Church of Our Lady of the Assumption & St Gregory
Warwick Street
Dedicated to the Life of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.
During the 18th century there were other Embassy Chapels that could be used by Londoners. These were the Imperial, the French, Sardinian, Spanish and Venetian Catholic chapels. The only one of these surviving in anything like its original form, and on the same site, is Warwick Street Parish.
Since its foundation in 1724 as the chapel of the Portuguese Embassy, the Warwick Street Parish has met the sacramental and social needs of Catholic Londoners without any significant breaks. Even after the anti-Catholic Gordon riots in 1780, when most of the furnishings were destroyed, we have evidence that Holy...
In 1760, when Warwick Street parish functioned as the chapel of the Portuguese Embassy, there were only an estimated 60,000 Catholics in the whole of England, of which about 20,000 lived in London. Warwick Street parish was a focus of Catholic activity.
The original Portuguese Embassy chapel which existed behind number 23 and 24 Golden Square for most of the 18th century was smaller than the present Warwick Street parish and invisible for the street. It was used by the Portuguese Ambassador and his staff but, having extra territorial status, English Catholics...
The Warwick Street Parish has a unique interest for Catholics since it is the only remaining embassy chapel built during the penal days of the eighteenth century. All the other embassy chapels have been pulled down to make way for new churches or other buildings.
