FROM STABLES INTO CHURCH Ten Pounds and Willing Helpers Did the Trick

Not long ago the Catholic Church at Wymondham, Norfolk. was the stables of a private house, The Elms.
Now, at a cost of a little over £10 a temporary church has been erected, and last week it was blessed and officially opened by the Rev. Constantine Ketterer.
The Elms was recently purchased by the Northampton Diocese as a presbytery for Wymondham. A few weeks after Christmas the Rev. J. J. Ketterer, the parish priest at Wymondham, which also includes Dereham. began preparing to move from the building in Town Green at Wymondham, which has served the town as church for several years, to his new premises.
He has planned a permanent church to be built later in the front garden, and the temporary church was established to serve Wymondham Catholics until such time as the new church is erected.
Voluntary Labour
The amazing fact about the temporary church is that it has been established at a cost of little more than £10. The work of converting the stables at The Elms was carried out at night, entirely by voluntary labour, under the direction of Fr. Ketterer.
The workers toiled in the light of paraffin lamps. All the stall partitions. coach-house walls and fittings were taken out and the building was entirely stripped.
After it had been thoroughly cleaned and redecorated most of the fittings and furniture at the old Catholic Church were moved in. The altar was erected next to what was originally the harness-room, and the harness-room itself has been turned into a sacristy.
Congregation of 45 The completed temporary church is 33 ft. long by 15 ft.. about the same size as the old church., and will be large enough to hold the regular Sunday congregation of about 45.
The six priests at the blessing ceremony were the Revv. C. Ketterer, T. K. Phillips (Cambridge, priest in charge at Wymondham from 1926 to 1934), J. J. Ketterer, and Thompson, Hardwick and Hillier, of Norwich.