For many years the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rossmore, Poole, has been seen by many of the Romany Gypsy community as their church.
There are a lot of Travellers settled in houses in Rossmore and before those houses were built there were Gypsy stopping places on the heathland. The small wooden church has a few local Travellers attending its Sunday services and has hosted many large Traveller funerals over the years. Its recently retired vicar, Rev’d Peter Homden, grew up in Rossmore and was well-known and respected by local Travellers. He’d often help people out with difficulties with the council, the police and other institutions. In 2019 an open-air service followed by a hog roast was held with local Travellers.
Five years ago the church began to host a non-contact boxing club, run by local Traveller Michael Johnson, which attracted many young Travellers and non-Travellers from the estate. The church also hosted the premier of ‘Ghost Gypsy’, a film about a young Traveller woman facing discrimination at school. Kushti Bok, a Dorset based Traveller organisation, regularly holds meetings at the church.
As Rev’d Jonathan Herbert, Chaplain to Gypsies and Travellers in Dorset and Wiltshire, recalls: ‘I remember taking a Traveller funeral at the Church of the Good Shepherd and how helpful everyone was. One of the people from the church told me she’d been in the local supermarket when she heard someone at the checkout complaining how the funeral would disrupt traffic. She said she put the person right saying how many Travellers she knew as trusted friends and how people should respect and learn from their funeral traditions.’
