By Mgr John Devine OBE

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Shortly after retirement from the Isle of Man, I was asked to join the rota of a handful of priests who celebrate Mass each Friday at 1.05pm in the Parish Church of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas at the Pier Head. 

And yes, it’s an Anglican church. How did this come about?

St Mary’s Highfield Street, prior to its closure in the year 2000, had a daily midday Mass well supported by those working in the city. My dad, who worked in the Liver Building, was a daily Mass-goer at Highfield Street in the days when the Downside Benedictines ran the parish. 

Founded by the Jesuits in 1707, and located in Edmund Street, it was the first Catholic church to be built in an English town since the Reformation. Burnt down in 1746, it was rebuilt disguised as a warehouse until that too was attacked and partially destroyed in 1759. Thirty-nine years later, the church came under the care of the Benedictines.

The Irish Potato Famine saw the city’s population rise to almost half a million. The new parishioners’ pennies paid for a magnificent replacement Pugin church which opened in 1845. When the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway was extended further into the city, the church was moved, stone by stone, to Highfield Street. This building, too, was destroyed in the May Blitz of 1941. 

The church was rebuilt to a modern design and reopened in 1953. 

Demolition of surrounding tenements saw the number of parishioners fall from 10,000 at the turn of the century to 120 in 1999. Meanwhile, the Benedictines had withdrawn and the parish had been taken over by a succession of diocesan priests, including Father Tony Hitchen. Fr Michael Gaine was the last parish priest before the church’s closure and eventual demolition. 

Over the years, ecumenical links had flourished between Highfield Street and Our Lady and St Nicholas. When Fr Stephen Pritchard was given pastoral oversight of the city centre in 2000, the imaginative decision was taken to transfer celebration of the Friday lunchtime Mass from St Mary’s to ‘St Nic’s’. Canon Nicholas Frayling, the rector, was happy to welcome the lunchtime Catholic community. Fr Stephen celebrated the weekly Mass himself for 10 years prior to the establishment of the current rota. The tradition endures to this day thanks to the hospitality offered by the current rector, the Revd Philip Anderson. One further detail reinforces the partnership: originally founded in the 13th century, St Nic’s was also destroyed in the Blitz and rebuilt after the war. 

If you’re near the Liverpool waterfront on a Friday at 1.05 pm, why not join us?