St Philips RC Church

General information

The first Catholic Church in Hazel Grove was a mission chapel in Commercial Road formerly a Mount Zion Chapel and opened in 1897. Hazel Grove was part of the parish of St Philip and St James in Edgeley (this became Our Lady and the Apostles in 1905). Priests served the parish from Edgeley on a Sunday and the nucleus of an identifiable community was formed.

Numbers grew and eventually means were found to finance the building of a more permanent home for the independent parish, which was founded in 1923/24. A plot of land in Green Lane, on which to build a church and school was purchased for £4,500.

The Rt. Rev. Hugh Singleton, 5th Bishop of Shrewsbury, blessed the site of the altar and laid the foundation stone for the new church dedicated to St Peter on the 23rd August 1930. The building was completed in April 1931 and was designed by Edward Kirby of Liverpool and built by Daniel Eadie & Son of Stockport. Messrs Shepherdsons of Great Moor made the pine furniture and the parishioners donated the statues of Our Lady and the Sacred Heart.

The official opening took place on the 12th April 1931 when Canon McGeever of Our Lady and the Apostles, in the presence of the Bishop, Fr Kirby the former rector and Fr. James Kelly, the Rector at the time, celebrated a solemn High Mass.

The late fifties and sixties saw an increase not only in the Catholic population but in Hazel Grove generally and the church was enlarged in the mid sixties to accommodate the expanding community. Further internal alterations were made during the seventies to reflect the liturgical changes of the Second Vatican Council and the latest alteration, which was completed and blessed in April 2006, has been to re-order the sanctuary and erect a new permanent altar.