The village of Throckley must have been buzzin’ at 11am on Ascension Day, Thursday 19th May 1887. A new church in the centre of the village! St Mary the Virgin, Throckley, was born. Mr John Spencer must have been proud to hand the petition to consecrate the building to Rt Rev Ernest Wilberforce, Bishop of Newcastle. The days of meeting in the cramped Throckley mission room was over. The parish magazine in November 1886 stated that ‘the mission room is now always so inconveniently crowded, that we are beginning to watch with eager eyes the rising of the comely church near at hand into which this earnest and devoted congregation hope soon to move, and we trust that it will be the means to gather round it a larger body of worshippers all bound together with strong cords of Christian love and sympathy’
The land for the new church was given by the Duke of Northumberland and the whole of the expenses for the building were borne by Messrs Spencers, owners of the local steelworks. The foundation stone was laid by Miss Spencer of Whorlton Hall on Saturday, July 17th 1886. The Bishop was present and a procession made its way to the site of the new church. There was ‘a solemn and appropriate service of prayer and praise’, which began with the singing of ‘All people that on earth do dwell’ and concluded with ‘The Church’s one foundation’. A bottle, containing two local newspapers of the day, a silver coin and a document, was placed in a cavity below the foundation stone.
© 2007 Newburn Parish
As a daughter church to St Michael & All Angels, St Mary’s is very much a part of the Parish of Newburn. Following the major fire at the parish church in March of last year, the main Sunday morning parish service is conducted at St Mary’s. Members of both churches operate together in all areas of Church life. A shortened version of our mission statement is TO SHARE GOD’S LOVE. .
We have times when we leave St Mary’s open so that people can come in for a quiet space to pray and reflect. In the Spring we are planning a ‘Trip down memory lane’ when we will have ‘open church’ with coffee being served and the marriage and baptism registers will be out for people to view and look up their own entries. Our social events, which are open to the community, include a weekly coffee morning in the Parish Hall, pie & pea suppers & quiz in a local club, cream teas in the vicarage garden, soup & bun events with a short Christian message at Easter, harvest and Christmas, a monthly Saturday walk and an annual open air Songs of Praise held in a parishioner’s garden.
Our Local Ministry Group organise door to door visiting annually in June. As well as going out into the community this helps us to grow in confidence, sharing our faith with others.
Our Junior Church meets fortnightly and has an average attendance of twelve children.
We hold special events for children at Easter and Advent, clergy regularly take
assemblies at local schools and baptism anniversary cards are sent out. When children
in the baptism registers are 3-
To help our growth in faith and fellowship we meet run a Lent course, have weekly housegroups, have a small group going to Spring Harvest, serve coffee every Sunday after the morning service and hold a service of Morning Prayer or Holy Communion every weekday in St Mary’s.
All of these events and activities take place with the aim of sharing God’s love within and outside the Church and happen alongside ministry through occasional offices, special services at festival times, services in local care homes and Noah’s Ark, our Mother and Toddler group. We think that Mr John Spencer would still be proud!
Our Local Ministry Group reviews how we are getting on using the slogan: WWW.EBI.COM
(What Went Well. Even Better If. Church on Mission) – not completely our original copyright!!
Information in Then…taken from a leaflet researched and compiled by Rev David Tully & Mr Thomas Dixon on the occasion of St Mary’s centenary in 1987.