To the rear of the brick wall is the site of the iron mission building (1883) later replaced by a brick church hall (1932), demolished (1970s) after a fire.
"In 1833 a major outbreak of cholera filled the three existing burial grounds used by St Mary’s Church (one set around the church, one in Barker Gate and one other in Carter Gate). Much of St Mary’s parish was heavily built on, so the site on Beck Burn was a natural choice and it was purchased by St Mary’s from Mr Samuel Fox in 1834 for the sum of £600. The ground was consecrated by the Bishop of York in 1835, and soon afterwards a small Mortuary Chapel was built in the centre of the site. Nothing now remains of this building.
Development of the area was very slow; ten years later Dearden’s Map of Nottingham shows the same streets, the burial ground and the chapel, but no other buildings. However, by 1881 an ordnance survey map reveals a very different picture. The old pottery had gone, a new road (Bath Street) had been built along side the burial ground, and a network of streets lined with terraced housing, factories, hosiery mills, shops and other businesses filled every part of the valley. This development led to the need to built St Catharine’s Church.
In 1882 the Nottingham Spiritual Aid and Church Extension Society was formed with the intention of providing a Church of England presence in poorer working class areas. Under the care of the Vicar of St Mary’s, Canon Francis Morse, a church district was formed in 1883. Rev Selwyn Charles Freer was appointed by the Spiritual Aid Society as the first priest in charge. With no church building available, Freer used the Mortuary Chapel of St Mary’s Burial Ground for services. About one hundred people could be seated, and an old deal box served as the altar. Canon Morse himself conducted the first mass in June 1883, and for the occasion he was accompanied by twelve choirboys from St Mary’s.
As this was not considered a satisfactory arrangement for any length of time, an area of the burial ground at the lower edge of the site adjacent to the road was set aside for a separate church. Since no funds were available for building a church, the Spiritual Aid Society provided an iron mission church. The Society gave £500 towards costs, and the Countess of Ossington a further £300. The building was dedicated by Bishop Christopher Wordsworth of Lincoln on 22 January 1884. It had seating for 350, but that soon proved inadequate, and an extension was added in November 1885. It was opened by Bishop Ridding, first bishop of Southwell. The Spiritual Aid Society paid the rental of the building (£20 a year) over the period 1884-96.
Selwyn Freer promoted wholesome recreation. He organised social and recreational activities to attract working class people to the church, and he raised a subscription for an institute. The foundation stone was laid in July 1884 by Lady Laura Ridding, the bishop’s wife, and it was completed and in use by November that year. It became the centre of parish social activities. In fact, much urban mission work in later 19th-Century Nottingham had an emphasis on matters of a socio-religious nature, including the Temperance Movement, and various other forms of church-orientated social work, including the Salvation Army.
In 1887 Mr Freer relinquished the living to become the Bishop’s Chaplain. He was succeeded by the Rev S T Winkley, who was already known in the area, having married Freer’s sister.
Although the iron church was used for 11 years, it was always intended as a temporary structure which would be replaced in the fullness of time. As early as 1887 negotiations started in respect of the district to be assigned to St Catherine’s, and the vicar of St Mary’s, Rev John Gray Richardson, took steps to assign some of his glebe land to make an income for the ‘vicar’ of St Catherine’s. The sum involved was about £148 a year from rents. The boundaries of the district were agreed in November 1888, and formally announced in the London Gazette on 21 December 1888. Patronage of the living was vested in the Bishop of Southwell; in other words it was not seen as part of the vicar of St Mary’s fiefdom. The endowment was increased by a further £100 a year in 1891.
By 1891, St Catherine’s had a district and a vicar, but the congregation still worshipped in a temporary iron church. At that point a committee was set up to raise funds for the building of a permanent church. It held its first annual general meeting on 25 November 1891, when it was announced that £440 had either been given or promised (including £100 from the Duke of Newcastle and £50 from Freer), and that plans had been prepared by Sir Arthur Blomfield for a church of 600 seats. The cost of the proposed building is not recorded, but the architect’s fees were said to be £500. Understandably raising funds was a slow process in a poor parish. When Mr Winkley moved on in 1894 only £1650 had been raised, and another £300 was promised. But with building costs estimated at £5500, the shortfall was still too great for work on the church to begin.
At the end of 1894 the vicar, Rev Claud Lewis, applied to the Incorporated Church Building Society for a grant towards the cost of a new church. Lewis prepared a formal application to the ICBS in which he stressed the inadequacy of the existing accommodation, in particular the need to accommodate up to 500 children in Sunday School, and the difficulty of raising money in a parish which was notable for its Irish and its costermongers. Only one house rented at £35 a year, 12 at £25 and 50 at £20, and the rest he described as squalid. Blomfield had withdrawn as architect, but Robert Clarke, ‘a local but good architect’ recommended by Blomfield, had revised the plans ready for building. The ICBS does not seem to have been impressed.
A series of church gatherings in the following months seems to have had some impact, because by March 1895 £2300 had been secured, with the £300 promise still functional. The Duke of Newcastle had agreed to lay the foundation stone, and Lewis thought it worth renewing his application to the ICBS for additional funds, again stressing the poverty of the district. This time the ICBS at least agreed to look at the plans, which Clarke submitted to them together with the anticipated costings. The ICBS was again not impressed, responding to the vicar with the comment that ‘the design shows neither knowledge of church architecture nor of proper construction. General design very poor. Roof as shown is an impossibility’. Lewis was appalled at this slur on Clarke, and asked for a detailed critique of the plans. Clarke was so incensed when he heard what was going on that he demanded an interview with the ICBS architects in London which was, perhaps not surprisingly, refused.
Feathers seem rapidly to have been smoothed, because in May 1895 the ICBS approved the plans, with several conditional modifications to the roof, the door at the east end of the south aisle, and the positioning of the font. The Society offered a grant of £120, provided that 620 seats in the church were free. This decision, coinciding as it did with the offering by Mr Harry Gee (a member of the building committee) of £1100 in memory of his parents in order to fund the chancel, meant that £4000 had been raised.
On 23rd July 1895 Mr Lewis, the Bishop of Derby Dr Weir, and Archdeacon Richardson Vicar of St Mary’s, accompanied by the choir, processed along St Ann’s Well Road from the iron church to the new site singing “The church’s one foundation”
By 1932 under the leadership of Mr Lester funds were raised to replace the iron church, which since the opening of the new church had been in constant use as the church hall, with a new brick building. The new hall was built on the same site. It was a single storey building of light coloured bricks, with decorative dressed stone forming the widow and door openings and copings around the parapets of the flat roof. In the early 1970s this building was badly damaged by fire and was demolished. During its lifetime it did however serve a variety of purposes and a range of faiths. It was used as a youth club, for church functions and meetings, and as a small theatre. Its users included the West Indian and Moslem communities."
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