Walter Lovi

St Joachim's RC Church in Wick

Father Walter Lovi (1796 – 1878) was a Roman Catholic priest and architect, active in Scotland in the mid-nineteenth century.[1] He was born in Edinburgh in 1796,[2] the son of a Scottish mother and an Italian father.[3] He studied at Scots College in Rome, and at St Sulpice's seminary in Paris,[4] where he was ordained at the age of 26.[2]

It is possible that Lovi may have worked with James Kyle on the design of St Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Dufftown, Banffshire between 1824 and 1825,[5] and he worked with the architect William Robertson on St Thomas's in Keith between 1831 and 1832.[6]

In 1832, Kyle dispatched him to Wick to establish a Roman Catholic chapel there, to serve the needs of the large migrant workforce, a significant proportion of whom were Irish Roman Catholics, who came to the area seasonally to work in the herring fishery.[3][7][8] Initially he found the local Protestant population unwilling to rent him a place that he could use to celebrate mass, but he was eventually given a choice of plots on which to build a church by the townsfolk in gratitude for his efforts in setting up a hospital and tending to the needs of the victims of a cholera outbreak in the town.[3][7] He chose a site on Malcolm Street and, again working with William Robertson, built St Joachim's Church,[9] which opened in 1836 and is still in use as an active place of worship.[7] St Joachim's, so named because the feast day of St Joachim falls within the fishing season,[8] was designated a Category B listed building in 1979.[10] A plaque mounted on the wall of the church reads "This church was built c.1835 by Father Walter Lovi on a site made available to him by a grateful community for his heroic services during the cholera epidemic of 1832".[3]

Lovi left Wick soon after the church was built, and helped tend the sick in cholera outbreaks in various different parts of the country.[3][7] He also supervised construction of St Andrew's Roman Catholic Church in Braemar in 1839,[11] and assisted Kyle with the completion and remodelling of the Church of The Incarnation in Tombae between 1843 and 1844.[12]

Lovi died in 1878.[4]

  1. ^ "(Father) Walter Lovi". Dictionary of Scottish Architects. Dictionary of Scottish Architects. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
  2. ^ a b Gordon, James Frederick Skinner (1880). The Book of the Chronicles of Keith, Grange, Ruthven, Cairney, and Botriphnie. R. Forrester. p. 246.
  3. ^ a b c d e Donaldson, Noel. "Father Walter Lovi: Courage and Faith". The Orkney News. The Orkney News. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
  4. ^ a b Chambers and O'Connor (2017). Forming Catholic Communities: Irish, Scots and English College Networks in Europe, 1568–1918. Brill. p. 289. ISBN 978-9004354364.
  5. ^ "St Mary's RC Church". Dictionary of Scottish Architects. Dictionary of Scottish Architects. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
  6. ^ "St Thomas's RC Church". Dictionary of Scottish Architects. Dictionary of Scottish Architects. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
  7. ^ a b c d "Wick faithful mark historic milestone". John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier. SPP Media Group. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
  8. ^ a b "St Joachim's Catholic Church". Communities.Caithness.Org. Caithness.Org. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
  9. ^ "St Joachim's RC Church". Dictionary of Scottish Architects. Dictionary of Scottish Architects. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
  10. ^ Historic Environment Scotland. "Malcolm Street, St Joachim's Roman Catholic Church (LB42316)". Retrieved 19 May 2019.
  11. ^ "St Andrews RC Church". Dictionary of Scottish Architects. Dictionary of Scottish Architects. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
  12. ^ "RC Church of the Incarnation, Tombae". Dictionary of Scottish Architects. Dictionary of Scottish Architects. Retrieved 19 May 2019.