Parish History
PART 1: In the Beginning
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Special thanks are due to Anne Ward, Parish Archivist, for compiling the following history of the Parish.
Today the parish church of Our Lady, Star of the Sea, North Berwick, stands on the east side of Law Road near its junction with St. Baldred's Road. It is built of grey freestone in the 'Early Decorated' Gothic style; the west gable facing the roadway has diagonal buttresses and is inset with windows, the largest of which is triangular to symbolise the Trinity. The church comprises a well-furnished nave leading through the chancel arch to a taller sanctuary, roofed with arcaded beam-filling. An arched gallery on the south side is balanced by lower arches on the north, opening into the Lady Chapel which has a ribbed wagon roof. Set back on the south side, the adjoining presbytery has a large garden and there is a hall to the rear of the church.
In the mid-1870s the scene was quite different. The site was part of a field on the farm of North Berwick Mains leased to a John Wallace by the laird, Sir Hew Hamilton Dalrymple. There was no Catholic church in the town; indeed there had been none for over three hundred years. Since 1869 Mass had been celebrated in the town every sixth Sunday by Father William Grady, the priest in charge of the Mission in Haddington. Various makeshift Mass centres were used: Huntly Lodge on Marine Parade was lent by a Mr Trotter; surviving receipts show that from May 1875 to May 1877 Father Grady paid rent of £5 a year for the use of premises in the Vale property in Forth Street owned by John Auld, cabinetmaker. According to the Minutes of North Berwick Town Council, Father Grady was given permission to use the Burgh Schoolroom from May 1878 but this concession was withdrawn in February 1879 on the grounds that the Schoolroom would be wholly used by the ladies of the town who ran the Working Men's Tea and Coffee Room.
Father Grady felt that there was a pressing need for a permanent church in the town. North Berwick was no longer the 'bare village' suggested by its Anglo Saxon name ('bar' - bare, 'wic' - village) but had become a fashionable seaside resort. New hotels were being built and Catholic visitors expected to hear Mass in its proper setting. Many Irish people had come to Scotland bringing with them a strong faith and devotion to the liturgy. They would work all week on local farms and then if there was no Mass in North Berwick, would walk to Haddington or even to Dunbar. They deserved a church in their own locality.
There were three main problems: a suitable site, money and an architect to design it. Father Grady narrowed down his choice of sites to two areas on the east and west sides of what is now Law Road. He favoured the west site because it was the drier of the two (although the east site had the advantage of the existing boundary wall dividing it from the Lodge grounds) but Sir Hew's solicitors told Father Grady on September 1877 that was prepared to feu only the east site. A request for additional land on which to build a Catholic school was refused; his solicitors did not feel that could advise Sir Hew to agree to this as the town was adequately served by the Burgh school. Father Grady argued that he had a duty to plan for a Catholic school even though 'two things are wanting: children and money', but to no avail.
After a protracted correspondence and several meetings with the solicitors in Edinburgh, agreement was reached that Sir Hew would feu to the Church authorities -
'All and whole that area of ground part from my Farm of North Berwick Mains lying immediately to the east of the road leading from North Berwick to my Farm ... bounded by the west by said road and on the south, east and north by other lands belonging to me.'
The site measured a quarter of an acre and the consideration was an annual feu duty of £6/10/-. The land was granted on condition that it was used only for a church and presbytery (a school was specifically excluded) and -
'That in the event of any bell being put up in or upon the Church to be erected on the said piece of ground the same shall not during the usual hours of Divine Service be rung continuously or at length so as to cause any disturbance or annoyannce to the worshippers in the said other churches.'