THE P RTAL
July 2014
Page 20
Our Lady of the Assumption
and St Gregory, Soho, London
Nicholas Ollivant examines the history of the Ordinariate’s
Central Church in Warwick Street
T
he church of Our Lady of the Assumption
and St Gregory is located on Warwick Street in
Soho. Warwick Street runs between Brewer Street and
Beak Street, parallel to Regent Street.
The church was built in 1789-90 on the site of
a Catholic chapel which was pillaged during the
Gordon Riots of 1780. These riots were in fact the last
manifestation of violent anti-Catholic sentiment in
London and were the result of the lifting in 1778 of
the Penal Acts. Catholics would still have to wait until
the Catholic Emancipation Act of April 1829 before
being able to enter the House of Commons or sit in
the House of Lords, but 1780 was the last time that
Catholic property in London was destroyed by rioters.
the patronage of the Elector of Bavaria and, in the
latter part of 1788, he and a committee of twentytwo prominent Catholics appealed for funds for the
The church in Warwick Street is attached to a fine erection of a new chapel. Building began in the spring
house in Golden Square, Soho, built in 1685. This house of 1789 and the new church was opened on 12 March
(number 24) and its neighbour (number 23) were 1790, the feast of St Gregory the Great, to whom it
occupied by the Portuguese Ambassador the Marques was dedicated. The architect was Joseph Bonomi. The
de Pombal from 1724 to 1747. The Ambassador had a connection with the Royal House of Bavaria has been
chapel constructed at the back of his house for the use maintained to this day and there is a memorial in the
of his household.
church to the late Crown Prince Albrecht of Bavaria
who died in 1955.
All Catholic embassies had the right to have their
own chapels in a city where Catholic churches and Bl John Henry Newman visited
chapels were not permitted. When the Portuguese
During the first half of the nineteenth century there
moved out of numbers 23 and 24 Golden Square, the was a steady development of Catholic life in England.
lease was taken over by the ambassador from Bavaria, Mrs Fitzherbert, morganatic wife of the Prince of
Count Haslang. He represented the Elector of Bavaria, Wales (later King George IV) worshipped regularly at
later the King of Bavaria. The Bavarians occupied the church. The Blessed John Henry Newman when
the embassy in Golden Square until 1788. So it was a boy was taken to the church by his father. He later
the Bavarian ambassador’s chapel that was destroyed wrote: “All that I bore away from it was the recollection
during the Gordon Riots.
of a pulpit and a preacher and a boy swinging a censer”.
chapel for the Ambassador’s
household
The current church was built in 1789-90 on the site
of the Bavarian chapel by the Bishop of the London
District, Bishop Talbot. At the time of the departure of
the minister from Golden Square in 1788 the bishop
obtained eight- and nine-hundred-year leases of the
two vacant houses in Golden Square, together with the
chapel and other outbuildings. In September 1788 he
assigned the ground behind the houses to six trustees
for the erection of the new church. He also obtained
contents page
The church developed a strong musical tradition
and became well-known for its musical excellence.
This tradition has now been revived at the church. In
the nineteenth century the music performed was by
composers such as Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven.
These days the music is mostly in the English tradition
(Purcell, Stanford, Howells) but does not exclude
composers of the European tradition from the
sixteenth to nineteenth centuries.