A charming and homely little church, given by a local benefactor and formed from a converted outbuilding.

In 1939 Miss Cecilia Hopwood, formerly of Hopwood Hall near Manchester, established a Mass centre in her house (Withington’s, now Glengariff) in Park Road, Toddington. This was served by the Spanish (later Irish) Vincentians at St Mary, Dunstable. In the 1950s (or 1949, according to the Diocesan Directory) alterations were carried out to an outbuilding (said to have been stables) to provide a small church. The alterations were carried out by a Mr James McGowan. When Miss Hopwood died in 1959 she left the chapel and a strip of garden at the back to the diocese. The building continues to be served from Dunstable.

Description

The church is orientated north-south, but this description follows conventional liturgical orientation, i.e. as if the altar faced east.

A long, low building of apparent nineteenth century date, with pink painted render on the front elevation and fair faced brickwork on the rear garden elevation (where there is a lean-to housing a WC and a small and more recent Fletton brick flat-roofed addition). The roof is tiled, hipped at the east end and gabled at the west. There is a west porch carried on timber posts. Windows on the front and west elevations are double hung painted timber sashes, the upper sashes round arched.

The interior consists of a single space, with plastered painted walls and a shallow pitched roof with blackened tie beams and struts. There are no furnishings of particular note, other than a painting of the Virgin Mary in a Gothic frame over the entrance, said by a parishioner to have been painted by Miss Hopwood.

Heritage Details