There is no doubt that the period following the Reformation, the priests who administrated Oundle covered a much greater area.

The faith which suffered a blow in the Reformation was kept alive largely by the zeal of Fr William Hayes of the Riding Mission, centred at Kingscliffe and several generations of the Jinks' family. By 1780 there was only one known Mass centre on the borders of this county with Oxfordshire, when a poor little shed at the rear of the Golden Bull Inn at Kingscliffe was opened as a chapel. The backbone of this Mission was a family called Carrington. In 1777, Thomas Carrington married Elizabeth Jinks.

Father William Hayes died at the age of 81, having served 56 years at Kingscliffe, caring for his parishioners over a vast expanse of countryside extending to the counties of Lincolnshire, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Rutland, Leicester and Buckinghamshire. He covered this area on his horse, Salamanca, so named as it was born on the day of victory in 1812, and hence the name "Riding Mission". Father Hayes was buried in All Saints Churchyard, Kingscliffe on July l3th, 1858. Also in this Churchyard can be found the graves of Father Anthony Barnwell, who died in 1778 and Father and Father John Barnwell, his brother, of Shefford, who died in 1782. The Barnwell brothers may well have come from a local family. as a Richard Barnwell is recorded as living at 20, West Street, Oundle in 1565.

As far as is known, the first Catholic chapel in Oundle since the reformation was opened at the White Hart Inn by Thomas Jinks, who moved there as landlord in 1779. Thomas' son, George, was baptised in Oundle on May 7th, 1793 by Father James Sharpe, O.P. a Dominican from Hinckley George was one of a long line of Jinks' children to be baptised. Some 68 children are named in the Kingscliffe Catholic Register between 1792 and 1842.

At about 1800 Charles Jinks and his brother Thomas, lived in adjoining houses in West Street.

The chapel upstairs in the house of Thomas was entered from Charles Jinks' house. Mass continued in this house until August 2lst 1894, when the house was sold on the death of Sophie Jinks.

In 1850, on the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy, the Diocese of Northampton was formed and incorporated the counties of Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Huntingdon, which Cardinal Manning called the "Dead Sea".