It’s easy to miss St Lewis’ Church in Croft, Warrington. Tucked behind the presbytery, the red-brick chapel is deliberately modest. When it was built in 1827 – the period between the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1791 and Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 – there was no question of it having bells or a steeple. It was for agricultural workers and weavers, the poor believers of an unfashionable faith, in a sliver of villages between two great industrial cities: Liverpool and Manchester.
The outside air is crisp and clean, but inside I am met with the familiar smell of old wood, damp, incense and candle wax. Father Gordon Abbs, a powerfully built, softly spoken man, says mass to an 11-strong congregation. It is an unremarkable scene. Yet St Lewis’ has one small claim to fame. It was here that Andy Burnham – Britain’s first Catholic prime minister – worshipped as a boy.
