The Weymouth Mission (continued)

Father Sheehan left the parish in 1923 and a Belgian priest, Father Jules Ketele became priest at St Augustine's. He decided that Weymouth needed a more central church.  Each year the Building Fund increased until on 2nd January 1932 a site was secured.   St Joseph's Church was on its way. The foundation stone was laid on 3rd May 1933, despite the protests from the residents of Stavordale Road. The now Canon Ketele left the presbytery at Dorchester Road for the one at St Joseph's.

The photograph shows the laying of the foundation stone for St Joseph’s Church.

Canon Ketele had opened a Mass Centre at Wyke Regis at the home of Mrs Druce at Sandsfoot House at the top of Rylands Lane. Today this is Thornlow School.

From this beginning grew St Charles' Church at Sunnyside Road, twenty years later in 1956. The Holy Family Chapel of Ease at Upwey predated St Charles' by two years.

It seems fitting that Father McSweeney, formerly assistant priest to Canon Ketele at St Augustine's, should have spent his later years at St Charles’ Church.

By 1955 St Augustine's School at Walpole St was bursting at the seams and so a new school was built at Hardy Avenue. It opened on 16th December 1964, and Miss Sparrow was present. She had been the first Headmistress of the Walpole St School. A school opened and another Weymouth Catholic School closed.

At Wyke Road the Sisters of Mercy had opened a private primary school called St Philomena's and also a Catholic Secondary School of The Holy Child. The latter had been in existence since the end of the Second World War. Sadly it had been a financial headache, running at a loss of £2000 each year. In fact it relied on the salaries of the nuns teaching at Hardy Avenue. In July 1967, the Secondary School closed its doors.

The Chapel at Upwey was built at Chapel Lane in 1953 behind the Methodist Church. There was an early Sunday Mass up until [        ] when it closed.

A church dedicated to Our Lady was built at Preston in Sevenacres Road [      ] after a bequest from a parishioner. This Church supplied a vigil Mass on Saturday evenings for many years.

It was closed in [        ].

St Charles Church in Wyke Regis was closed in 2005 on the death of Canon Michael Walsh, the last incumbent.