The church will remain open for guests to explore, from the choir loft the pews, for Heritage Open Days.
Open Monday - Saturday 11am-3pm (closed Wednesday)
A leaflet will be available for visitors which includes information on the parish and the history of the building.
In the early 1950s the parish set about the task of completing the church. In 1962 the church was finished with only one variation from Sir Giles’ original conception in the form of a somewhat massive screen with stone dressings, mullioned windows and swing doors in ring-cupped oak at the west end, with a gallery overhead. The narthex thus formed providing an area for material affairs, helping to keep quiet the main body of the church.
In 1878 Captain and Mrs Arthur Rutt came to live in Broadstairs. They adapted and enlarged a brick building in the garden of their home at 2 Gladstone Road to make a public chapel under the title of Our Lady Star of the Sea. Here Mass was celebrated, by the monks of St Augustine’s Abbey, for the first time since the time of the Tudors. On moving to Ramsgate in 1888, Captain and Mrs Rutt, anxious that Mass should continue to be celebrated in Broadstairs, provided a plot of land in St Peter’s Park Road for a church to be built: a tin church was completed and furnished within six weeks.
While the Catholic community of Broadstairs now had a church to worship in, there was still no resident clergy, the parish being served directly by the monks of St Augustine’s Abbey who had arrived in Ramsgate in 1858. It was not until 1909 that the parish acquired its first fully resident priest.
To get in contact, please email broadstairsadmin@rcaos.org.uk
Free
Address
Heritage Open Days: Our Lady Star of the Sea
Our Lady Star of the Sea, Broadstairs Rd, Broadstairs
CT10 2RH
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