WELCOME

The Parish is a daughter-parish of St. Michael’s, Houghton-le-Spring. A school, St. Josephs, which also served as a mass centre, was established in Washington in the early 1860s by the then parish priest of St. Michael’s. In 1866 Washington’s first parish priest, Fr Francis Cambours was appointed.

In the 1870s, because of the growth of mining and other industries the population of Washington was growing rapidly. The increasing number of mass-goers meant that a church was needed. Through the generosity of Mr. Newall of Washington Chemical works, Fr Cambours obtained a site opposite the school and engaged the services of Messrs. Dunn and Hansom to draw up plans for a church and presbytery. The church would seat 510, for more than could be accommodated in the school hall.

The foundation store was laid on 5 August 1877, the church and presbytery were built of local stone from quarries at Springwell and Coxgreen. The cost of the building was around £4000 ; the most recent repairs to the church cost several times that amount. The church was opened for worship on 16 September 1878.

At this stage the building was more or less bare and the second Parish Priest, Belgian born Fr Poupaert, who arrived in 1879, completed the church. The high altar was purchased in Bruges and in the centre, below the tabernacle, was the word SITIO - "I thirst" in Latin. Most of this altar was incorporated in the re-ordered sanctuary in 1976.

Fr Ponpaert was succeeded in 1898 by Fr - later Canon - Mackin. Fr Hayes followed Canon Mackin in 1907 and was himself succeeded in the same year by Fr Holmes, who saw the parish through world war 1. Fr Holmes was succeeded in 1919 by Fr Young, and there are still many parishioners who remember the next parish priest,
Fr Daniel Verling, who took over in 1924 and celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of his ordination in 1956.

In 1928 the parish celebrated the Golden Jubilee of the church. The souvenir hymnal for the occasion - hand-written and duplicated ; no word processors or photocopiers then - includes the parish antiphon "Trahe nos Virgo Immaculata. Post te curremus in odorem unguentorum tuorum. Allelulia." In the days of the liturgy in Latin it was regularly sung.

By 1933 the church was free of debt and was consecrated in September of that year.

In 1964 the old St. Joseph's school hall, which had been the original mass centre, was destroyed by fire : the end of an era.

In 1978, the parish priest, Fr Clement Haverty, organized the re-ordering of the church along the lines proposed in the liturgical documents of the Second Vatican Council held in Rome in the late fifties and early sixties. Father Haverty remained at Our Lady's until 1987. He was followed by Father Desmond White who has just recently died and then by Father Kevin Gallagher. Father Michael Finnigan ,succeeded him in 1998, The present priest is Father John Coyle, who celebrates his Golden Jubilee on July 21st 2007.