In the 19th century, the “Potteries” in Notting Dale, west London, were an area of considerable degradation, with many poor Irish Catholic immigrants, known, inter alia, for the extensive piggeries attached to many of the houses. In 1856, the Order of the Oblates of St Charles were set up by the then Father Henry Manning at the instigation of Cardinal Wiseman. The ecclesiastical area of Notting Dale was entrusted to them. On a cramped site in Pottery Lane a humble church, dedicated to St Francis of Assisi, in the French Gothic style of stock brick with black brick bands, to a design by convert Henry Clutton, was built in 1859-60. The priest in charge was the former Anglican, Father Henry Augustus Rawes.