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The following is an interesting reminder of the
OLD DAYS written for PACE by Father W T Jolly. Parish Priest
at Costessey. It makes one realise the changes that have taken
place in Catholic life during the last 100 years
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In 1870
Dr Husenbeth looked back on 50 years in charge of the Catholic
Parish of Costessey where soon after his ordination, he
arrived in 1820 to be chaplain to Lord Stafford at Costessey Park.
At the time Dr Husenbeth's arrival the Stafford - Jerninghams
lived in the Old Hall which dated from 1564 and where, all
through the penal times, Mass has been said in the secret
attic chapel.
In 1809 a much larger chapel was built in the grounds of the
Hall and here Dr. Husenbeth parishioners attended Mass until
the present church of St. Walstan was opened on May 26th,
1841. From then on there were two Sunday Manes in the village:
one in the Hall chapel where the Jerninghams occupied a kind of
tribune connected with the house, and one at St. Walstans. This
took place, as now, at 10.30 am. In the afternoon there were
Vespers at 3 o' clock.
In 1870 the visit to the Hall of the Prince Of Wales (later
Kind Edward) and with Princess Alexandra, which had taken
place in 1866, was still a living memory in the village. 'The
Hall' now meant, not the original Tudor House, but a vast
mansion building in the Gothic manner adjacent to it between
the years 1827 and 1832. This mansion however was never
completed and even during the royal visit (which is said to
have cost the family £10 a day) the huge dining room, main kitchen
and immense conservatory remained unfinished and unusable. |
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Meanwhile
Dr. Husenbeth was long established in the Presbytery which
built adjoining the church and occupied in 1841. He recorded
the cost of building the church and presbytery and furnishing
both these buildings as £4417.7s 10d. His parishioners
numbered by now about 400, of whom all but a few lived in
Costessey itself. A dozen or so are given as inhabitants of
Wymondham, Easton, Bawburgh and Felthorpe.
Costessey was, therefore, a predominately Catholic village
whose people mostly found occupation at the Hall - working in
the house, grounds, or stables: or in the laundry, brewery or
brickworks. One servant's whole time was devoted to filling
lamps with oil and keeping their glasses polished. The
children, whether Catholic or not, attended the only village
school, which was that founded and entirely supported by Lord
Stafford. Parish records, most meticulously kept in Latin,
preserve the names of the 135 communicants on Easter Sunday.
1870, and the number of communions on the half-dozen
other great feasts of the year, on which alone, it was
customary' a hundred years ago, to receive Holy Communion. |
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Baptisms, in an era of
frequent infant mortality, usually took place the day
following the baby's birth and some times on the day itself,
Dr Husenbeth invariable wrote down his sermons and read them
from the pulpit: they were re-read at regular five yearly
intervals.
If one wanted to go to Norwich at this time, one walked or
caught the occasional carrier's car. Religious anniversaries,
therefore, were great events to be looked forward to: such as
the annual pilgrimage to St. Walstan's Well at Bawburgh, the
Blessed Sacrament procession in the Hall grounds or the First
Communion breakfast provided by the Jerninghams.
Dr Husenbeth became a family thick-set figure as he regularly
visited, on foot, the homes of his parishioners. On Sunday
evenings he ate, as a rule, with the Jerningham family'.
He is described, conflictingly, as "to rigid, unbending
and dogmatic" and 'always genial, cheerful and kind
hearted. He disallowed any kind of modern devotions in his
church as the "Forty Hours" or Retreats. Preached by
members of Religious orders! Visits to his parishioners on
Friday's were timed, they thought, to coincide with midday
meal so as to ensure abstinence from meat, he would argue
forcefully with a fellow priest against a spoonful of milk in
tea on a fast-day. Things were not "left to the
individual conscience" in 1870! |
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Impervious to cold, he bathed, during the time
he lived at Rose Cottage before his Presbytery was built,
every morning - winter and summer - in a pond behind the house
The Doctor's evening were devoted to an enormous
correspondence, his "Life of St. Walstan" (in whose
miracles he was a great believer) and the writing of a large
number of learned books. In his will he left a library of
valuable through not very readable books and, rather
surprisingly, a parrot. |
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Did coming events cast shadows over the year
1870? The Sisters were to leave the school in 1874 though they
returned, now fully qualified teachers, three years later. The
last two Lords Stafford were rendered by mental instability,
quite incapable of any kind of leadership in the village. When
Dr Husenbeth was found dead in bed on the morning of October
31st, 1872 the Bishop had no priest to replace him.
St Walstan's church closed and remained so for the following
38 years. The church doors creaked open only for the
occasional funeral, while the interior hung with cobwebs and a
bird built its nest in the tabernacle. Once more the
parishioners crossed the Costessey Park for services in the
Hall chapel. |
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