In a message dated 04/06/2007 12:22:54 GMT Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: hello there, Can anyone tell me which was the nearest catholic church which may have been used by catholics prior to Pontop hall? The Pontop hall records seem to start in 1778. I am wondering if the records before 1778 are missing or the church was founded in 1778 and another church was used before this date. Regards Rod Boyd Rod: As far as I know, the Pontop Hall registers, which begin in 1778 are the earliest there are. If there ever were any earlier ones (unlikely), then the volume seems to have been destroyed. Before 1778, however, Catholics would have been reluctant to commit anything to writing as there was still an element of persecution around, the Roman Catholic Relief Bill being passed only IN 1778. That is not to say that there were not Catholics in the district. There certainly were, but officially their meeting place is unknown. However, my own bet is that it had been at Pontop Hall for a long time, even during the period of persecution, as all the fitments of a church still remain there, hidden away in the loft space, which is, to say the least, not obvious to anyone looking at the building from the outside. After 1778 there was no need for such secrecy. I have this information from a C of E clergyman relative, now dead, who was shown the loft by the farmer (Pontop Hall, once a home of the Meaburns, a RC family, is now a farm-house) c1970. We should remember that the NE in general was a hot-bed of Roman Catholicism, especially amongst the land-owning families. I think they felt so secure as little monarchs on their own estates, remote from the centre of government, that at the reformation (1530s) they could dismiss the new ideas about the Church as just a London fad, something that would soon pass and which they need not take any notice of. Because of that, and because of their wealth, they were well-organised and at first they could well afford to pay their fines. However, it was a long time from the 1530s to the 18th century, the Rising of the Northern Earls (1569) and the Civil War (1640s) along the way both being seen as defeats for the RC party, amongst other things, so by the early 18th century many local RC families were becoming desperate, their estates mortgaged up to the hilt. That is one of the reasons behind the 1715 Jacobite Rebellion and the years of plotting that both preceded and followed it. The '45 was more complex, but out of the same mould, though it seems to have affected the NE less directly, and it may be no coincidence that 1788 was pretty well one generation after the '45, a period during which the Jacobite/Catholic threat had effectively died. As a final thought - can you imagine the feelings of the by-then cosy little group of wealthy land-owning Catholics when, as the NE became more and more industrialised, there began what was to become a torrent of immigration of Catholic families from Ireland? How did the rough, illiterate Irish labourers get on with the sophisticated local land-owners? Were the Irish encouraged to attend the same church as the locals, or were there "working-class" RC churches and "uppper-class" ones? Is it as simple as to say that urban ones were "working-class" and rural ones "upper-class"? Pontop, for instance, and it's successor at The Brooms, were typical of Co Durham in that the countryside had the air of being quite rural, yet there were very many coal mines around. From when was it a problem? 1800? The coming of the railways? The years of the potato famine? A lot of research has been done, I know, but there seems a lot more for someone interested in such things. Geoff Nicholson