The light of the world

Tonight Lee and I discovered the derelict Church of the Sacred Heart and associated vicarage, both up Albany Mount, not far from the Art College and near the police station. The Church is a big, imposing building, its white-washed front dominated by a large statue of the crucified Christ hanging on his cross high above the central doorway. The cornerstone was laid in 1863.

The vicarage stands across the road, boarded up and forgotten, a fine red-brick house with tall chimney stacks and an imposing doorway fronted by stone steps. It’s an important looking building and reminded me a little of the pictures you see of Borley Rectory with its sharply angled high roof and slightly haunted feel.

We had to get inside, so we returned after dark with Lee’s newly purchased crow-bar and forced a way in through a cellar door. The house has three storeys and all the rooms were empty save for those in the cellar which looked to have recently been in use—maybe by squatters? A few faded newspapers upstairs dated from May 1981.

We gained entry to the Church through a side window which we reached by climbing onto the low roof of the boiler house. Lee chipped away at the lead in the window with his penknife while I crouched anxiously beside him and watched for any signs of movement in the lighted windows of the large building next door. It took about fifteen minutes for him to pry loose four panes of glass and for us to slither inside, head first.

The church was derelict but only recently so, for pews, altar and carpets still remain. I quickly discovered a side room in which were hoarded some of the furnishings; a large brass vase, a heavy brass bell topped by a cross and the wooden striker, a couple of glass jugs full of water (one with a silver stopper), and a set of chime bells (‘Bells for Life Boys’). We wandered about for over an hour, and we also found a couple of staffs topped by crosses, a candle extinguisher, a macabre framed study of the head of Christ, an engraving showing JC as ‘The Light of the World,’ clerical vestments, a churchman's black robe (which fit Lee), a large metal cross on a base and a couple of fine old trunks.