Page 16 - Oundle Life Feb 2021

CHURCH FOR ALL
The Church of the
Most Holy Name of Jesus
This beautiful church is built on an island
site where West Street, Mill Road, Stoke Doyle Road and Benefield Road converge.
It now serves the Catholics of Oundle and a considerable number of villages. Although temporarily closed because the layout of the church does not allow for safe use during the pandemic, many residents will have noticed work going on to repair the retaining wall and there are plans to install matching railings to the raised part of the wall for safety reasons.
The site of the church was dedicated to the “ever blessed name of Jesus” in July 1879 as a second Anglican Church in Oundle. The site was donated by Jesse David Watts Russell of Biggin Hall, Oundle. Sadly, it is believed that on the very day that the “crowning cross” was being placed on the summit of the tower, on 6th March 1879, he died suddenly, only a few months before the Church was completed.
It had been designed by the establishment architect, Sir Arthur Bloomfield of London who was the architect for the Grocers Company responsible for some of the Oundle School buildings.
Jesse Watts Russell came from a wealthy farming family. He was sorry to see so many
of the less wealthy of the Parish not being able to enter the main Parish Church of St Peter
in Oundle because of the allocation of the
pews to the wealthy and privileged. Part of his motivation for building the church was to allow the ordinary working people of Oundle to have a church where worship was not separated out by wealth or background. His desire was that the poor should have a church in which all
the places were perfectly free and open to all comers.
The original inscription on a brass plate, previously located under the West window
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