Parish Centre Hire

In 1850 Francis Wegg-Prosser, who had inherited large estates around Clehonger and Belmont in Herefordshire, married the younger daughter of Earl Somers of Eastnor Castle. They settled at Belmont House on the outskirts of Hereford.  Two years later Francis was received into the Catholic Church at Southwark Cathedral in London.   It became his mission to promote the spread of his new faith in Herefordshire where he served both as MP and High Sheriff.    He built a large farm-house close to the Hereford > Abergavenny Rd. and nearby almshouses for his tenants.   At one end of these a small chapel was added and after he applied to the new Bishop of Newport & Menevia, Bishop Thomas Brown, Fr. D. Lambe came to serve here.  Very shortly afterwards the little chapel was replaced by a larger building designed to serve as both Chapel and school for the children on his estates.

The school-chapel of SS.Peter & Paul was formally opened 26^th July 1853 and two Sisters from the Order of the Sisters of Charity of St Paul the Apostle from Selly Park in Birmingham were invited to come to teach in the school.  In a remarkably short time a small dwelling house was added to the building to serve as a convent for the Sisters. A later photograph shows the main hall furnished with desks and a blackboard while the altar was placed on a raised platform at one end of the room.  Fr. Lambe would continue to say Mass here for the next few years.

An account book in the Belmont Abbey Archives, hand-written by Francis Wegg-Prosser records a first quarterly payment of £15.0.0. made in advance to the Sisters  on 8^th April 1853. The payment of this sum continues to appear at quarterly intervals until early 1859. Other sums listed include payments for various fittings for the building, and more especially, for a stained-glass window fitted behind the platform on 26^th February 1855 for £20.10.0.    A payment of 17s. 1d. was made for books on 10^th March 1857, but the social side of school life was not neglected.   £2.0.0.to £3.0.0 was spent each December for a “special tea” for the children!

Sadly, there is no mention of the names of the two Sisters who received the sum of £7.10.0. in January 1859 as the salary for their final half-quarter in the “Little School”. The other £7.10.0. went to their named successor Mr Martin O’Connor who came to run the school and lived with his family in the adjoining house.  No doubt the Sisters left in 1859 because the Chapel was replaced by the large church of St. Michael and All Angels and the nearby monastery for the new community of Benedictine monks was nearing completion.

At the formal opening in Nov. 1859 the Blessed Sacrament was carried in solemn procession from the Chapel of SS. Peter & Paul into the new church, also built through the generosity of Francis Wegg-Prosser.    The school, established by the Sisters of Selly Park, continued with a resident schoolmaster and his family until 1917.    Until 1926 when Belmont Abbey School opened the building was used for the teaching of the small group of boys with possible vocations who came to the Abbey for their education.  Thereafter it served intermittently as an elementary school for local children, especially during World War II, until1947.

In the fifties the building became the library for Belmont Abbey School and, subsequently, the parish centre for the Belmont Abbey Parish, which it still is today!