| Description | The Polish Church of St Andrew Bobola is situated in the Hammersmith & Fulham Deanery.
The Polish Catholic Mission in England and Wales was formally established in 1894. For the first 36 years it was situated in Shadwell in East London. As a result of the ending of the lease on the rented church it had to find a new location. In 1930 the Mission purchased a small church in Islington on what today is Devonia Road. Our Lady of Czestochowa and St. Casimir served the small Polish community living in London until the outbreak of the Second World War. The situation changed dramatically in 1940 when, following the fall of France, the Polish President and Government arrived in London to carry on fighting against the Nazis as Britain's ally during the War. With them arrived thousands of Polish troops. A second major change came after 1945 when some 100,000 Poles settled in Britain, particularly London, rather than return to a communist-controlled and Soviet-dominated Poland.
It soon became apparent that a second Polish church was needed in west London. In 1955 the Rev. Kazimierz Solowiej (1912-1979), one time chaplain in the Polish Army during the Second World War, was appointed to run the unofficial Polish Parish in Central London centred around St. Wilfred’s Chapel in Brompton Oratory, where the wooden relief of Our Lady of Kozielsk hung. Fr. Solowiej’s specific task was to find a suitable church building which could be acquired for the use of the Polish community in central and west London, around which a permanent parish could be organised.
In February 1961, after a lengthy search, the former Scottish Presbyterian church of St. Andrew in Shepherds Bush (Hammersmith) was purchased. It was decided to devote the church to St. Andrew Bobola, a 17th century Polish martyr from the eastern borderlands of the then Polish Commonwealth. Following major internal renovations, the church was privately blessed by Prelate Bronislaw Michalski on 8th December 1961 and the first holy mass said. Over 1,000 faithful attended the inaugural mass in the church which had capacity for only 600-700 people. On 26 May 1963 the Vicar General of the Diocese of Westminster, Bishop George Craven, officially blessed the church. That same year saw the relief of Our Lady of Kozielsk being transferred from St. Wilfred’s Chapel in Brompton Oratory to a specially built side chapel in the new church.
Throughout its existence, the Parish of St. Andrew Bobola in London has a dual role, both as an ordinary parish church and as a religious and national centre for the Polich community. Many Polish national commemorations and celebrations have taken place here, including the funeral mass in May 1970 for General Wladyslaw Anders, Commander of the Polish 2nd Corps in Italy and victor at the battle of Monte Cassino.
The church contains stained glass windows commemorating General Anders and the 2nd Corps, the Independent Carpathian Rifle Brigade, The Polish Air Force, the 1st Armoured Division, the Independent Parachute Brigade, the Provost Troops, the Army Engineers, the City of Lwów and St. Casimir. They majority were designed by the church’s interior architect Aleksander Prus-Klecki, with the remainder by Janina Baranowska. There are also many other memorial tablets commemorating various Polish military units and formations, organisations, professions and individuals. |