The Parish of St Blaise

The Parish of St Blaise

(Serving the pastoral area of Our Lady of Lourdes and St William, Girlington; St Matthew, Allerton and Sacred Heart, Thornton.)
A Roman Catholic Parish for West Bradford.

St Matthew’s

Allerton, originally a hill village on the western edge of Bradford, expanded in the post-war years when a large residential estate was built by the local authority, partly to re-house people displaced by inner city slum clearance.

Mass was first said in the school hall in 1957; the parish was created in 1959 with Fr Hadfield the first Parish Priest. In 1966, the parish purchased a former Baptist church on the main road in Allerton; built in 1872, it was adapted from designs by Hadfield Cawkwell Davison. This building closed in 1980 when the parish moved to the present building.