Welcome To St Marys Catholic Church Website

Early in the nineteenth century a Catholic mission started in Poole. Abbe Pierre Lanquetint, a French emigre priest, rented a farmhouse at Longfleet off Wimborne Road and said Mass there. In 1820 another French priest, Abbe Jean Coupe, purchased some land and built a little house and chapel. In 1837, as an Act of Thanksgiving for the healing of his daughter, a parishioner, Mr Tichborne Doughty, of Upton House, started to build a Church in honour of Our Lady and St Philomena, in West Quay Road. In 1839, the building was solemnly blessed and opened. In 1850, the Vicar General of the Diocese, Canon Wollett, brought more land. A school was built, later a presbytery.

In 1973, due to insufficient accommodation and a poor condition, as well as the industrial development of West Quay, the Church buildings were demolished. They were replaced by a new Church, sited once more in Wimborne Road, not far from Abbe Lanquetint's original Mass Centre.

St Mary's was solemnly blessed and opened by the Rt. Rev. Cyril Restieaux, Bishop of Plymouth, on 25th February 1973. Several relics of the former building are to be found: the enormous crucifix in the sanctuary and, out side in the entrance foyer, a treasured piece of moulding from ten arches which supported the main aisles; also two superb stained glass windows, one of St. John the Evangelist, the other of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Please enjoy are website and feel free to record your visit in the guestbook.

Download Reconciliation and First Holy Communion .pdf >>

Download St Mary's Poole retreat Programme >>