Farm Street Church opened its doors in 1849 as the Jesuits’ flagship city centre London church. Throughout our long history we have been well known for different reasons, including as a community welcoming converts to Roman Catholicism, famous writers, and for challenging preaching and beautiful music and art. Over the past 170 years many have regularly travelled some distance to worship in this church and to seek the help and advice of the succeeding generations of priests who have served here.
After Catholic emancipation in 1829, when the position of Catholics in England became easier, a plan was conceived on a bold and imaginative scale for a permanent Jesuit church in London. It showed extraordinary vision and courage on the part of the Superior of the English Jesuits, Fr Randal Lythgoe, to have a church built to seat as many as 900 people.
In the 1840s , the Jesuits first began looking for a location for their London church, they found this site in a quiet back street. (The name derived from Hay Hill Farm which extended in the 18th century from the present Hill Street eastward across Berkeley Square and beyond).
This church was opened in 1849 and it was from the start a place of beauty. There have been changes in the adornment of the building and although it has expanded (through the addition of the side-altars and their chapels) the impact is much the same. Generous benefactors made it possible for Farm Street church to become a gracious and peaceful place in the nineteenth and twentieth century.
From 1849 until 1966 we were not a parish as such but the Jesuit Church in central London, specializing in preaching, pastoral care, patronage of the arts and a place of refuge for many becoming Catholic or returning to faith. The church was open to the public but not the centre of worship for a parish community. Sacraments such as marriage and baptism could not be celebrated in the church and the reputation of Farm Street rested on the pulpit and the confessionals. We became famous for the work of many Jesuit priests whose guidance given to those seeking advice gently led many to embrace the Catholic faith
Since 1966 the church has also been a parish of the Diocese of Westminster in the centre of a constantly changing London. Farm Street now attracts its congregation not only from all over London and its surrounds but visitors from all over the world.
As the Jesuit church in the heart of contemporary London, Farm Street is now a place of welcome and hospitality to all, including those returning to the Catholic Church, especially through the Landings Programme. We are also the parish base for the LGBT Catholics Westminster community of the Diocese.
The parish community also has a focus on service to the disadvantaged, especially the homeless, refugees, trafficked people and those who suffer on account of faith. Our charitable links are international, especially through our relationships with projects of the Society of Jesus and Catholic Church in the Middle East, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Many of our international parishioners are proud to call Farm Street their London spiritual home, a good number having been educated by the Jesuits in countries such as the United States, Ireland, Australia and around southeast Asia.
The church itself is well decorated with religious painting and sculpture, historic and contemporary, which, along with the contemporary diversity of musical repertoire, uses the arts as a means to enliven faith. Our artist-in-residence Andrew White and our director of music David Graham lead with regular new artistic and musical commissions.
As we approach our 175th anniversary in 2024 we invite you to visit us and experience something of our life in the present and to contribute to our future.
