| Description | The Parish of Greenford was founded in 1928. In 1929, the Kensington Community of the Congregation ‘Filles de Marie’ opened a Mass centre in a little house on the Greenford Road, and had a temporary chapel built nearby. The Community prepared the way for the coming of the Pallottine Father & Brothers (the Society of the Catholic Apostolate). In the same year the Pallottines were invited by the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster to take charge of the parish. Fr Brown and Fr McCarthy became Greenford’s first resident Roman Catholic priests.
On the feast of the Visitation on the 2nd of July 1929, Father Kennedy, the Provincial of the Anglo Irish Province of the Pallottines celebrated the first Mass in the small chapel that came to be known as the ‘Settlement Hut’. ‘The Hut,’ situated adjacent to the Settlement House (where Barclays Bank now stands now stands) was a wood asbestos structure that seated about 60 people. Father Brown later acquired an old wooden Army hut, which seated about 150 people and was subsequently used for social events, whist drives, dances and concerts. After Sunday evening Benediction, improptu concerts were held where anyone could choose to perform.
The Filles de Marie sisters left the parish in 1932 and Fr Henry Treacy arrived to replace Fr Browne. At this time the Catholic population in the area was rapidly expanding and it became necessary to build a church to replace ‘The Hut’. On the same site where Tesco Supermarket now stands, a brick church was built that accommodated a congregation of 300. On Whit Sunday, 1934, it opened its doors for the celebration of Mass. 1934 was also the year in which Fr Treacy celebrated the Silver Jubilee of his ordination. The High Mass was attended by Cardinal Bourne. Amongst those who joined the celebrations and paid tribute were Mr. Tom Wardley and Mr. Augustine Joseph Sluman who, together with Mr. Robert, were founder members of the Parish in 1929.
The Parish continued to increase in numbers and Fr Treacy saw the need to provide a local school for Catholic children (the nearest being St. Joseph’s in Hanwell). To pay for this, Fr Treacy sought permission from his superiors to sell the one and a half acre site complete with the recently-built hurch, presbytery, Army hut and Settlement House. The sum raised from the sale was enough to purchase a site of 5 acres, also on the Greenford Road. However, plans to open the school in 1939 had to be shelved until the end of the Second Wordl War. During this period, it was used as a community kitchen.
In 1961, the current church of Our Lady of the Visitation was completed and was blessed in January of that year by Cardinal Godfrey. The consecration by Cardinal Hume took place on the 31st May, 1978. In the intervening years the official opening of the Parish Centre Club was held in 1974. |