A LITTLEMORE church is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a special service next weekend.

The Church of Blessed Dominic Barberi in Cowley Road has also produced a special commemorative booklet to mark the occasion.

It was opened on May 3, 1969, but has its roots in the previous century, in 1845, when the great Oxford scholar John Henry Newman was received into the Catholic church.

In the 1930s mass was held for Roman Catholics in a scout hut in Fairlie Road.