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Sawston has a special significance for the Catholic Church in England.
From the 1300s to the 1970s, it was the home of the Huddlestone family who
remained loyal to the faith throughout the dreadful persecutions in the
reign of Queen Elizabeth the First. Because of this repression, no written
records were kept and the parish history has come down by word of mouth.
Sawston Hall, the Huddlestone's home, had a chapel which was said to
have served five counties and, indeed, until the Catholic Emancipation Act,
Sawston was the mother church for Cambridge.
Priests from the Hall served the districts round Sawston. It was said that,
in the 1600s, there were usually three priests in hiding in the Hall. They
and the family were constantly in fear of discovery and death if they were
found by the 'pursuivants' who were the Queen's secret police of those
days. The priests took cover in the various hiding holes at Sawston Hall
and went to other houses in the area to say Mass, stopping at those houses
which had their own priest holes.
One of the English martyrs, canonised in 1970, was St Nicholas Owen, a
carpenter famous for creating priest hiding holes, several of which can be
seen in Sawston Hall. Another martyr associated with Sawston was St John
Rigby, who was in service with the Huddlestones. Lady Huddlestone was
summoned to London to explain
why she did not attend the Protestant church, but, being ill, she asked
Rigby to go as her representative. He went and, having been revealed as a
practising Catholic himself, was arrested and hung, drawn and quartered at
Tyburn.
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St Edmund Campion was another of the many English martyrs known to have
sought refuge in Sawston Hall but their names were not written down for
fear of discovery. When King James I succeeded Elizabeth, Catholic
prisoners were released.
In more modern times, the Huddlestones faced constant financial
difficulties to keep the Hall and its Chapel going. The roof fell into
disrepair more than once and the Hall was in danger of collapse. In 1920
Captain Huddlestone tried to start up the chapel again; it had previously
always had its own chaplain. Now the priests came out from Cambridge
to say Mass, usually monthly. By 1930, Sawston once again had its own
chaplain. Through the Thirties parish activities grew steadily until World
War II when Sawston Hall was taken over by the War Department; it was used
by the US Eighth Air Force and security required that the public could not
use the Chapel while the forces were in residence.
When the Huddlestones were allowed back, the Catholic population had
grown so much that the Chapel was now too small; the family then gave some
land from their estate for the present church to be built. With voluntary
labour from parishioners, Father Roberts completed the building in 1958.
The church is a simple, prefabricated structure which had a design life of
25 years but it is still standing today, 44 years later. The asbestos
cement roof covering has seriously deteriorated and is at constant risk of
further weather damage. What follows on from this can be read in the New Church Fund section.
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