St James the Deacon: The Parish
The Parish With the construction of the "New" Dringhouses Council Estate after the Second World War, it was felt that a new Church was needed for the growing population Originally the area contained many brickponds and was of In 1952 the Archbishop of York (Dr. Garbett) licensed the On 12th December 1953 the site was Blessed by the Bishop, of Selby, the Rt. Revd. Carey Knyvett, and the So began the work of the new Mission District of St James the Deacon, Acomb Moor, with 466 houses including 150 of the new "prefabs" from St. Stephen's, Acomb and 604 houses from St. Edward the Confessor's, Dringhouses - a grand total of 1070 houses. Now (in 2018) there are 4,651 homes in the parish! (Source: Church of England Research & Statistics unit). The infant Church grew from these beginnings. The net profit at the end of the first year was the princely sum of 16s. 41/2d. (85 pence in today's terms). The Church was always entirety independent of Acomb and Dringhouses, and these early days saw a very hard struggle to survive with very little money, a tiny adult congregation and 400 children in the Sunday School! The Revd. Alan Wood left in 1957 and for 6 months there was on interregnum with services mostly taken by the Revd. Morton Howard. Then on 25th January 1958 the Mission District was upgraded to a CONVENTIONAL DISTRICT with the Revd. J. W. Horton, B.A. being licensed as Priest-in-charge by Archbishop Ramsey. The Vicarage was completed in 1960 and everyone's thoughts and prayers turned towards the building of a "real” church. By this time all the new were being built on green belt land behind Wains Road (Woodthorpe) and it soon became apparent that the Hall/Church would be left right on the fringe of the developing parish. After much heart - searching it was decided in 1966 to purchase a new site from The Shepherd Building Group Ltd. which would be more convenient for the anticipated spread of housing. Looking ahead to the days when the "real" church would The period from 1958 to 1970 however did see an immense amount of Youth work. Despite the small adult congregation there was a large number of children attending Sunday School and a membership of 70 in the Church Lads Brigade and the Church Girls Brigade. The increasing status of the church led on 14th May 1968 Back now to the "new" Church. On 1st September 1968 the ball started to roll with a procession of clergy, choirs and laity from the "old" Church, St. Stephen's and St Edward the Confessor to the newly purchased site. An open air service was held at which the preacher was the Ven. C. R. Forder, Archdeacon of York, and a large Cross and notice board were erected to The building now to be erected like the Hall/Church, was From ‘A Guide to St James the Deacon, Acomb Moor, York by Geoff Winn’ Since then of course, the parish has developed considerably and the church has changed and developed to meet the growing needs of the area. The original vision of having church, hall and Vicarage all on one site took some years to finally come together, with a new Vicarage being built on land next to the church (on the corner of Rycroft Avenue/Sherringham Drive) in 2000, and a new church hall added to the east end of the Church in 2010. The interior of the church was also re-ordered in 2014, to create the Horton Room (named in memory of Fr Horton), a meeting room with a kitchenette, for church and community use. |
St James the Deacon: His Life & Legacy St James the Deacon: His Life & Legacy | |
Our Parish Parish Boundaries | |