| Description | In 1958 Cardinal William Godfrey asked Fr. Philip Dayer to go to South Ruislip as parish priest of a new parish. The Cardinal agreed to Fr. Dayer's request that the parish should be dedicated to St Gregory the Great.
Regular daily Mass was begun in October at 53 Queen's Walk, and at week-ends in various centres in school halls and in the Hut, put up by parishioners on the site at East Mead.
By 1965 plans for the building of a church were going ahead. Mr Gerard Goalen was chosen as architect. St Gregory's was the first church in the Westminster Diocese to have been planned and built for Mass with the priest facing the people, and according to the Council's instructions for the ordering of churches.
Cardinal John Carmel Heenan presided over Mass to open the church on 16th April 1967.
The effort to build a church called for great sacrifice and dedication from members of the new parish and the debt undertaken, about £70,000 was paid off in eight years. |