St Mary's Church

(Written by Wayne Anthony & Richard Felix)

St Mary's Church was built by Augustus Pugin, who also drew designs for the Houses of Parliament. Before 1840, Catholics in Derby were allowed to worship only in the Catholic Chapel in Chapel Street, but with the large influx of Irish immigrants to Derby with the building of the railways, land was purchased on Bridge Gate for a new Catholic church.

It was, incidentally, Pugin's the first Catholic church and although he designed over 100 churches altogether, St Mary's has always been considered his masterpiece.

The ghost of a priest has been seen on the right-hand side of St Mary's Church. The story goes that a newly-installed priest was coming down the stairs with three other priests.

Arriving in the main church the new priest mentioned to the others that he had not realised that there would be four other priests there that day. The others looked confused and told him that he must be mistaken as they were only three and he now made four. The new priest looked shocked and told the others that they had not long been seated upstairs for their meeting when an older priest with grey hair had joined them.

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