St Etheldreda’s, Holborn: London’s Oldest Catholic Church

Down Ely Place in Holborn, tucked between a terrace of Georgian townhouses, you will find one of London’s great medieval treasures: St Etheldreda’s. 

You can see its location here:

It is often said to be London’s oldest Catholic church. As is often the case, it depends on how you define ‘oldest’. A more accurate description would be the oldest building home to a Catholic church, because it switched from being Anglican to Catholic in 1870. The oldest continuously Catholic church in London is Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory, Warwick Street in Mayfair. The current Warwick Street church was built in 1790, with its origins as the chapel for the Portuguese and, then later, Bavarian embassy. 

Until the Catholic Relief Act of 1791, the worship of Catholicism was illegal in England. The Emancipation Act of 1829 then gave Catholics further civil rights, for example being able to hold public office. Therefore, prior to these Catholic churches or chapels were generally attached to the embassies of Catholic countries.

But, back to St Etheldreda’s. The facade of St Etheldreda’s onto Ely Place is the Eastern end, where the altar lies, so there is a entranceway on the left, that then leads you down a corridor, skirting the nave, to then enter at the Western end.

Winding Back The Clock

The door closes and you shut off the outside world. The walk down the corridor from the street makes it feel all the more secluded and magical, each step feeling as if it is winding back the clock. Aptly for the history, the cloister-like layout and the quiet makes it feels as if you have entered a monastery.

Down to the right is the entrance to the atmospheric crypt area. 

You then loop round to the right and enter the upper church.

A Medieval Palace

St Etheldreda’s church was built sometime before 1290 as the church of Ely Palace.

Ely Palace, was positioned to the North West, outside the city walls, was the London home of the Bishops of Ely. Ely Cathedral in Cambridgeshire can trace its origins back to the Abbey founded by Etheldreda (otherwise known as Æthelthryth) in 672AD, an East-Anglian Anglo-Saxon princess. 

In 1280 a man called John de Kirkby purchased land in Holborn. He became Bishop of Ely in 1286 and when he died in 1290, bequeathed the land to the See of Ely. The Bishops of Ely often had important positions in the government of medieval England and therefore needed to regularly be in London, close to the monarch. 

It grew over the centuries to include 60 acres of land, enclosed by stone walls and had its own chapel, orchard and vineyard. 

After the Reformation

Catholic masses were banned in 1534 as part of the Reformation under King Henry VIII and, as with all other churches, St Etheldreda’s became an Anglican Chapel. 

It does get slightly complicated because for a few years, from 1620, the upper part of the church was granted to the Spanish ambassador, a man called Count Gondomar to use as a private chapel. Being a Catholic, it was therefore used again for Catholic worship. 

In 1577 freehold of the estate was given by Queen Elizabeth I to her favourite Sir Christopher Hatton. He gives his name to the nearby street Hatton Garden, famous for its jewellery and diamond shops, laid out in the late 17th century. 

Mentions By Shakespeare

Ely Palace is mentioned in Shakespeare’s Richard II and Richard III. In Richard II John of Gaunt says his famous ‘This royal throne of Kings, this sceptre’d isle’ speech from Ely Palace. He lived at Ely Palace after his home, the Savoy Palace, was destroyed in the Peasant’s Revolt in 1381.

In Richard III, Richard, as the Duke of Gloucester, asks the Bishop of Ely “My Lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn, I saw good strawberries in your garden there. I do beseech you, send for some of them“. Ely Palace was long said to produce the finest strawberries in London.

Decline and Demolition

In 1642, during the Civil War, the Palace and church were used as a prison and hospital and during the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell most of the palace was destroyed. 

The estate was sold to the crown in 1772, most of the remaining palace knocked down and the Georgian terrace, Ely Place, built on the site. 

Ye Olde Mitre pub, hidden behind the terrace on a little alleyway called Ely Court, dates back to the 1770s, but has its origins in the 1540s as a pub for the servants of the palace. 

The only true surviving part of the palace today is St Etheldreda’s. 

St Etheldreda’s in the 19th century

In 1820 the church was taken over by the National Society for the Education of the Poor, the idea being to attempt to convert the local Catholic Irish population. It closed not long after before reopening in 1836 under Reverend Alexander D’Arblay, son of writer Fanny Burney, but he died a year later.

It was then leased by Welsh Anglicans before being put up for auction in 1873 and purchased by Father William Lockhart. 

William Lockhart

Father William Lockhart was born in 1820, son of a reverend and into a wealthy and well-connected family. He studied at Oxford and joined the semi-monastic community of John Henry Newman in Littlemore in Oxford to prepare to become ordained. Newman was one of the early leaders in the ‘Oxford Movement’, a movement of high figures in the Church of England towards Catholicism and eventually led to Anglo-Catholicism. 

Lockhart was the first of the Oxford Movement group to convert to Catholicism. He joined the Institute of Charity (or ‘the Rosminians’), under the leadership of an Italian cleric and missionary called Father Aloysius Gentilli.

It was Lockhart’s conversion that encouraged Newman to eventually convert two years later. Newman became a cardinal in 1879 and was canonised as a saint in 2019. 

Lockhart became a famous preacher and, in 1854, founded the parish of Our Lady and St Joseph in Kingsland. Then, in 1873, Lockhart personally purchased St Etheldreda’s Church for £5,400. 

Restoration

He immediately launched a restoration appeal and spent the next few years extensively restoring the church. The crypt and church were restored by George Gilbert Scott, who also designed the St Pancras Hotel and the Albert Memorial, amongst much else. His son Giles Gilbert Scott, also did some work on the church in the 20th century. 

Two and a half feet of earth was removed from the crypt, compacted over centuries by the feet of worshippers. During restoration work they discovered nineteen bodies in the crypt. These were some of the victims of the Fatal Vespers of 1623.

On the 23rd October 1623 a secret Catholic sermon took place in the French Ambassador’s house in Blackfriars. The floor collapsed during the sermon and around ninety five were thought to have been killed. Due to the anti-Catholic feeling at the time, they could not be publicly buried, so were buried in a range of secret locations, nineteen of the bodies, including probably the priest, in the crypt of St Etheldreda’s. 

A relic was gifted to the church by the Duke of Norfolk, the hand of St Etheldreda. The hand, removed in Norman times, had been kept in a secret hiding place on the Duke of Norfolk’s estate. The shrine of St Etheldreda in Ely had been largely destroyed in the Reformation. 

The restoration of the upper church was completed and on the 23rd June 1878 Solemn High Mass was celebrated there for the first time over two centuries. 

William Lockhart died at St Etheldreda’s in 1892 of syncope aged 72. 

War And Protection

St Etheldreda’s was badly damaged in the Blitz. The priest for example wrote in his diary on 11th May 1941: 

‘On Saturday night another long disastrous raid. St Etheldreda’s was hit by an explosive bomb which tore a hole in the original roof about six feet in diameter, stripped a good part of the tiling off the roof and sent three beams hurtling to the floor of the Church. The explosion also blew out what was left of the stained glass windows …a number of people were in the Crypt when the bomb fell but mercifully no one was injured.’

It took around seven years after the war to fully repair the church. 

In the 1960s, eight statues of English Catholic martyrs from the Reformation were installed along the North and South walls.

St Etheldreda’s was given the status of a scheduled ancient monument in 1925 and in 1951 it was given a Grade I listing by Historic England, affording it the maximum level of protection from changes. Thankfully, therefore, this historic and beautiful spot is hopefully protected for generations to come. 

The Church Today

As is naturally the case with a building that is over 700 years old, the restoration work is ever ongoing. They are currently looking to raise money to carry out necessary restoration work to the organ and stained glass. You can find out more here.

The church is open for visitors from 8am-5pm most days. They have mass at 1pm Monday-Friday and at 9am and 11am on Sundays.

Thank you for reading, more of London’s incredible historic churches below.