St Mary Moorfields is a Roman Catholic church in Eldon Street near Moorgate, on a site previously known as Moorfields. It is the only Catholic church in the City of London. Prior to 1994, the church was designated as being in the Borough of Hackney, such that there were no Catholic churches in the City. The present building, located at 4–5 Eldon Street, was opened in 1903, after the previous building had been demolished in 1899. However, the foundation had a long history prior to this. A chapel was opened in 1686, but was suspended in 1689, in the aftermath of the Revolution of 1688. The church serves as a hub for evangelism, especially directed at young people who work in the Financial District environs. The church is affiliated with the and also hosts monthly Opus Dei meetings.
History
The Catholic Church had an uninterrupted presence in the City of London between the fourth century and the Reformation in the sixteenth century. The first post-Reformation Catholic chapel in the City was established in Lime Street in 1686, in reign of James II. The Lime Street chapel was suppressed, and later re-established in Grub Street, near Moorfields. The Gordon Riots of 1780 resulted in the destruction of a chapel in White Street. Following the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1791, the White Street chapel was rebuilt. In 1817, Reverend Joseph Hunt arranged the building of a church on the east side of Finsbury Circus. The church, which opened in 1820, was designed by John Newman in the neo-classical style and given the name St Mary Moorfields, opened in 1820. In 1850 the Catholic hierarchy was re-established in the United Kingdom, and the church was chosen as London's Pro-cathedral by Cardinal Wiseman. In 1869, the title of Pro-cathedral was passed to Our Lady of Victories, Kensington
Organ
The earliest known pipe organ associated with the parish dates from the second half of the eighteenth-century, and so may have been obtained for the post-Gordon-Riots chapel in White Street. This instrument is currently located in the Anglican church of St Mary Lode in Gloucester. It had previously been located in the Anglican church of 'St Nicholas, Gloucester; moved there in 1831 by the organ-building firm of Gray and Davidson. The next pipe organ associated with the parish – for which there is detail – was installed around 1830 by the organ-building firm of Bevington, and was a much more substantial instrument, better befitting the 1820s building. In 1842 it was described as follows:
St Mary's Catholic Chapel Moorfields. This organ erected by Bevington and Son at an expense of £1000 has three rows of keys, an octave and a half of pedal pipes, and nine composition pedals. Service at eleven and six o'clock. Organist Mr Vincent Novello.
According to an article in the Musical Standard] the first organ in the new church was by Bishop and Starr, and so the c.1830 Bevington organ referred to above may well have been a replacement of that organ, or an enlargement of it. The article also states that the organ-building firm of William Hill & Sons rebuilt the organ at some time between 1871 and 1873. From the same Musical Standard article we also learn the names of the early organists of the parish:
When the Finsbury Square building was closed and demolished this instrument was dismantled and in 1905 rebuilt by the organ building firm of Bishop and Son in the Ilford Presbyterian Church. The pipe organ in the current building is situated on a gallery at the liturgical-west end and made by the organ building firm of Corps, which flourished variously in Reading, Norwich and Camden Town until about 1870. This date suggests that the organ was purchased second-hand, but its original location and the details of who installed the organ here are so far unknown.
