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The Church of St. Thomas of Canterbury is situated in the City of Chester, in an area of the city informally known as "The Garden Quarter". This is a densely populated area, close to the University. While the church was built in 1872, the parish of St. Oswald which it serves, is much older, dating back to about 980AD. One of the earliest references to St. Oswald's can be found in Bradshaw's (Life of St. Werburge (Chapter 4) ) The Parish Registers date back to 1580. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building. It is an active Anglican parish church in the diocese of Chester, the archdeaconry of Chester and the deanery of Chester. The patrons of the parish are the dean and chapter of Chester Cathedral. ==History== In 1868 the growing population of the parish led to the decision to build a chapel of ease, and land was obtained from the Dean & Chapter in Parkgate Road.〔A short history of our church building, Ian Thomas, Parish Magazine, September 2010〕 The cornerstone was laid on 6 April 1869 by H.C. Raikes (MP for Chester) with the west end of the building bricked up to facilitate extension when circumstances permitted.〔Cheshire Sheaf, September 1950〕 The new chapel, dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury, was consecrated on 4 April 1872 by William Jacobson, Bishop of Chester.〔Sentence of Consecration, Chester and Cheshire West Record Office P29/17/1〕 Licence for the solemnization of marriages in St Thomas' church was granted on 3 March 1877.〔Licence for the solemnization of marriages in St Thomas' church, P 29/17/2〕 Services there included holy communion at least once a month on Sundays and on saints' days, as well as morning and evening prayer. In 1880 the parishioners responded to the suggestion of the Dean and Chapter, first made in 1868, and agreed to surrender their rights in the south transept of the cathedral and make St. Thomas's the parish church.〔London Gazette, Order in Council 1881〕 Christmas Day 1881 was the final service in the south transept of the Cathedral.〔Parish Newsletter, April 2005〕 ''" Whereas the resolution of the parishioners of the said parish of Saint Oswald at Chester which was passed on the twenty-first day of April one thousand eight hundred and eighty one as aforesaid was passed upon the understanding interalia that we should provide first, a sum of £1,500 for or towards meeting the cost of enlarging and otherwise improving to our satisfaction the said church of St. Thomas, when the same church shall have become the parish church of the said parish of Saint Oswald Chester"''〔The London Gazette, 30 August 1881, page 4438〕 In December 1882 an Order in Council transferred part of the parish to Holy Ascension, Upton:-
The dedication of the Church was chosen to be St. Thomas, because during the Middle Ages there was a Chapel dedicated to St. Thomas not far from the present site of the church. A chapel dedicated to St. Thomas Becket stood by 1200 in the graveyard belonging to St. Werburgh's abbey outside the Northgate, in the fork of the later Parkgate and Liverpool roads. Serving also as the meeting place for the abbot's manor court of St. Thomas, it became a private house called Green Hall after the Dissolution. The building probably survived only until the demolition of the northern suburbs during the Civil War siege, though in 1821 it was claimed that the former chapel was still in use as a barn.〔'Churches and religious bodies: Medieval chapels', A History of the County of Chester: Volume 5 part 2: The City of Chester: Culture, Buildings, Institutions (2005), pp. 156-159〕 Today on the site is the pub The George & Dragon. The church of St. Thomas of Canterbury as built between 1869 and 1872 by Sir George Gilbert Scott had a chancel with a south aisle and an aisled nave of three bays, all in an Early English style. On becoming the parish church in 1881, the church was enlarged to the designs of J. O. Scott (younger son of George Gilbert Scott) with a faculty being granted giving permission to enlarge the nave and aisle by adding two bays and erecting a porch on the north side; to build a tower (which was never completed) and place a clock and bells therein; to place a pulpit, reredos, and sedilia in the church; to remove and re-erect the font at the west end of the church; to construct a heating apparatus; to construct an organ chamber and two vestries for the use of the clergy and choir; to place new seats for use of the choir and seat the whole of the church with open seats; to place stained glass in all the windows (with a spire which was never completed).〔Church Faculty 1881, copy held in Cheshire & Chester Archives, P 29/17/3〕 In 1896 permission was given to re-seat the chancel with oak seats and desks for the choir and clergy, cost of clergy seats to be defrayed by Henry John Birch and John Shenton Latham, churchwardens, cost of choir seats out of a legacy of £100 bequeathed by the late Miss Eliza Ann Ward and by voluntary contributions.〔Church Faculty, 1896, copy held in Cheshire & Chester Archives, P 29/17/5〕 The High Altar reredos designed by Charles Deacon was installed in 1909. St. Thomas's opened as the parish church in 1881 with between 190 and 250 communicants. Services then included a weekly communion, held in the early morning or at midday. An experiment with a choral communion in 1889 did not meet with universal approval, and Sunday services remained unchanged for another twenty years. More successful was the establishment in 1895 of the mission church of the Good Shepherd on South View Road in the western part of the parish. A curate was required for services there, and in the early 20th century the vicar generally had two curates. In the early 1910s the congregation at the mission church usually numbered 50–80, ten or twenty of whom were communicants, but services were cut back in 1918 and discontinued in 1919.〔Mission Church Register of services, Jan 1912 - Sep 1919, held in Cheshire & Chester Archives, P 29/3521/8〕 The building seems not to have been used regularly thereafter and in the mid-1960s the mission church of the Good Shepherd was finally closed. The mission church was also home to the Sealand Road C. of E. Infants' school. Sealand Road Infant School was opened in January 1883 in the Mission Church of the Good Shepherd, attached to St. Oswald's parish, in South View, off Tower Wharf. It was forced to close in December 1921 because the managers were unable to carry out structural repairs.〔A short history of our church building, Ian Thomas (Parish Newsletter September 2010)〕 H. E. Burder (vicar 1909–48) introduced Anglo Catholic services at St. Thomas's, with a daily mass and a sung celebration on Sundays, a tradition which continued under his successors. From 1948 onwards the Vicar of St Oswald's Parish was priest in charge of the church of Little St John alias St John without the Northgate, and in 1967 the two benefices were officially united to become The united benefice of St Oswald with Little St John, Chester. ''Notice is hereby given that Her Majesty in Council was pleased on the 28th November 1967, to make an Order in Council approving a Scheme framed by the Church Commissioners for effecting the union of the benefice of Saint Oswald, Chester, and the benefice of Little Saint John, Chester, both in the diocese of Chester.''〔Order in Council, 28th November 1967〕 In 1969 Little St John's church ceased to be used for church services when a faculty was granted confirming a lease by the owners, the City Municipal Charities Trustees, to Chester Corporation, for secular use. St. Oswald's Parish was incorporated in the new parish of Chester in 1972, St. Thomas of Canterbury remaining in use as one of four churches serving the parish.〔A short history of our church building by Ian Thomas (Parish Magazine September 2010)〕 The Parish name of Saint Oswald was lost at the formation of the Chester Team Parish, which grouped all the parish churches in the City of Chester into one single parish.〔London Gazette, Order in Council 1972〕 On March 1, 2005 Chester Team Parish was dissolved into two new parishes. The new Parish is called ''Saint Oswald and Saint Thomas of Canterbury'', which restores the ancient Patron Saint of the Parish and incorporates the patron of the parish church. The remaining part of the Team Parish of Chester forms the ''Parish of Saint Peter with Saint John the Baptist''.〔Order in Council, 2005〕 The former red brick vicarage and attached parish room were built to serve the parish of St Oswald and the church of St Thomas of Canterbury in 1880 to a design by John Douglas. The building now houses the English Department of The University of Chester. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「St Thomas of Canterbury Church, Chester」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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