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St. Mary's, Harvington, remains a country parish covering a sizeable rural area,
serving the Catholics of the surrounding towns & villages and worshipers drawn to its beautiful site
with its memories of loyalty to the Catholic Faith.

St. Mary's has, unusually for a Catholic parish, a long and interesting history.
It was built in 1825 by Sir George Throckmorton, whose family acquired the Harvington Estate in the late 17th Century.

The Hall, in the 16th Century, was occupied by a branch of the Babington family, who were Recusants. In the following century Lady Mary Yate ( a Babington ) continued to shelter and support Catholic priests here, and Harvington is noted for its numerous 'holes' ( some of them at least contrived by the genius of the Jesuit lay-brother, St. Nicholas Owen, who was tortured and died in the Tower of London ).

The earliest Chapel in the Hall is a tiny room decorated with large drops of blood and water - emblematic of Christ's Sacrifice on Calvary. A second and larger Chapel, a few steps away, can accommodate about 40 people, and has walls painted with symbols of the Eucharist - a vine and pomegranates. Within these Chapels Catholics from the surrounding countryside continued to attend Mass throughout the bitterest times of persecution.

By the  18th C. the Hall had passed to the Throckmorton's  and in 1743, a separate, but discreet, Georgian Chapel was made within the moated island ( where the Hall stands ) and here Mass and the sacrements were celebrated until the 1820's.

After many years as a school for the children of Catholic villagers, the Georgian Chapel was beautifully restored and, once again, is in regular use for worship.

The association of Harvington and St. Mary's with hunted priests and, in particular with St. John Wall ( captured in nearby Rushock and martyred in Worcester in 1679 ) makes Harvington a shrine to their memories.
Pilgrimages to this location began  in 1879 and, when in the 1930's the Hall was 'rescued' from its fallen condition by Mrs. Ellen Ferris and given to the Archdiocese of Birmingham, they have become an annual event.