This page under
construction
Christ
the King & The Holy Rood
The full name of our parish
is "Christ the King, Langney, with Holy Rood, Pevensey
Bay". We were created as a parish on the 3 December
1989, having previously been part of the parish of St
Agnes in Whitley Road, Eastbourne.
Our first parish priest was Fr John Pearson who joined
us in September of 1987. He originally came as the
Curate to Fr John O'Sullivan, in the old parish of St
Agnes. Bishop Cormac announced his appointment as our
priest in June 1987, during a celebratory Mass to
consecrate the Church at Christ the King.
Fr Pearson left us at the end of August 1996 to take up
the post of parish priest at St Gabriel's in
Billingshurst, West Sussex. His successor, and our
priest since September 1996, is Fr Barry Anderson.
THE CHURCHES
When the parish was created
on 3 December 1989, the Buildings in our care purely
consisted of the two churches. The site for Christ the
King was purchased in 1960. Work on clearing the site
began at the end of 1966. The contractors began to
build the new church early that year and it became
available to the Catholic community on November 5th,
1967. The church is situated at the junction of Princes
Road, Langney and Pevensey Bay Road, Eastbourne.
The Church of Holy Rood in
Castle Drive, Pevensey Bay, was built in 1963 and
consecrated by Bishop Cashman on the 4th May 1966. A
local developer and builder, Mr Keith Martin, donated
the land to the Diocese as a memorial to his deceased
son. In the church there is a splendid statue to St
Thomas A' Becket, whom it is said, had lived at nearby
Pevensey Castle.
THE PRESBYTERY
From 1988 through to 1990,
Fr Pearson lived at 88 St Anthony's Avenue, opposite
the Church of Christ the King. During 1989 some road
widening was necessary to the roundabout in front of
the Church and east towards the new Crumbles shopping
complex.
The parish was blessed with some good fortune when the
contractors carrying out the work wished to buy a small
slither of land which belonged to our parish, to enable
them to widen the road at the roundabout. As part of
the negotiations the contractors agreed to build our
priest's house, where Fr Barry lives today. The house
at 3 Princes Road, was built at no cost to the parish,
in exchange for that small slither of land.
CHRIST THE KING PARISH
HALL
As the new parish started
to find its feet, it became apparent that we needed a
parish hall. For fetes and social occasions we had made
use of a marquee loaned to us by St Thomas A' Becket
Junior School. If you look very carefully, the concrete
stays to support the marquee are still there in the
grassed area of the grounds near the roundabout.
After some preliminary
research, in particular, viewing the new hall at St
Martha's parish in Little Common, Bexhill, a meeting of
the parishioners took place in October 1993 to plan for
a hall. A magnificent effort by the parish enabled work
to commence in building our hall in August 1994. The
bulk of the projected funds to pay for this building
work was provided by gifts; proceeds from fund raising
events; socials; coffee mornings; donations and a
generous loan of £20,000 from a parishioner.
The building of the hall was completed in January 1995.
The first function was a slide show given by Fr Frank
Thompson in February 1995 with a visiting Mill Hill
Missionary, who talked about his life in Kenya. Bishop
Cormac came to formally open the hall after celebrating
Mass with us on Sunday 26 March 1995.
MORE EXPANSION - THE
PARISH ROOMS
(This story to come)
THE PARISH IN ACTION
During this early period of
the parish, particular mission appeals were and still
are receiving support as part of our Christian
contributions. CAFOD, Rwuanda, Bosnia and Columbia were
among the projects touching our thoughts. More recently
we have been supporting the Mutomo Mission Hospital in
Kitui province in Kenya. This area is suffering from a
combination of a very high level of AIDS combined with
terrible drought making life extremely difficult in the
region.
The parish was the first created, in the Diocese of
Arundel and Brighton, since the Diocese itself was only
created in 1965 out of the Southwark Diocese. We were
among the first Catholic parishes to be involved with
"Life in the Spirit" and "Alpha". Like other parishes,
we also actively participated with the renew programme
in the late 1980's.
Mary
(This page
was researched and compiled by Mary
Maloney.)