| Description | On 8 July 1918, the Sisters of Marie Auxiliatrice, who ran halls of residence for young women working in London, moved from their home at 196 Cromwell Road, Kensington, to the Manor House in East End Road, Finchley, then part of the parish of St Mary's, East Finchley, which had opened in 1898.
On Friday 25 July, 1919, His Eminence Cardinal Francis Bourne, Archbishop of Westminster, visited the new Convent, and announced that a new Parish was to be started immediately in the Church End, Finchley district, with Father James O'Rafferty, the Convent Chaplain, as Parish Priest. The nuns agreed to their Chapel being used as a temporary Church of the new Mission while funds were raised for a permanent Church, Presbytery and Schools. Fr O'Rafferty formed two Parochial Committees, one of women and one of men, to assist the Parish in raising the necessary money for future development.
The Parish was founded on Sunday 14 September 1919 when the first parochial Mass was celebrated in the Convent Chapel. The new Parish was formed from the existing parishes of East Finchley, North Finchley, Hendon and Golders Green. During the first five years of it existence, Sunday Masses, baptisms, confessions, confirmations and marriages were all celebrated in the Convent Chapel, while funerals took place at St Mary's, East Finchley, and Our Lady of Dolours, Hendon.
Fr O'Rafferty was succeeded by Fr Francis Hogan, MA.
The Chapel grew too small for the steadily increasing congregation. On 25 March 1925, the parish acquired a large house, Derwent House, standing in nearly an acre of ground at the junction of Regent’s Park Road and East End Road (now Gravel Hill), at a cost of £4,600. Three rooms on the ground floor were converted to provide a Chapel accommodating 150 people, while accommodation for the parish priest was provided on the upper floor. The new Chapel in Derwent House was blessed on 2 September 1925 and the first Holy Mass was celebrated two days later. On Sunday, 8 November 1925, Cardinal Bourne blessed the building and inaugurated the Church of St Philip the Apostle. Cardinal Bourne chose the name of St Philip the Apostle, as he particularly wished the Parish to be dedicated to one of the Apostles.
In 1930 a new hall was erected in the garden of Derwent House by the building firm of George Taylor Ltd. In 1933 a new church and presbytery were built to the designs of T. H. B. Scott. Only the (liturgical) eastern part of the church was completed. In 1959-60 the church was completed by the addition of three western bays under the supervision of T. G. B. Scott. Derwent House was demolished in 1965 to make way for a new and larger parish hall and the 1930s hall attached to the church became a weekday chapel and sacristy. Minor flat-roofed additions were made to this building in 1970. The sanctuary of the church was reordered in 1968, and subsequently reordered again by George Mathers in the 1980s.
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