Record

AAW - Archives of the Archbishop of Westminster
- DOW - Diocese of Westminster
  - PAR - Parishes

Repository	Archives of the Archbishop of Westminster
Ref No	AAW/DOW/PAR/199
Title	Tollington Park, St Mellitus
Level	Series
Description	The parish of Tollington part was originally part of the parish of St Peter in Chains, Stroud Green, near Finsbury Park, served by the Canons Regular of the Lateran. The School of Notre Dame, a private school staffed by sisters of the company of Mary Our Lady, was based at 55 Tollilngton Park and Catholics living in the area attended Mass at the Convent there. Cardinal Francis Bourne commissioned Abbot Aloysius Smith, CRL to make arrangements for a new parish to be formed near Finsbury Park. In 1925, a house in Everleigh Street/ Tollington Park was purchased and an oratory opened there, dedicated to St Mellitus. In 1927 the parish was canonically handed over to the Canons Regular of the Lateran. In 1939, the community of St Mellitus was combined with the chapel of ease, St Garbriel's, Hatchard Road, Upper Holloway, to form one parish under Fr John Mostyn, a priest of the Diocese of Westminster. During the 1950s, there was a rapid increase in the Catholic population in Tollington Park, due to an influx of Irish immigrants to the area after the Second World War,. The church in Everleigh Street proved much too small to cater for the numbers wishing to attend Mass, so in 1959 Canon George Groves, the Administrator for Tollington Park, bought the disused New Court Congregational Church. The church, originally designed by Searle and Sons in 1870 for the Congregationalists, remains the parish church to this day. Between 1973 and 1984, the parish was host to the community of the Little Brothers of Jesus, originally founded by Charles de Foucauld. The parish also had an Irish chaplaincy scheme to provide support for the many Irish Catholics who moved to Tollington Park after the Second World War and during the 1980s. In 1991, the Irish Chaplaincy offices at St Mellitus were officially opened by Cardinal Hume, although by the beginning of the 21st Century, the Irish population in the area had significantly decreased.

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Album amicorum of George Strachan

Holy Oil holders

Holy Oil holders

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Album amicorum of George Strachan

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