Record

Repository	Archives of the Archbishop of Westminster
Ref No	AAW/DOW/PAR/154
Title	Pimlico, Holy Apostles
Level	Series
Description	The first Catholic church in Pimlico was in Claverton Street, a former Methodist chapel which was converted into a Catholic church and dedicated to the Holy Apostles in 1917. This was not a parish church but a chapel-of-ease served by the priests of Westminster Cathedral. The old Holy Apostles' church was bombed on the night of 16 April 1941. The roof was completely destroyed and the church was unusable. For over 16 years the Catholics of Pimlico were without a permanent church of their own. Mass was said in the Ambulance Station in Dolphin Square, houses in St. George's Square and Warwick Square and then, from November 1945, in a pre-fab built on the site of the old church in Claverton Street. At the end of the war, a site on Winchester and Cumberland Streets became available. Even then there were difficulties in obtaining building licences. Fr. Hadfield was the son of an architect and used his father's Sheffield firm to build the new presbytery and church. That was done through the generosity and enormous sacrifice of the parishioners, but the new church was formally opened by Cardinal Godfrey on 1 December 1957.

Album amicorum of George Strachan

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