The Parish of Our Lady
OurLadyBooklet_v2.pdfThe site for the new parish was selected where land was available near newly erected council housing in Valley Road in Lillington.[i] This area housed the largest proportion of people in the parish.[ii] Father Thornton approached the local architect Henry Fedeski from Leamington, and these are a few of the initial sketches created for Our Lady’s in 1960, of a cruciform plan with a central altar.
This map illustrates the original deanery for Our Lady’s Church, of Lillington, Cubbington and Offchurch in the suburb of Leamington Spa. Our Lady’s is located adjacent to the library and near high rise flats on the circled Valley Road in Lillington. Image from archives.
Architectural sketches (from a private collection) created by architects before the Church was constructed.
More Catholic Churches were built in England during the 1950s and 60s than in any other decades before or since, to serve the expanding population.[iii] Catholic parishioners of Lillington had worshipped in a variety of locations around the Lillington, Cubbington and Offchurch area,[iv] until in 1958 when the parish was considered large enough to be separated from the main Church of Saint Peter’s in Leamington, which also expanded with the emigration of Irish in the 1950s and 1960s,[v] so an independent parish was formed.
[i] Catholic Church of England and Wales, “Lillington-Our Lady,” Taking Stock (2011) para. 5, accessed Mar 10, 2020, https://taking-stock.org.uk/building/lillington-our-lady/.
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] The Architectural History Practise Limited, “Twentieth-Century Roman Catholic Architecture: A Characterisation Study,” The Architectural History Practise Limited (2014) para.2, accessed Jul 15, 2020,
http://www.hrballiance.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/RC-C20-Characterisation-Final-July-2014.pdf.
[iv] Lillington Local History Society, “March 2014 Edition,” March (2014) 2: para. 1, accessed Apr 1, 2019, https://www.lillingtonhistory.org/web2_documents/newsletters/2014springNewsletter.pdf.
[v] Fiona Audley, “Leamington Irish club celebrates 50 years,” November (2013) para. 1, accessed Apr 1, 2019, https://www.irishpost.com/news/leamington-spa-irish-club-celebrates-50-years-16154.