| Description | Geographically, the parish of Hertford comprises the town of Hertford & Bengeo and the surrounding villages of Hertford Heath, Little Amwell, Bayford, Brickendon, Little Berkhamstead, Hertingfordbury, Bramfield, Waterford and Stapleford.
From 1848 priests from St Edmund’s College, Ware, came to Hertford each Sunday and said Mass in local inns, serving a Catholic population of about 150, many of whom worked on the railways and canals. TO begin with, Mass was said in a room of the Bull Inn on Bull Plain. Soon the congregation outgrew this site and moved on to the Commercial Inn. In 1858, Fr Herbert Vaughan (later Cardinal), Vice-President of St Edmund’s College, began collecting money for a permanent church in Hertford, and a site was acquired in an industrial part of the town, on land that had once formed part of the local Priory of St Mary, established in the late eleventh century by Ralph de Limesi as a daughter house of St Albans Abbey.
The church was built from designs by Henry Clutton (1819-1893) and the builders were the local Hertford firm of Ekins. The foundation stone was laid by Cardinal Wiseman on 18 October 1858 and he formally opened the Church on 16 June 1859, although building work carried on until 1861. Externally the church appears to follow very much the local pattern of a simple flint box with brick dressings and stone window surrounds, and is redolent of the slightly smaller Norman church at Bengeo, within the parish. The original dedication of the church was to Our Lady of Good Counsel, St Joseph and St John. The current dedication was adopted when the church was consecrated, by Cardinal Manning on 16 October 1866.
Fr Herbert Vaughan moved to London in 1861 to found the Mill Hill Missionaries (he was later consecrated Bishop of Salford before returning to London as Archbishop of Westminster and later Cardinal). His successor at Hertford was Fr Francis Stanfield, the well-known hymn composer; he became the first resident priest, and the presbytery and school were built at this time (from 1898 the school was served by Sisters of Mercy). Fr Stanfield stayed for 19 years in Hertford, and composed hymns such as ‘Sweet Sacrament Divine’.
In the late nineteenth century the walls of the sanctuary and Lady Chapel were adorned with painted stencil decoration and figures of saints, but these were overpainted in the twentieth century. In 1935 a cross was erected outside the church, commemorating the Synod of Hertford, September 672. Presided over by Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury, this Synod sought to reconcile the Celtic and Roman division in the English Church. The Synod resolved the date for Easter, forbade divorce and set out rules for the conduct of bishops and the clergy. The commemorative cross was paid for by public subscription and was blessed by Archbishop Hinsley.
In the 1970s the church was reordered, when the high altar was moved forward and the communion rails removed. In the 1990s a more ambitious programme of restoration and embellishment took place, this time working in the spirit of, rather than diluting the character of the original design. A major restoration of the church and hall interiors (by now Grade II listed) began in 1994. The project sought to restore the original design of the church, including the removal of a false ceiling in the parish hall, which revealed a fine timber structure that was repaired and stripped down. Following the uncovering, conservation and recording of the original painted scheme, the sanctuary was repainted in 1996-97 with a new richly polychromatic scheme by Alexander Sidorov in collaboration with Howell & Bellion. A crucifix which had hung on the east wall was placed on a new rood beam (also serving as a tie rod) at the chancel arch. These enrichments were made under the direction of Anthony Delarue, architect of London N1, who was also responsible for the addition of a Gothic loggia outside the main entrance. This was part of a Millennium project funded by parishioners, which created a new porch and open cloister built in traditional style with flint, stone dressings, green oak and pegged tiles to match the style of the existing church. This was formally opened in 2002 by the Marquis De Limesi.
EDUCATION & THE SISTERS OF MERCY
In 1898, the Sisters of Mercy from St Joseph’s Convent in Chelsea sent three of their number to Hertford, having bought a house and garden opposite the church. The Sisters taught both at the Parish School in St John’s Street and also at their own small private day and boarding school. This continued until the 1950s when the Sisters established a new convent and school at Hertingfordbury. The Sisters left Hertford in 1985. St Joseph’s voluntary-aided RC school for infants and juniors in North Road was opened in 1968 by Bishop Christopher Butler OSB, replacing the increasingly cramped conditions in St John’s Street adjacent to the Church. Although it now occupies new premises, the old school building still stands and is now used as a Parish Hall.
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