Our Story

The church was built in 1972 and the school was completed by 1973 with Derek Johnson as the first Head Teacher. It was at about this time that the house at East Malling was sold but the land retained.

By now Fr. Daly had an assistant Priest from Malta, Fr. Pat Zammit as we now had daily Mass at West Malling, weekly Mass at Snodland and Leybourne Grange hospital.

In 1982 the church was consecrated by the Archbishop of Southwark the Most Rev. Michael.G.Bowen. The Hermitage was divided to provide a home for the Auxiliary Bishop the Right Rev.John Jukes who was ordained Bishop in 1980.

Fr. Daly retired in 1988 due to poor health after 45 years service. He lived for a while in Snodland before returning to Ireland.

1989 saw many changes,Fr. Kevan Hayden the assistant Priest left to go to Ashford and was not replaced. Our new Parish Priest Fr.John Lawrence now had to run the Parish on his own. Also in 1989 Pat Lonergan was ordained a Deacon on the 19th. June but tragically he died in January 1990 a sad loss to the Parish.

Fr.John Lawrence started up our nursery school soon after arriving and it is still thriving today. The creation of the school required many changes to the Priests house as they occupied half of the ground floor.

By 1999 it was all change again and Fr.John left us to become Parish Priest of Cranbrook and we welcomed Fr. Peter Soper from Margate. The last few years have been quite eventful. We now have Senior and Junior Youth Groups, Childrens Liturgy Group and a child protection policy in place. The land at East Malling has been sold, planning permission has been obtained to convert the stable block for the nursery school and Parish use and after much soul searching and debates the decision to close the Church at Snodland was made.

We have also set up five Area Groups to be a means of 'welcome' and 'welfare' in the Parish, made an audit of the work in the Parish that can be done by Parishioners rather than the Priest and set up a 'Donate 8' scheme (people donating 8 hours a year to the Parish) to involve Parishioners in the running of the Parish so that we can look to the future with confidence whatever happens. It has been a great joy to see the Parish coming together - Church, School and Parish Groups - to become very much a real 'family'.