SMR 835 / NS 9338 7724

St Anthony’s RC Church

SMR 1699 / NS 9316 7738

By 1885 the large Catholic population in and around Rumford worshipped in the hall of the League of the Cross. The congregation prospered and decided to build its own church on a site in South Craigs Road and work began on it in 1898. It was formally opened on 26 December 1890 by Archbishop Smith of St Andrews and Edinburgh. It was intended as a chapel-school, to be used as a Church on Sundays and as a school during the week and the congregation soon applied for government funding. The building held 300 for Mass on Sundays and 25 children on weekdays. The church was served by the priests of St Francis Xavier’s in Falkirk.

The 1890 church was oblong, measuring 62ft by 30ft. It was designed by Canon William Grady in a simple Gothic style brought up to date by a continuous clerestory above windowless rendered side aisles. The slated roof of the nave is bellcast presenting swept tabling to the west gable where the advanced tower cuts it. The tower is made of polished ashlar and has small lateral buttresses at the base which also clasp the vestry and priest’s room. The middle stage features a pointed-arched window, above which is a plain stone cross set on a moulded bracket. The upper stage of the tower is intaken with canted corners and battlements with moulded crenels.

It was not until 1913 that Polmont became a parish in its own right and the first parish priest was Father William Grant, Prospect House in Sunnyside Road being rented for his accommodation. The church was known as Polmont R.C. Church. In 1918 it ceased to be a chapel-school (the children now attend St Andrew’s School in Falkirk). After the First World War father William Grant and the congregation commissioned a memorial for the church which took the form of a bellcote atop the tower. The open timber-framed belfry with a slated pyramid roof was neatly slotted into parapet of the tower; the fluted corner posts giving it an art nouveau feel.

In the depression of the early 1930s Father McGarvey arranged for a project to provide some employment to those out of work. A large presbytery was erected on the site of an old curling pond at North Craigs. The site cost £43.00.

Much of the work was supported by the congregation – the ladies providing meals for the workers. An adjoining church hall was opened in 1931.

During the Second World War Polish troops occupied St Margaret’s School at Meadowbank and worshipped at St Anthony’s. Before leaving they gifted an icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa (known as the Black Madonna), but this was passed on to Carfin in 1985.

By the 1970s the church was too small to accommodate the numbers attending mass and five Masses had to be provided at weekends. The church could only accommodate a maximum of about 120 maximum and so it was decided that a new and larger church was necessary. This was built adjoining the presbytery and was opened on 2 July l985 by the late Cardinal Gray, Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh. The church is a timber-frame building designed by Fleming Buildings Ltd to accommodate a congregation of up to 350. It is essentially a square pavilion with a large porch on the south; the walls are dry-washed and the pyramid roof is covered with concrete tiles. Inside the church the main space is spanned by laminated timber beams and the boarded ceiling reflects the external shape of the roof and provides resonance. The seating was made by a parishioner, John Young, who only charged for the wood. The plumbing was done by volunteers from the parish charging only for the materials. Small but poignantly modelled bronze Stations of the Cross were by Vincent Butler, c1978. The altar is of black marble. Stained glass roundels depict scenes from the life of Our Lord date to 1936 and came from Roseburn Free Church in Edinburgh.

In 1990 a new hall was built adjacent to the new church, replacing the old wooden hall next to the old church. The old church building was sold and became part of a builder’s yard. Shortly afterwards, a bell tower was built in front of the new church to house the bell which had been commissioned in 1919 in memory of those parishioners who had given their lives in the Great War of 1914 – 1918.

Bell

1991: Bell transferred from the old building.

Priests of St. Anthony’s RC Church

1913	Grant, William	1923
1923	Morrison, Edward	1926
1926	Murphy, Philip	1929
1929	Egan, D.P.	1930
Sept. 1930	McGarvey,Thomas	1936
1936	McCann, Thomas	1955/1973
1946	there was a succession of curates	1975
1975	Hanlon, Thomas	1993/ 2009

Bibliography

Jaques, R.	2001	Falkirk and District, an Illustrated Architectural Guide. “ST ANTHONY’S POLMONT, South Craigs Rd., 1891 Stone kirk by picturesque bend in Gardrum Burn, with dramatic swept tabling to gable, open timber-framed and slated belfry ingeniously slotted into parapet of neatly modelled and advanced tower, added 1919. Now builder’s store. [p.102]”
Leask, D	2017	A Historic Tour of the Parish of Muiravonside. pp.243-245.

NEWSPAPERS

Falkirk Herald, 3 November 1888, 7:
RUMFORD. Social Meeting.—On Wednesday night, the 25th ult., the Catholics of Rumford met in the hall of the League of the Cross, to partake of tea and hear Father Forsyth read an essay on Mary Queen of Scots.” In the absence of the very rev. president, Canon Grady…
Falkirk Herald, 27 December 1890, 5:
Rumford Chapel. — the new Roman Catholic Chapel, which has just been completed at Rumford, will be opened on Sunday first, when the Archbishop will conduct the service.
Falkirk Herald, 3 January 1891, 6:
RUMFORD New R.C. Chapel.—On Sunday morning last a new chapel was opened by the Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, at Rumford. Early on Sunday morning Canon Grady, accompanied by the full choir of the Falkirk chapel, went to Rumford, where the Rev. Canon duly blesses the new building, according to the rites of the church. Archbishop Smith thereafter preached…
Falkirk Herald, 5 December 1931, 8:
On Friday evening last an interesting ceremony took place in connection with the opening of new hall at Rumford, under St. Anthony’s R.C. Chapel. The Rev. Father M’Garvey, local priest, presided over a large attendance, and was supported on the platform by His Grace Archbishop Macdonald of Edinburgh and St Andrews…
Falkirk Herald, 28 September 1989, 11:
St. Anthony’s R.C. Church in Rumford is to have a new church hall in Maddiston Road. Permission for the building was granted to parish priest Father Tom Hanlon.