Great Famine happened in Ireland. Many people had to leave their homes to find a better life in England. Sheffield was a good place to go because it had growing industries like making cutlery (knives, forks, spoons) and tools.
Many Irish people walked about 80 miles from Liverpool Docks, where they arrived, over the Pennine hills to settle in an area of Sheffield called "The Crofts." This area was around Solly Street. At that time, The Crofts was a busy place for making steel, cutlery, and tools. These goods were famous worldwide. It was a working-class neighbourhood with many crowded homes, often lacking good sanitation. Factories and small workshops were mixed in with houses, churches, and schools.
How St Vincent's Began
Most of the Irish immigrants in The Crofts were Roman Catholics. They used to go to St Marie's church in Norfolk Row, which was the only Catholic church in Sheffield in the early 1850s. Father Edmund Scully from St Marie's wanted to build a school and a small chapel for the people in The Crofts.
On Good Friday in 1851, a piece of land was bought for £700. A famous architect named Matthew Ellison Hadfield designed the chapel-school. It was finished in July 1853 and cost £1,850.
Chapel Becomes a Church
The chapel was made much bigger in 1856 by George Goldie, who worked with Hadfield. They added a nave (the main part of the church where people sit) and a chancel (the area around the altar). This cost £3,100. After these additions, it was officially called a church, even though it didn't have a tall tower or spire yet.
More building work happened in 1870, costing £650. A church tower was built up to 40 feet high. This tower included the south porch and an entrance. The tower was made even taller in 1911, reaching its current height of 93 feet. This was possible because Mr. Philip Wake donated £1,400. The new tower was designed in the Norman style, similar to churches in Normandy, France. Charles Hadfield was the architect for this new tower. It was officially blessed and opened on October 28, 1911.
Between the World Wars
In 1920, the St Vincent's church area was divided to create a new church, Sacred Heart, in the Hillsborough part of the city. The area around St Vincent's church was still mostly poor housing.
The Great Depression in the United Kingdom in the 1930s caused many difficulties for people in the area. This led to a plan to clear out the old, crowded homes, starting in 1929. Many old buildings were pulled down, and the people living there moved to newer, more spacious homes in the suburbs. These clearances continued until 1938, when they stopped because a war was about to begin. The famous actor Patrick McGoohan was a student at the school during this time.
Second World War Damage
During the Sheffield Blitz, which was a bombing raid by German planes on the night of December 12-13, 1940, the original 1853 chapel was destroyed. A special bomb called a parachute mine landed on its roof. The original girls' school was also destroyed, and every window in the church was blown out, breaking some beautiful stained glass windows. Luckily, the newer part of the church, built in 1911, was not badly damaged.
After the War and Today
People worked hard to raise money in the 1950s to rebuild the damaged church. This included a new chapel, new roofs, a new entrance porch, and a new area for the organ and choir.
Because of the war damage and the continued clearing of old homes in the St Vincent's area, the church lost many of its members. The district was rebuilt as a business area. By 1989, both the church house (presbytery) and the school were closed. Many church members now lived in other parts of Sheffield, like Walkley and Crookes. Around this time, people started raising money for a new church building that would be easier for them to get to. The old St Vincent's church building finally closed as a place of worship in 1996. The new church, St Vincent's Church, Crookes, opened in May 2001.
The old church building stayed empty for many years. For a while, the St Vincent de Paul Society used it to store furniture. The land around the church was used as a car park. The church is part of the St Vincent's Quarter of Sheffield, which is slowly being improved. Most of the site was bought by Unite Students, a company that builds student accommodation. They planned to build student flats in 2016. The first students moved in during September 2018. The church building itself has been changed into a shared area for students, with social spaces, a cinema, a kitchen, and music rooms.
The old school building stayed with St Vincent's parish for a while. In 2017, the parish gave the building to Mission Hub Sheffield, a Catholic organisation. The school building was renovated and finished by 2019. The Catholic chaplaincy of the University of Sheffield also uses the school building.
See also
- St Michael's Cemetery, Sheffield
