Canon Adrian Arrowsmith

In 1994 we have celebrated the 200th anniversary of the foundation, in 1794, of the parish of Our Lady of Victories but we must look back even further to discover the Catholic origins of Kensington. The parish church in medieval times was not Our Lady of Victories but St. Mary Abbots. The " Lord of the Manor, Lord De Vere, gave the living of the parish of Cheniston (now ronounced and written Kensington) to the Abbot of Abingdon in thanks for curing his son and heir. This happened in the latter part of the 11th century. The word "Abbots" in the title of the church was a reference to the Abbot of Abingdon who was patron of the parish. Abingdon Road , in which our Presbytery now stands, preserves in its name another reminder of the link with the Berkshire abbey.

The last Catholic Vicar of St. Mary Abbots was probably Thomas Batemanton who succeeded to the parish at the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth 1(1558). What followed were for English Catholics the real Dark Ages when many were persecuted and put to death. Although it was possible to hear Mass in secret after this time, it was not until the arrival of the Abbe de Broglie in 1794 that Catholic Mass was once more regularly celebrated in Kensington.

It was, paradoxically, the violently anti-Catholic French Revolution of 1789 which led to the establishment of this parish. The plight of French priests and nuns during the Revolution aroused great sympathy in Britain which did much to effect the relaxation and eventual disappearance of the penal laws affecting Roman Catholics in this country. When the emigres fled to Britain from the Continent, they were met with a friendly and tolerant atmosphere in which the Catholics of Kensington were able to share.

The establishment in 1794 of a chapel and school at Kensington House by the Abbe de Broglie (near the site of the Albert Hall) marked the resumption of regular Catholic services after a break of nearly 250 years.

Kensington House had been standing here since before 1680 as it had been the residence of Louise de Querouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth, a favourite of Charles II. In 1753 it passed to James Elphistone, who converted the house into a school, and later it became the property of exiled Jesuits escaping the French Revolution. The Abbe de Broglie, son " of the famous Marshall , was a French aristocrat with all the refined manners of the old French nobility. He was a saintly and gracious man who was shown marked deference by everyone. His scholars were the sons of the decapitated and the exiled - all little Marquises and Counts. When the future French king, Charles X visited the school, it is said that he was visibly affected when, as each boy was introduced to him, he recognised the names of so many old friends who had perished on the Guillotine. Throughout this period, local Catholics were free to attend the chapel and the continuity of public Mass in Kensington has been unbroken since that time.

Father Gilles Vielle, another French emigre, succeeded the Abbe de Broglie in 1806 and it became clear that the chapel at Kensington House was inadequate for the needs of the growing congregation and a number of local Catholics collected money for the building of a new and larger chapel in Holland Street. It was built in 1812 and opened in July of the following year with Father Gilles Vie lie as priest in charge. The school at Kensington House became a Catholic boarding school kept by a Mr & Mrs Salterelli.

Father Vielle remained at Holland Street until 1823 when Father Adrien Dominic Le Houx took over as priest and established a Catholic elementary school. His successor in 1840 was Father William Bugden who was still in charge of the chapel when the Catholic hierarchy was restored in 1850. Cardinal Wiseman was enthroned as the first Archbishop of Westminster. The Holland Street chapel then assumed the role of a parish church within the archdiocese. Six years earlier, 1844 saw the establishment of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul and the conference at Holland Street was one of the first five to be formed in England and its work has continued in the parish to this day.

Father Charles Woollett took over the parish in 1851 and in 1857, at the invitation of Cardinal Wiseman, the Mother Superior of the Congregation of the Assumption in Paris established a community in Earl's Court, later to move to Kensington Square.

Father James Foley, who had become parish priest in 1860, had to face the problem of accommodating an ever-increasing congregation. Although the Holland Street chapel had been enlarged, it fell far short of the needs of the parish and Father Foley set his sights on the building of an entirely new parish church. He had hoped to build the new church in Holland Street but the arrival in Kensington of the Carmelite friars was to thwart his ambition. The Carmelites, like the Assumption nuns before them, came to Kensington from France at the invitation of Cardinal Wiseman.

In 1862, the friars took a house in Kensington Square but in the following year they moved into the former home of Sir Isaac Newton, Newton House, in Duke Street off Kensington Church Street . Within three years they had built a fine church which dominated from a hundred yards the Holland Street chapel. Father Foley therefore looked elsewhere for a site for his church.

The plot that he bought was the current site of Our Lady of Victories, then known as Newlands Terrace, close to the junction of Earl's Court Road and Kensington High Street. He bought the site in August 1866 from Stephen and Emma Yeldman for £5,125.

There was much debate concerning the style of the new church. The Carmelite church had been designed in Gothic style by Pugin (architect of the Palace of Westminster and Alton Towers ) and reflected a strong desire on the part of English Catholics to return to the Gothic traditions of this country.

George Goldie of Goldie and Child was instructed as architect although C.J. Richardson also proposed a design for the church. Goldie was well known for his love and understanding of the Gothic style and he planned a church on a grand scale. The foundation stone was laid on May 14th 1867.

The site for the church was large but awkward. It extended back 300 feet from the street but had a very narrow frontage of only 33 feet compared to the far end of 65 feet. This odd shape meant that the church had to be built well back from the High Street. Access to the church site was through a narrow passage between shops and cottages on the High Street. The northern or entrance elevation had a large geometric upper window flanked by aisles and tall buttresses. Beneath was set a deep entrance porch sculpted by Thomas Earp with the figure of Christ in Majesty and angels in the tympanum. Other than this ornate feature and a lead capped fleche rising to 120 feet over the chancel arch, the exterior was relatively plain. It was built in yellow bricks with bands of red brick and stone dressings.

Internally, the church consisted of a long nave and aisles of some 113 feet, a short chancel and apsida1 sanctuary at the southern end and two small chapels and vestries on either side. It was fitted with an organ, a carved font with oak cover again by Thomas Earp, a large pulpit, six subsidiary altars in the aisles and the two chapels and a High Altar supplied by the Continental Marble Company of Finsbury.

Goldie presented his accepted design which was in thirteenth century French Gothic style at the Royal Academy in 1868. In the same year, while the church was in the course of construction, Archbishop Henry Manning (later Cardinal 1875} who had succeeded Cardinal Wiseman in 1865, elevated its status to that of Pro-Cathedral. Manning was as yet unready to build a new Cathedral but wished to move his diocesan seat from St. Mary Moorfields to a more convenient location. The advantage of the Kensington site was its closeness to the new seminary at Hammersmith (now part of the Sacred Heart High School ).

Cardinal Manning preaching at the Pro-Cathedral

The completed church, built by Samuel Simpson of Tottenham Court Road, was opened with great ceremony on the Feast of the Visitation on 2nd July 1869. The Bishop of Tray celebrated Pontifical High Mass and Archbishop Manning preached the sermon. There followed a lunch in the old Holland Street chapel at which the toast was to Father Foley.

The cost of building and fitting the Pro-Cathedral as the church became generally known, greatly exceeded budget and the total cost of the enterprise was put at £27,230. The debt was not I discharged until 1901 when the building was finally consecrated. As a result of this financial burden, funds raised in the early years were largely devoted to paying the mortgage rather than to further adorning or adding to Goldie's design.

Father Foley remained in charge as Administrator until his retirement in 1879. He died at Windsor in 1881 and after his Requiem at the Pro-Cathedral, he was buried close to the tomb of Cardinal Wiseman at Kensal Green.

Father Foley's successors, Monsignor Rouse (1879), Monsignor Harrington-Moore (1885) and Canon Fanning (1889) were all referred to as Administrators of the Pro-Cathedral although Our Lady of Victories remained the parish church of Kensington as i well as serving the needs of the archdiocese.

Monsignor Rouse established the Kensington Catholic Magazine a monthly parish magazine designed to "...inform, to instruct and to amuse." This magazine continued until 1930 when its name was changed to the Kensington Catholic Kalendar and from it we can learn a good deal about parish activities over the years. The Sunday services in 1888, for example, consisted of Low Mass at 7,8,9 and 10 with High Mass and Sermon at 11 o'clock. There was catechism at 3.30, Benediction at 4 and Vespers, Sermon and Benediction at 7 o'clock. The Clergy lived at 1 Leonard Place (on the current site of the Post Office next to the Odeon cinema) and the Holland Street building both served as a school and as a venue for various social events including the boys' club.

The golden jubilee in 1887 of Queen Victoria 's reign was celebrated at the Pro-Cathedral by High Mass sung by the Papal Envoy although Cardinal Manning claimed the right to intone the Te Deum. The following year saw the Jubilee of Pope Leo XIII's priesthood. The hymn God Bless our Pope was performed in celebration for the first time. It was composed by one of the curates, Father Charles Cox, who also composed the music for Sweet Sacrament Divine. He was later to take up a post at Brook Green.

Cardinal Manning gathers parishioners for a pilgrimage

During this period, the church received a number of embellishments by way of statues, stained glass windows in the apse and aisles by Wailes, by Hardman and by Lavers and Barraud. Goldie, Child and Goldie, the original firm of architects for the church, designed a tabernacle which was made by Hart, Son and Peard above which hung a small canopy of gold previously in the Oratarian's temporary church at Brompton. A bell was installed which still sounds from the present church tower. More grandiose schemes were considered such as the erection of a tower but largely due to the outstanding building debt, which took until 1901 to clear, they came to nothing.

The interior of the church

Archbishop Vaughan was enthroned in 1892 in succession to Manning and in 190 I the Pro-Cathedral was finally consecrated by Bishop Brindle on the Feast of the Holy Apostles, 14th May.

The church's days as the seat of the Archbishop of Westminster were numbered as work had already begun on the building of Westminster Cathedral in Victoria . The cathedral opened its doors in 1903 and the parishioners of Our Lady of Victories could once more regard their church as their own.

After the First World War, in 1919, Father John Nicholson replaceded Canon Fanning who retired to Dorset . Father Nicholson is best remembered for charging for seats in the church! He introduced a 6d fee in the middle aisle, 3d on the Gospel side with free seating on the epistle side.

During the rectorship of Canon Carey, who followed Father Nicholson in 1921, G. K. Chesterton was received into the Catholic Church and made his first Holy Communion at Our Lady of Victories in 1922. Chesterton recalled in his autobiography:

I remember once walking with my father along Kensington High Street , and seeing a crowd of people gathered by a rather dark and narrow entry on the southern side of that thoroughfare. I had seen crowds before; and was quite prepared for their shouting or shoving. But I was not prepared for what happened next. In a flash a sort of ripple ran along the line and all these eccentrics went down on their knees on the public pavement. I had never seen people play such antics except in church; and I stopped and stared. Then I realised that a sort of little dark cab or carriage had drawn up opposite the entry; and out of it came a gho.\'t clad in flames. Nothing in the shilling paintbox had ever spread such a conflagration of scarlet, such lakes of lake; or seemed so splendidly likely to incarnadine the multitudinous sea. He came on with all his flowing draperies like a great crimson cloud of sunset, lifting long frail fingers over the crowd in blessing. And then I looked at his face and was startled with contrast; for his face was dead pale like ivory and very wrinkled and old, fitted together out of naked .'lerve and bone and sinew, with hollow eyes in shadow; but not ugly; having in every line the ruin of great beauty. The face was so extraordinary that for a moment I even forgot such peifectly scrumptious scarlet clothes. ! We passed; and then my father said, "Do you know who that was? That was Cardinal Manning." Then one of his artistic hobbies returned to his abstracted and humourous mind; and he said: "He'd have made his fortune as a model. "

Presbytery in Abingdon Road

After a brief period under Father Bishop (1928-1930), Father (later Canon) James Walton took over as rector at Our Lady of Victories. Canon Walton's period at the church proved to be one of the most active and turbulent since it opened. Although Canon Walton inherited a thriving parish, there was no suitable house for the clergy. He set about rectifying this by buying properties in nearby Abingdon Road and had a large presbytery built to designs by Joseph Goldie of Edward Goldie and Son, the successor of George Goldie who had designed the original church.

Shortly afterwards, Canon Walton was able to buy the shops on Kensington High Street which had restricted the access to the church. Joseph Goldie rebuilt the whole frontage so as to make two shops in place of the previous four with a Gothic arch between them which offered a more dignified gateway to Our Lady of Victories. This achievement was celebrated with a solemn Pontifical Mass of Thanksgiving by Bishop Myers on 22nd July 1936.

That done, the Canon undertook major renovation works. By 1939, the seventy-year-old church had been fully restored. The outbreak of war in Europe was shortly to destroy much of the Canon's energetic work. On the night of September 13th, 1940, during a large scale air raid, Our Lady of Victories was struck by two oil bombs which gutted the church. The Carmelite church on Kensington Church Street was also destroyed.

The church after the bombing

Prayer continues in the gutted church

Later in the war Derek Warlock, Archbishop of Liverpool was appointed a curate under Canon Walton and he recalled in his sennon at the 25th anniversary of the church in 1984:
"We became firm friends from the moment when, a few days after my arrival, I had to fling him (Canon Walton) to the floor as he hung out of the landing I window to try to see the flying bomb which seconds later crashed into the road between Lyons and Troy Court. I fell on top of the Canon as the glass came in to cover both of us.... We worked together most of that afternoon trying to get people, alive and dead, out of the wreckage around what is now your church. It launched me on my record of giving the Last Sacraments over 50 times before I had a case of natural death....

Canon Walton adopted a we never close attitude and Sunday Mass was celebrated initially at the Odeon Cinema only a few yards away from the ruins and later, following the closure of the Odeon, at the Cavendish Furnishing Company on the High Street (now Safeways) who kindly provided a temporary home for the congregation at a rent of one shilling per year! The name of St. Cavendish was dubbed upon the temporary church. Services continued there until November of 1942 when services transferred both to the Parish Hall at the back of the bombed church and to the chapel at the Covent of the Assumption in Kensington Square.

It was to this makeshift accommodation that Monsignor Canon John Bagshawe was greeted when he was appointed parish priest in October 1952. He was charged by Cardinal Griffin with the task of rebuilding Our Lady of Victories. In the same year, Adrian Gilbert Scott was instructed to design the new church on the old site.He took his inspiration from the previous church in designing a long-aisled nave with a short chancel and flanking chapels. A distinct feature of his design was the large crypt under the church, which was the first part of the building to come into service.

Allen Street

During building work, Monsignor Bagshawe reunited the congregation in the unused Congregational Chapel in Allen Street on which he took a lease of 4 and a half years.

Architect's drawing of the interior

The first design was more extravagant than he one actually built. Adrian Gilbert Scott proposed a north tower over the entrance I and the use of decorative brickwork but these features became hostage to economy. The final design was built in common brick with only the entrance elevation being finished in facing bricks. The revised design was built between 1955-1958 by Holliday and Greenwood Limited. The interior was faced in brick and plaster with a dado of Horton Stone on the walls and piers. A Lady Chapel to the right of the Sanctuary was balanced by another chapel to the left. In addition there was a baptistry and a mortuary chapel adjoining the entrance narthex above which was fitted a large choir and organ gallery. These chapels are today the repository and the Martyr's Chapel.

With money from the War Damage Commission, a complete set of stained glass windows was planned by Monsignor Bagshawe and beautifully executed by C.F. Blakeman. The church opened its doors on October 31st 1958 but it was officially opened, although incomplete, on April 16th 1959 by Cardinal Godfrey.

Monsignor Bagshawe, who became Dean, worked tirelessly to maintain and improve the church by adding decorations, chapel gates and, in 1966, a glass I screen between the Lady Chapel and the Sanctuary which he declared would make "...it possible for the babies to sing God's praises in their own way without driving us to distraction." He is also attributed with the idea of charging parishioners sixpence for their palms. The curate was flabbergasted: "You can't do that, Father, it's not right." "Not right, young man. You don't think these things grow on trees?"

In the same year, Cardinal Heenan decided to divide the parish of Our Lady of Victories in two by making the Carmelite Church a parish church.

Monsignor Bagshawe remained at Our Lady of Victories a further ten years. He had come to a parish with a ruined church and a collection of temporary places of worship. He left the parish with a new church, a flourishing congregation and more than sixteen clubs and societies. He was succeeded by Monsignor Maurice Kelleher who added the Sacristy, additional parish rooms and a flat for the Sacristan which had initially been planned by Adrian Gilbert Scott but not built through shortage of funds. They were built to designs by architects Archard and Partners.

On May 21st 1971 the new church was consecrated appropriately by Derek Warlock, then Bishop of Portsmouth who had served his first curacy at Our Lady of Victories during the war. Following the consecration, Mass was concelebrated by Cardinal Heenan.

Statue of the Risen Christ

Father (later Monsignor) Walter Drumm followed Monsignor Kelleher as parish priest in 1983. He re-sited the large Bavarian crucifix that hung above the sanctuary in the western aisle where it serves as the twelfth Station of the Cross. It was replaced with a large bronzed statue of the Risen Christ by Michael Clark whose father, Lindsay, had sculpted the statue of Our Lady Help of Christians above the entrance arch on the High Street.

On September 1st 1987, the current parish priest, Canon Adrian Arrowsmith became the sixteenth successor of the Abbe de Broglie. The new church was now nearly thirty years old and was showing signs of wear and Canon Arrowsmith continued the refurbishment of the church and presbytery started by Father Drumm.

In addition, he re-ordered the sanctuary installing a new reredos and placed the tabernacle on a cleaned and restored plinth that had survived the bombing. New gates were added to the Lady Chapel and Martyr's Chapel and the forecourt of the church has been redesigned to include a small grotto and garden. The work of renewal continues, 1994 saw the f refurbishment of parish rooms in the Crypt to include a new kitchen and bar to satisfy the needs of the many parish groups and societies.

The church of Our Lady of Victories today owes much to the hard work and endeavour of many Parish priests, their curates and its parishioners. The interior of the church, whilst being in the plainest style of Twentieth Century Gothic revival, is possessed of a highly devotional character.
St. Theresa of Lisieux		Our Lady Help of Christians
The whole church is dominated by the statue of The Risen Christ above the sanctuary. There are also statutes of Our Lady, Help of Christians, of St. Joseph , of St.Anthony of Padua (by Siegfried Peitzsch), and in the west aisle that of St. Theresa of Lisieux. A Carmelite nun, St. Theresa was beatified in 1923 and canonized two years later. It was in the Church of Notre Dames des Victoires (Our Lady of Victories) in Paris that Theresa, on '" her way to Rome with her father was blessed by a vision of Our Lady confirming her vocation. To the right of the sanctuary stands the baptismal font carved in stone with an oak cover. The font was salvaged from the bombed church. Above it hangs an Icon of St. John the Baptist, Herald of the Desert which was painted in Russia before the Revolution.		Icon of St. John the Baptist

Our Lady Chapel

The church has three chapels: The Lady Chapel features a statue of Our Lady of Victories set in a silver frame (featured on the cover of this brochure). This beautiful chapel also contains sacred relics and the banner of the parish. To the left of the sanctuary is the Chapel of the Sacred Heart and at the rear is the Martyr's Chapel.

The Martyr's Chapel commemorates in statues the martyrdom of St. Thomas Moore, and St. John Fisher, of Margaret Clitheroe who was crushed to death at York , of St. Thomas a Beckett, of the Roman St. Alban who was beheaded and of John Soutworth who was hanged, drawn and quartered in 1654. The forty martyrs of England and Wales are also remembered on a stone plaque. One of their number has a special significance to the current parish priest, Canon Arrowsmith, in that he is a co-lateral descendent of St. Edmund Arrowsmith.

Detail of the paitings in the Martyr's Chapel

In commemoration of the two hundredth anniversary of this parish, a magnificent series of paintings featuring many of the Martyrs of England and Wales will be placed on the chapel walls and ceiling. In addition, a specially commissioned plaque has been placed next to the vestry door recording the names and dates of the rectors of this parish since 1794.

The church celebrated its patronal feast on 24th May 1994. A special Mass was con-celebrated by His Eminence, The Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster , The Most Reverend George Basil Hume OSB.