Peter Roebuck – The Foundation Decade at Shrigley. Seminary, Church & Shrine (1929-1939)

The case study which is the subject of this book is drawn from an earlier era of expansion and optimism. Based upon a very full collection of contemporary records, it deals with the foundation of the junior seminary for boys established by the Salesian Congregation in 1929 at Shrigley Park, near Macclesfield in Cheshire, and with its development during the course of the decade leading up to the outbreak of the Second World War.

The venture was an ambitious and substantial one; and until the exigencies of war blighted its future prospects, it met with considerable success. The College recruited widely throughout Britain and Ireland. Shrigley Hall, already a large and imposing property, was substantially re-modelled and extended. The single most challenging of many projects was the building of a magnificent church: this was dedicated to St. John Bosco who had founded the Salesians in mid-nineteenth-century Italy; and it was designed and overseen by Philip Tilden, among the most successful British architects of his day. This particular achievement was among the more striking elements in the development of an isolated and highly unusual way of life at Shrigley: a way of life which left a permanent mark on Tilden, who was a periodic visitor; which, there and nearly everywhere, is now defunct; but which, thanks to unusually rich archives, is re-created here.

CONTENTS

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Historical background
• 3. The acquisition of Shrigley by the Salesians
• 4. The beginning: the early projects
• 5. Local reactions
• 6. Publicity and recruitment
• 7. Church and religious life
• 8. The school
• 9. Music, drama and sport
• 10. Illness and death
• 11. Philip Tilden’s early career
• 12. Tilden and Tozzi
• 13. The building of the Church and Shrine
• 14. The aftermath
• 15. Sequels
• 16. Conclusion

Reference time period: 1929 – 1939

Reference institution:
Istituto Storico Salesiano