St Bernardine's Catholic Church, Buckingham

St. Bernard began in the year 1892 when a Belgian Franciscan Friar, Father Thaddeus Hermans, looking to open a college for young men wishing to become Franciscans, arrived in Buckingham for the first time on the Feast of the Ascension. He rented a cottage in Elm Street, where he said the first Mass, finally settling on 9 Chandos Road to set up his first chapel. Later he was able to obtain the site on the London Road and by the end of 1895 he had built his college. Few Catholics lived near Buckingham then but in 1900 the registers record twelve Baptisms. The college was put under the patronage of St Bernardine, a much revered Franciscan, and so the parish of St Bernardine was set around the…