The Jericho Community (a brief history)

The Jericho Society was "born" on 5 November 1970, inspired by the parable of the Good Samaritan in the New Testament. Fr James Ferguson, then a young priest only ordained five years previously, was moved by the plight of men sleeping rough in Greenock, where he was posted as a curate. After briefly taking over work at the Greenock Night Shelter, with the help of volunteers from the parish, Jericho opened it's first house in Ardgowan Square, Greenock on 8th September 1971; this house gave shelter to mothers and their children who were often the victims of husbands with alcohol addiction. Support for Jericho's work grew in Port Glasgow and Gourock, both areas bordering Greenock.

The Ardgowan Square house was vacated for the larger premises at Orangefield House, as the work progressed. In 1974, Jericho opened it's first house in Paisley, at Abbotsinch, near Glasgow airport. Fr James was helped here by a friend from his younger days, a certain Samuel Markie, who would later be known as Jericho's first Brother, becoming Brother Joseph. At Abbotsinch, men with alcohol addiction were looked after.

In 1975, Bogston House in Greenock was opened and in the following year, Ladyburn House, which is next door to Bogston House was opened. For many years ahead, men with alcohol addiction were looked after here.

In 1978, Jericho opened a second house in Paisley at Shuttle Street. In 1991, both Shuttle Street and Abbotsinch houses merged and moved to Oakshaw House, up on the hill by the Coates Observatory. This was necessitated because our Abbotsinch house was issued with a compulsory purchase order — we had to make way with a few other houses, due to a slip road being built from the M8 to the St James roundabout.

In 1979, Jericho opened it's Bank Street house by Wellpark, in the centre of Greenock; again, the work involved giving shelter to men with alcohol addiction.

In 1981, Fr James saw the need for committed Brothers to be part of Jericho's work. Up until now, Fr James had been supported largely by volunteers who understandably cannot commit full time. Our first monastery was opened at Wemyss Bay and the Rule of St Benedict was adopted. The Jericho Brother is both a man of prayer and a man of action. The rule would would bring a sense of order and structure to the day. The day is built around prayer, especially the prayer of the Church as chanted in the Divine Office of Matins, Lauds, Prayer during the day, Vespers and Compline. There is also Holy Mass every day at the Monastery and Lectio Divina (Spiritual Reading) as well as the Brother's daily private prayers. The work of Jericho goes on during the day, punctuated with stops for prayer.

In 1982, the monastery moved to Golf Rd, Bridge of Weir until we needed bigger premises and moved again, only one mile away in 1990 to our current address at the Monastery of Jesus, Harelaw Farm.

In 1985, Jericho was invited to Wolverhampton, where we opened a house for young single mothers and for girls from the Asian community who had fallen out with their families due to pressure to agree to arranged marriages.

Also in 1985, Jericho were invited into Dundee where we opened a house for young men who found themselves homeless for one reason or another.

1990 saw Jericho being invited to Edinburgh, where we moved into the former St Francis church in Lothian Street.  The building was converted into accommodation for 4 women and 16 men with various needs. On Sundays for about 25 years, Jericho Brothers opened the hall for the city’s homeless, where they could enjoy a full meal and pudding, as much tea/coffee as they wanted, have access to the second hand clothing store and leave with a bag of groceries which were regularly topped up by a team of dedicated helpers.

In 1993, Jericho received a phone call from the sisters of St Joseph of Cluny; they had a property in Girvan, Ayrshire which they were about to vacate and asked if we could put the building to some use. What a surprise we got! It was a 17th century building that has the look of a castle about it! And there were ample grounds surrounding it.

The Community took Trochrague House on and from the start, it has been used to give a holiday to people who are on low income. Lots of people come from council estates, some struggling with unemployment. Sometimes there are themed weeks eg, a mothers and children's week, sometimes a week for those on recovery programmes or sometimes residents of some of our houses will stay.

Finally, in 1994, we were contacted by a kind lady from Derby. This lady offered us a house if we could put it to use for one of our projects. We began by accommodating men at London Rd, Derby, who were mostly struggling with alcohol dependency.

Over the years, the nature of our work has changed direction a few times; the work has become more rehabilitation oriented as men with alcohol dependency tend to get cared for in their own houses nowadays. Currently, we still have most of these houses as listed :

• Trochrague House, Girvan - holiday home for those on low income.
  
• Bank St, Greenock - Men's Drugs rehab.
• Shankland Rd, (Ladyburn), Greenock - Women's Drugs rehab.
• Artillery Lane, Dundee - Men's Alcohol rehab.
• London Rd, Derby - Men's Drugs rehab.
• Albert Rd, Wolverhampton - Women's residential home.

At each of our Wolverhampton and Derby projects, we also have a second house where residents can transfer to for after care.

Jericho also ran a house at Morning Star Hostel in Manchester between 2005 and 2018. This property belonged to the diocese of Salford and Jericho ran the hostel on their behalf during those years. Again, it was accommodation for 20 men, who in most cases had an alcohol dependency. Our work came to an end there in 2018, as the diocese wanted to go in another direction and began to do a lot of work for refugees.

For many years, we also had a small project up and running in India. We received a letter from a priest requesting financial help and from those beginnings, a house for the aged was operating in the Tamil Nadu region. Jericho also supported the running of a workshop there. We are still in touch.