Farm Street 175 

1. Origins of Farm Street Church

 

Throughout the early 1800s, prior to the 1839 Catholic Relief Act and the lifting of the Suppression of the Society (1773-1814) there had been a Jesuit presence in London: at Poland Street, Golden Square, Marylebone, Bolton Street, and Hill Street. The nomadic existence of the Jesuits in London came to an end in with the development of the Farm Street site. The Vicar Apostolic Thomas Griffith had offered various locations for a Jesuit church where they could not threaten the revenue of his own churches, such as Bethnal Green and Brixton, but they were determined to build in the centre of London. In 1841, Provincial Randall Lythgoe (1793-1855) found the site that the church stands on today, and Griffiths relented but with various conditions. At the time, the area was unpromising, tucked away between Farm Street and the grounds of St George’s parish workhouse but over time, as space became available and the neighbourhood and congregation flourished, it was developed into the magnificent church we see today.

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