User:Hassocks5489/NewForest

Overview of the district and its places of worship
Support for the Roman Catholic faith in the post-Reformation era in this part of Hampshire was provided by the Weld family of the Lulworth Estate in Dorset. From 1800 until the 1850s Mass was celebrated at Pylewell House, owned by a member of the family; then in 1858 Joseph Weld bought a site for a permanent church in Lymington. The land was behind an existing 18th-century house which was converted into the presbytery. The Church of Our Lady of Mercy and St Joseph, which opened in May 1859, was designed by Joseph Hansom in a plain Gothic Revival style. Fordingbridge's Catholic church, originally dedicated to Our Lady of Seven Dolours, dates from 1873 and occupies premises built as a novitiate for members of the Servite Order who lived here until 1907. It was registered for public worship in 1875. The church and its attached presbytery are set in a large burial ground. The Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Edward the Confessor was built at Lyndhurst in 1896 to serve Catholics in that village and the surrounding area, who for the preceding 10 years had been able to use a chapel at Wellands Hall. The church was paid for by a Frenchman in memory of his late wife, who had lived in Lyndhurst. The small Decorated Gothic Revival church was designed by Arthur Blomfield, who mostly worked on Anglican churches. A permanent church was built in Totton in 1925 to a "quite striking" design by W.C. Mangan. It was extended in the late 1950s, and the interior was refitted in the 1960s and 1970s. Two years later he designed Our Lady of Lourdes Church in New Milton, which along with neighbouring Barton-on-Sea had grown rapidly in the early 20th century. For the previous three years the priest from Lymington had celebrated Mass in houses in New Milton. At Ringwood, Mass was celebrated at the house of a Catholic family until a church was built in 1937–39 to the design of John Sterrett and was completed after World War II. Originally a stark Modernist/functionalist building of dark brick, the exterior was transformed in 2012 to the design of Philip Proctor, giving it a more ornate white façade in a Classical/Mediterranean style. Also built at this time was St Anne's Church in Brockenhurst, to the design of Alan Stewart; it is a "simple and nicely detailed" example of Romanesque Revival architecture. The parish was formed in 1939 but the first priest died soon afterwards: the first Mass in the church was his funeral. At Milford-on-Sea, the chapel at Maryland House, a home for priests run by a group of Franciscan sisters, was made available for public worship between 1938 and its closure in 1967. At this point the village institute, built in 1888, was converted into a Catholic church dedicated to St Francis of Assisi. In the early 20th century Mass began to be celebrated in hired premises in Hythe by a curate from St Joseph's Church, Southampton. Each Sunday he travelled across Southampton Water on a motorboat to reach Hythe. Further south, at Holbury, a timber church was built in 1939 and a parish was formed. In 1958, land was built for a permanent church in Hythe, which by this time was part of the parish of Totton. It became part of Holbury parish in 1962, and the present St Michael's Church was built three years later. Holbury then became a separate parish again and a new church, St Bernard's, was built in 1971.

Anglican churches
Most of the district's Anglican churches are part of the Anglican Diocese of Winchester, which is based at Winchester Cathedral. The remainder are in the Diocese of Salisbury, whose seat is Salisbury Cathedral. Those in the Diocese of Winchester are split across two deaneries. The churches at Ashley, Bashley, Bisterne, Bransgore, Breamore, Burley, Ellingham, Fordingbridge, Godshill, Hale, Harbridge, Hinton, Hyde, New Milton, Poulner, Ringwood, Sandleheath (joint Anglican and Methodist), Sopley, Thorney Hill and Woodgreen are administered by the Christchurch Deanery. Lyndhurst Deanery is responsible for the churches at Beaulieu, Boldre, the two (St Nicholas and St Saviour) at Brockenhurst, Buckler's Hard, Buttsash, Calmore, Colbury, Copythorne, Dibden, Dibden Purlieu, East Boldre, Eling, Emery Down, Everton, Exbury, Fawley, Holbury, Hordle, Hythe, Langley, Lymington, Lyndhurst, Marchwood, Milford-on-Sea, Minstead, Netley Marsh, Pennington, Pilley, South Baddesley, Sway, Tiptoe, Totton and Woodside. In the Diocese of Salisbury, Chalke Deanery administers the churches at Damerham, Martin, Rockbourne and Whitsbury; and the church at Bramshaw is part of Alderbury Deanery.