Our Lady of Lourdes and St Gregorys Parish

A twentieth-century Catholic parish on Plodder Lane, created to serve the new housing that transformed this part of Farnworth between the wars.

A parish made by housing

Until the end of the Great War in 1918 the area was still largely rural. Farnworth Urban District Council then began clearing slum housing and building on a considerable scale, and the Catholic population of the district grew with it.

Our Lady of Lourdes was originally part of St Gregory's parish. A separate parish was created in 1931 and Fr T. Butler was sent as its first parish priest; Fr J. O'Mahoney succeeded him in 1936.

Today

The two parishes have since been reunited as Our Lady of Lourdes and St Gregory the Great, in the Diocese of Salford. Mass continues to be said in the parish hall at St Gregory's, the church there having closed because of structural problems.

Sources: Our Lady of Lourdes and St Gregory's, Farnworth; Our Lady of Lourdes R.C. Primary School — parish history.