The importance of the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory in the history of Catholicism in London over the past three centuries can hardly be overstated. Founded as the chapel of the Portuguese Embassy in 1724, from its location on Warwick Street – just behind Regent Street in the heart of London’s West End – it has met the sacramental and social needs of Catholic Londoners without any significant breaks.
It later became the chapel of the Bavarian Embassy; even after the violence of the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots in 1780, when most of its furnishings were destroyed, Mass continued to be offered. Indeed, it is the oldest place of continuous public Catholic worship on the same site in London and one of the oldest in the UK since the Reformation.
