St. Patrick's Church, Soho Square

Introduction

Saint Patrick's Church, Soho Square, in London, was built in 1891-93 by John Kelly of Kelly and Birchall in Renaissance style. The present church was opened on 17 March 1893. The church has a strong claim to be the first Roman Catholic Church in England dedicated to St Patrick.

History

The church replaces a late C18 building adapted for Catholic worship and used since 1802. The building which occupied part of this site, known as Father O'Leary's Chapel, was opened in 1792. The church retains late C18 Roman Catholic church monuments and altars of great rarity. The architects were one of the unsuccessful competitors for the Brompton Oratory.

Architecture and furnishings

The church has a west campanile tower 125 feet high over the principal entrance. The church has a nave of five bays with a semi-circular Roman barrel-vaulted ceiling, wooden with stencilled coffers. The church has a stained glass window of the Baptism of Christ of 1921. The church has a fixed pulpit square on plan, of carved variegated marbles in neo-Renaissance style, probably a gift of 1901.

The church has a detached working altar made from the mensa of the original high altar. The church is built of dark red brick of small gauge with rubbed brick detail, in an Italianate style with simplified early Renaissance detail. The church comprises a west campanile tower, vestibule, antechapel, aisled nave, apsidal sanctuary, and south chapel. The west tower has a small stone Corinthian pedimented and columned porch with the inscription "UT CHRISTIANI ITA ET ROMANI SITIS".

The tower has four pilastered stages with arcaded openings, deep bracketed eaves cornice, and pyramidal roof. The church has neo-Baroque cast iron railings at the base, but the gates are 1945 replacements. The tower serves as an octagonal vestibule. The nave has a terrazzo floor to the centre aisle and benches c1893 of stained deal.

There is a probable late C18 fixed Holy Water stoup with gadrooned sides on a moulded octagonal plinth. Two standing marble figures of life-size angels with Holy Water stoups are possibly from the Moorfields church. The baptistery has a black and white tiled marble floor, a fixed stone font, painted stone with wooden gilt top, and a fixed marble altar with a painting of the Baptism of Christ above. At the rear is a fixed plaque recording "rectors of St Patrick's church" from 1792 to 1798, incorporating an upper level bas relief of St Peter, probably C18.

In one bay is a late C18 bombe-shaped altar table metal gilt painted with a very fine mahogany and gilt gradine and reredos with fixed tabernacle with inlaid door, said to be from another London Catholic chapel of the date. In the next bay is a fixed marble altar c1900 with a wooden statue of St John Bosco by Delapre, maker. On the south side from the first bay of the narthex is a three storey statuary marble altar to the Virgin with an elaborate reredos and a marble statue of the Virgin of Lourdes, possibly a gift of 1892.

In the next bay is a fixed alabaster altar in High Victorian Gothic style with polychromatic frontal of stylised leaves, spars etc. In the next bay is a fixed marble altar and reredos with columns supporting a segmental pediment with a fixed painting of St Joseph and the Christ Child, with an inscription to the dedication of the reredos of 1892. In the next bay is a fixed wooden altar with a central flaming Sacred Heart against a sunburst, late C18 from the gallery of the previous church. The sanctuary arch is expressed through two storeys with enriched compound Corinthian pilasters.

The sanctuary has stencilled lettered quotations in the frieze of the entablature and either side of a fixed marble panel of St Patrick in the attic storey. The sanctuary has gilt and green stencilled decoration to the coffer ceiling. The sanctuary has fixed marble communion rails neo-Renaissance in style, with a pair of gilt metal gates. At sanctuary level the floor is laid in marble of Byzantine inspiration.

There is marble lining on the south and round the apse, c1930, and two doorcases of similar date incorporating the harp of Ireland to standard C18 classical design. In the north bay is a polished wood classical, probably C18, organ case within its own niche. The Italian Renaissance style is comparatively rare for church architecture in the last decade of the C19. A single bank of fixed choir benches is located on the south side of the church.

Parish life

The parish runs a soup kitchen at St Patrick's that has evolved into a breakfast club, dinner service, film club, and night shelter. The parish runs an Open House project informed by Mother Teresa, with the Blessed Sacrament present and adored in Soho Square and in the Parish Centre.

The parish ministries are powered by volunteer teams serving varied material and spiritual needs. The parish follows a Franciscan tradition of caring for the poor and destitute, along with Lectio Divina and Eucharistic Adoration.