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St Tudwal's Church
St Tudwal's Church
	West side of the church
	52°43′32″N 4°03′26″W / 52.725474°N 4.057217°W
OS grid reference	SH6116616189
Location	Barmouth, Gwynedd
Country	United Kingdom
Denomination	Roman Catholic
Website	WrexhamDiocese.org.uk
History
Status	Active
Founder(s)	Fr C. B. Wilcock
Dedication	Tudwal
Consecrated	August 1908
Architecture
Functional status	Parish church
Groundbreaking	15 August 1904
Completed	1905
Administration
Province	Cardiff
Diocese	Wrexham
Deanery	Dolgellau

St Tudwal's Church is a Roman Catholic parish church in Barmouth, Gwynedd. It is situated on the King Edward Road leading from Barmouth to Llanaber. It was built in 1905 and is in the Dolgellau Deanery of the Diocese of Wrexham.^[1]

History

Origin

Catholic worship started in Barmouth in 1890. A Fr. Donovan held services in the rooms of local houses until a small church was erected on Park Road. This was opened on 11 September 1891, on the very day that the steeple of the nearby St John's Church fell down.^[2] At the time, even though over forty years had elapsed since the re-establishment of the English and Welsh hierarchy, Wales had very few Catholics and the Catholic churches in the north of Wales came under the administration of the Diocese of Shrewsbury. In 1895, they came under the Vicariate Apostolic of Wales, then in 1898 it became the Diocese of Menevia. St Tudwal's was one of the few Catholic churches in the north of Wales at this time. It was created and persisted during this time of flux for Catholics in north Wales.^[3]

Construction

In the 1900s, a new priest arrived, Fr. C. B. Wilcock from St Helens, Merseyside. He worked to have a new, larger, church built to accommodate the increasing size of the local congregation.^[2] The church was completed in 1905 and was opened by the first Bishop of Menevia, Francis Mostyn. The inscription on the foundation-stone, translated from Latin reads:

In the year of Our Lord Incarnate the fifteenth of August 1904. On the Feast of the Assumption of the Holy Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, our Lord Francis, by the grace of God and the Apostolic See, Bishop of Menevia, laid this first stone in the honour of the same glorious Virgin Mary and Saint Tudwal.^[4]

Anniversary

On 1 September 1939, it was reported in the Catholic Herald that the church celebrated the 31st anniversary of its consecration. The priest at the time was Fr. Patrick Collins. He organised a Mass to be said in memory of the church's founder Fr Wilcock. A choir from De La Salle College in Fr Wilcock's home parish of the Church of St Mary, Lowe House in St Helens were on holiday in nearby Dyffryn Ardudwy and came to sing at the Mass.^[5]

Parish

The parish also contains St David in Seion Church in Harlech. St David's church was built in 1814 as a Seion Wesleyan Methodist chapel, re-built in 1872 and was purchased and converted for Catholic use in 1998. ^[6]

St David's Church in Harlech has a Sunday morning Mass at 9:00am and St Tudwal's church has a Sunday Mass at 11:00am.

Gallery

View from road
Tower
Statue of St Mary in tower
Church sign

References

^ Deaneries Archived 2 April 2015 at the Wayback Machine from Diocese of Wrexham retrieved 31 August 2013
^ ^a ^b Jones, E. Rosalie A History of Barmouth and its Vicinity (Barmouth, 1905) p. 122
^ Donald Atwater, The Catholic Church in modern Wales: a record of the past century (London: Burns, Oates and Washbourne Ltd, 1935), pp. 76–138.
^ Jones, E. Rosalie A History of Barmouth and its Vicinity (Barmouth, 1905) pp. 122–123
^ Barmouth Church Celebrates Anniversary, 1 September 1939 from CatholicHerald.co.uk retrieved 20 August 2013
^ https://taking-stock.org.uk/building/harlech-st-david-in-seion/