Rowton Saturday Masses

 

What We Do

On a Saturday evening there is a vigil Mass at 18:00 in Rowton, near Christleton and Waverton, in the Methodist Chapel.

 

How you can join us

The Chapel is located in Moor Lane, a residential road off the A41 towards Whitchurch, 3 miles from St Werburgh’s Church, just past the petrol station on the left. There is adequate parking along the road for those who travel by car, but please park on the south/Waverton side of the chapel entrance, for safety and in order to maintain a drop-off point at the gate for less mobile parishioners. There is an accessible toilet in the building. 

Click here to see location on an online map

 

About the group

There are over 40 regular attendees, mainly St Werburgh parishioners who live to the south and east of Chester, occasional visitors and tourists to the region. Mass has been said weekly in the local area for almost 100 years (see History below ) and in Rowton Methodist Capel since 1998.
Teams prepare the chapel for Mass each week and minister as welcomers,   Readers and Eucharistic ministers. The small congregation has developed over the years into a strong supportive community and is very happy to welcome visitors. About three times a year there is tea/coffee after Mass and an opportunity to have some social time.

In January, during the week of Prayer for Christian Unity, the Catholic community join with the other denominations in Christleton & Waverton in a daily noon service celebrated in each church in turn, including a Saturday service at St Werburgh’s. The community also actively support a number of Ecumenical yearly charity events.

History of the celebration of Mass in the local area

From 1934 until 1972 the Seminary of the Salvatorian Order was in Christleton Hall (later the College of Law, now private apartments). There was a chapel where local Catholics could attend Sunday Mass, and many regarded this as their “parish church”. 

During the late 1960s the Diocese bought a large site with a bungalow and outbuilding in Eggbridge Lane, Waverton, with the intention of building a Catholic church, to be part of St Werburgh’s parish but to serve the local area. The plans were later abandoned but a parishioner, Tom McGuire, who had come to Chester from Ireland in 1941 and lived in Christleton, undertook to convert the outbuilding into a Mass Centre, with the help of fellow parishioners Tom Moran, John Collins and Tom Jennings. It opened in 1977 and hosted a weekly Mass and many Baptisms.

In 1984 the site was bought by the Ehlen family (Tom McGuire’s daughter and her husband) who kindly permitted the continued use of the Mass Centre. The building eventually became unsafe and closed in 1998, and the site was subsequently sold for development. 

In 1998 a long term arrangement was made, with kind permission of the Methodist District and the Chapel Stewards, to use Rowton Methodist Chapel, a charming building built in 1865 and skilfully extended in 1993.  Its capacity of 50 is just right for the Vigil Mass and its use is a wonderful example of strong ecumenical links in the parish.