Church of our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory, Westminster
| Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St. Gregory, Westminster | |
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| 51°30′40″N 0°08′17″W / 51.51123°N 0.13792°WCoordinates: 51°30′40″N 0°08′17″W / 51.51123°N 0.13792°W | |
| Location | Soho, Westminster, London |
| Country | England |
| Denomination | Catholic |
| Website | Church of our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory, Westminster |
| History | |
| Consecrated | 24 July 1928 |
| Architecture | |
| Heritage designation | Grade II* |
| Designated | 24 February 1958 |
| Architect(s) | Joseph Bonomi the Elder |
| Years built | 1789–90 |
| Administration | |
| Metropolis | Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham |
| Diocese | Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Westminster |
The Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St. Gregory is a Roman Catholic church on Warwick Street, Westminster. It was built between 1789 and 1790 to the designs of Joseph Bonomi the Elder. The only surviving eighteenth century Roman Catholic chapel in London, it is a Grade II* listed building.
The origins of the church lie in the chapel established in the 1730s at the Portuguese Embassy on Golden Square. At this time, with the English Penal Laws in force, most Roman Catholic chapels existed under the protection, and within the precincts, of foreign embassies. Responsibility for the chapel passed to the Bavarian embassy in 1747 but it was destroyed in the Gordon Riots in 1780. The replacement church was designed by Joseph Bonomi the Elder, an Italian architect and draughtsman, who had moved to London in 1767 to work in the practice of Robert and James Adam.
The church has attracted many prominent Catholic worshippers, including Mrs Fitzherbert, who was sacramentally, but not civilly married to George IV, and the young Cardinal Newman. The novelist Evelyn Waugh had his second wedding here in 1937. In 1983, the funeral mass for Ralph Richardson, a regular worshipper, was held at the church.
For six years it hosted what became known as the "Soho masses", twice-monthly events “particularly welcoming to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered Catholics, their parents, friends and families” until Archbishop Vincent Nichols ended them in 2013.
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