ST ANTHONY OF PADUA CATHOLIC CHURCH SALTNEY
100 years of service to the Saltney community
ABOUT US
Welcome, and thank you for visiting St Anthony's Catholic Church online. We hope that our website highlights the wide variety of worship, fellowship and service opportunities available. Please feel free to read more about our church on this site, or come in for a visit. We would love to greet you and share with you our love for Jesus Christ and for you, our neighbour.
St Anthony of Padua Catholic Church is situated in Saltney, Flintshire which lies on the North Wales border with Chester. It falls within the Flintshire Deanery and Wrexham Diocese.
We have an active Parish with a number of activities taking place on a regular basis. Check out our Information page for our latest newsletter for current activities and more
OUR HISTORY
The Franciscan Friars from Chester began their Mission in Saltney in 1862 to serve the growing number of Irish families settling in the township both sides of the England-Wales border.
In 1878 the Duke of Westminster gifted a plot of land "as large a piece as you good Franciscans can afford to decently wall in" to build a school-chapel (now believed to be The Oddfellows) next to the old police station on the High Street. Part of that original boundary wall still remains, as does the original building, minus its porch and belfry. Many still living in Saltney went to school there, and a few still have childhood memories of Sunday worship there before 1914. It continued in use as a school until the new St. Anthony's Primary School was opened in 1969.
The Franciscan Friars from Chester served the parish until 1913, when they handed over the parish and school to the Bishop of Menevia (now Wrexham). The following year the school building ceased to be used for public worship when the present parish church was erected on the opposite side of the road, still next door to a police station!
The new church was paid for almost entirely by regular voluntary subscriptions from nearly every household in Saltney, inspired by the tremendous energies and popularity amongst Catholics and non-Catholics alike
