Our Lady of the Assumption & St. Gregory

Introduction

Designed by architect Joseph Bonomi, the church opened on 12 March 1790, the feast of Saint Gregory the Great, to whom it was dedicated.

History

The Bavarian ambassador Count von Haslang took over the lease when the Portuguese moved out, and it was the Bavarian ambassador's chapel that was damaged during the Gordon Riots. The current church was built on the site of the Bavarian chapel donated to the Vicar Apostolic of the London District by the ruler of Bavaria.

The walls of the new chapel were very massive, almost a meter thick, with no windows on the ground floor facing Warwick Street and doors clad with sheet metal inside, to prevent a second destruction. Mrs. Fitzherbert, the morganatic wife of the Prince of Wales (later King George IV), worshipped regularly at the church. Blessed John Henry Newman, when a boy, was taken to the church by his father. In 1853, a bas-relief depicting the Assumption by the Irish artist John Edward Carew was erected above the high altar.

In 1875, the sanctuary was remodelled according to a design by John Francis Bentley, later the architect of Westminster Cathedral. Bentley's full plans for reconstructing the entire church were never completed, and the main body of the building remains as it was when built in 1790, except for the shortening of the side galleries. The connection with the Royal House of Bavaria has been maintained, with a memorial in the church to Crown Prince Albrecht of Bavaria who died in 1955.

In September 1788 the bishop assigned the ground behind the houses to six trustees for the erection of the new church. In 2025 a new tradition began of an annual Mass on 1 May to celebrate the feast of Our Lady, Protectress of Bavaria.

Architecture and furnishings

The building has a deliberately domestic-looking elevation, red brick with a slate roof, two storeys, a three-window wide pedimented centre with narrow flanking bays. Inside, the western part of the chapel has retained its C18 character with galleries around three sides on wood grained columns with Adam style capitals and ceiling plasterwork in similar vein. Cast iron gallery balustrades by Bentley, who shortened them when he altered the east end in a Veneto-Byzantine manner from 1874 onwards. The font dates from 1788. The statue of Our Lady is a close copy of St Mary Immaculate in the Rue du Bac, Paris, and in 1877 Pope Pius IX issued a decree officially approving the shrine and granting blessings and indulgences.

Music and liturgy

St John Henry Newman recalled in his Apologia Pro Vita Sua that he first visited the church with his father to hear a musical performance. Throughout the nineteenth century great opera singers from nearby Covent Garden would often perform at the church during Mass.

In the nineteenth century the music performed was by composers such as Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven. The organ was built by John Byfield III or IV around 1791, with the case from that period, and the most recent rebuild was in 1960/61 by Mander.

The organ is used every Sunday to accompany the choir. The organist Samuel Webbe, composer of the tune for the hymn 'New Every Morning', was director of music for many years. Haydn worshipped at Warwick Street when in London, and there is good reason to think Mozart did too.