Warwick Street Church (London)
The Warwick Street Church or "Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St. Gregory" is a Catholic church in London , formerly the chapel of the Bavarian legation served.
Building stock
The church is located on Warwick Street in the London borough of Soho , is built into the street front there and forms the rear of the former Bavarian embassy building Golden Square No. 24. It bears the official name "Our Lady of Assumption and St. Gregory" and was in London until the outbreak of the First World War generally known under the name "Bavarian Chapel" .
It is a rectangular hall building with a flat, coffered, white / blue ceiling and a brick facade built around 1790 with a central gable in the classicism style . The architect was Joseph Bonomi the Elder († 1808). Inside the church has a gallery to the west, south and north with a large organ from the beginning of the 19th century, which bears the Bavarian royal coat of arms on the prospectus . On the north side of the gallery was the seat of the Bavarian ambassador , from whom a paneling with a royal crown is still preserved. Around 1875, John Francis Bentley (1839-1902), who later became the architect of Westminster Cathedral , added an eastern choir apse and decorated it with mosaics designed by him.
In addition to the high altar in the choir, on the south side there is a Marian altar with Immaculate and Stipes mosaic by John Francis Bentley (around 1875); on the north wall is a marble altar from the early 19th century, consecrated to St. Gregory the Great . To the north of the apse is a door to the sacristy and to the former embassy building Golden Square No. 24, which is connected to the church. Above this door a stucco relief of the Assumption of Mary by John Edward Carew († 1868) was placed, which was used as a The reredos of the high altar served.
On the north wall of the nave there is a bronze plaque with the Bavarian royal coat of arms, which reminds of the apostolic vicars of the district of London , who held office here under Bavarian protection before a regular Catholic hierarchy could be re-established in England from 1850 . Above the main portal there is an oval crystal plaque with a cut-in Bavarian coat of arms and the year 1790, including the motto "In Treue fest" . On the south side of the nave there is a baptistery with a classicist font and a memorial for the Bavarian Crown Prince Rupprecht as head of the Stuart royal family .
history
The Portuguese legation originally resided in the property at Golden Square No. 24, which was built in 1685. At the back, on Warwick Street, was a chapel, which was frequented by ordinary Catholics because of the suppression of the Catholic faith in England. At that time they could only practice their faith on the grounds of embassies of Catholic states. In 1747 the Portuguese embassy moved and the Electorate of Bavaria took over the complex. The embassy chapel continued to serve as one of the unofficial churches of London's Catholics. It was screened off from Warwick Street by a shed and was accessible through this; structurally, it did not extend as far as the street front. Count Joseph Xaver von Haslang was the Bavarian ambassador at the time , and he was particularly committed to the house of God. He could not prevent it from being looted and devastated during the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots uprising in 1780 , but remained there until his death on May 29, 1783, so that the church could continue to be used. On the Sunday before he died, he attended Holy Mass here. In 1788 the Bavarian legation left the building and moved to another quarter.
The London Vicar Apostolic James Talbot (1726–1790), who had to answer in court in 1769 and 1771 for exercising his episcopal office, turned personally to the Palatinate-Bavarian Elector Karl Theodor . He wanted to enlarge the legation chapel to a church for the London Catholics, but consciously put it under the state protection of Bavaria so as not to be exposed to any restrictions. The elector gave him the former embassy building with chapel in 1788 and the bishop began the new building, which was completed around 1790. This new building is the current church, which now extended to the front of Warwick Street and received its official main entrance there. Elector Karl Theodor subsidized them with 1,500 pounds a year and placed them under his legation protection. He also donated a valuable altar structure in 1794, which was removed when the apse was added and is now in the Church of the Holy Ghost, Midsomer Norton . The consecration took place on March 12, 1790 on the patronage of St. Gregory the Great. The Apostolic Vicars of London used the “Bavarian Chapel” as an unofficial episcopal church and lived next door from 1830 to 1855, on Golden Square. The old embassy building served as a rectory. A large church organ with a painted Bavarian coat of arms was installed and the Bavarian ambassador was given an honorary seat on the gospel side of the gallery. Thus, the status remained until 1871, when one of the Bavarian Legation for founding of the German Empire dissolved. This year the Bavarian band grant was paid out for the last time, but since 1800 it has only been 100 pounds a year.
From the 1790s until her death in 1837, Maria Fitzherbert , the morganatic wife of King George IV , was an avid parishioner. By 1830, the Catholic House of Commons Daniel O'Connell was a regular visitor to the church; In 1844 the Bavarian envoy August von Cetto appears among the activists of the parish committee. In 1846 Catharine Mary Howard, daughter of Henry Francis Howard , the last British ambassador in Munich , was baptized here. The beatified convert and later Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801–1890) experienced his first Catholic service as a boy in Warwick Street Church, according to his own records. The Italian Gesualdo Lanza (1779–1859) worked there as organist and choirmaster . The composer Manuel García (1775-1832) wrote three masses for the church. The high-quality music, which the often poor visitors to the mass could hear for free, earned Warwick Street Church, with its distinctive gallery, the colloquial name of Shilling Opera House .
As early as 1850, a stucco relief of the Assumption of Mary was placed above the high altar, according to which the church has appeared with this additional patronage since 1854. In 1853, the mission bishop William Placid Morris (1794–1872) , who came from London, celebrated a solemn requiem for the late Queen Maria II of Portugal . A drawing of this has been preserved showing the appearance of the sanctuary with this stucco relief.
In 1875 the current apse, which is decorated with mosaics, was added with a new high altar. Until 2013 the church served as the parish church of the Archdiocese of Westminster , after which it was handed over to the staff ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham , an independent jurisdiction for Anglicans who converted to the Catholic Church . Its full professor , the former Anglican bishop and today's Catholic prelate Keith Newton , currently (2015) lives in the former embassy building belonging to the church.
gallery
Apse mosaic, Coronation of Mary
High altar
Mary Altar
St. Gregory Altar
Church ceiling
Bavarian coat of arms on the organ
Bavarian coat of arms above the main entrance
Memorial plaque to the bishops officiating here under Bavarian protection
Former ambassador's chair with crown
Memorial to Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria
literature
- Reginald Fuller: A short history of Warwick Street Church, formerly the Royal Bavarian Chapel , Kath. Pfarramt Warwick Street Church, London 1973
- Willard R. Trask: Giacomo Casanova : History of My Life , Volume 9, p. 396, 1997, ISBN 0-8018-5666-3 ; (Digital scan)
Web links
- Parish website with Church history
- Church website
- Historical website with its own section on Warwick Street Church
- List of the former Bavarian embassies
Individual evidence
- ^ Reginald Fuller: A short history of Warwick Street Church, formerly the Royal Bavarian Chapel , Kath. Pfarramt Warwick Street Church, London, 1973, pp. 33-41
- ^ TE Muir: Roman Catholic Church Music in England, 1791-1914 , Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2008, p. 75, ISBN 0-7546-6105-9 ; (Digital scan)
- ^ Fiona M. Palmer: Vincent Novello (1781-1861): Music for the Masses , Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2006, p. 106, ISBN 0-7546-3495-7 ; (Digital scan)
- ^ Website of the Personal Ordinary of Our Lady of Walsingham on Warwick Street Church
Coordinates: 51 ° 30 ′ 40.4 " N , 0 ° 8 ′ 16.5" W.